Ken Hensley Quotes

Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space. You have to reimagine who you are and what life is about.

Me personally, I'm a guy who it took a long time to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. I relate to a lot of that finding oneself a little later in the game, or being thrown a curve later in the game.

When I was thirty, and a long time after that, I felt like I had to leave home to do what I had to do. Now, it's just the opposite.

When I came back to Britain, I realized that I was no longer a very young woman. I had to meet my new consciousness, my new age, with roles that reflected it somewhat.

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.

It's taken me a long time to become the person I am, for all the ugliness to fall away. The rotten flesh is gone, and the seed is there. I can touch that now.

My 20s were a time where I made it; my 30s were when I was away, confused, and trying to figure it all out.

I always did think that when I turned 40, I'd start coming into my own.

Sure, I'm ashamed of a lot of the things I did, but at the same time, I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't gone through those experiences.

My travels led me to where I am today. Sometimes these steps have felt painful, difficult, but led me to greater happiness and opportunites.

The mid-life crisis is just those times when you're not so into the things you were when you were younger.

By the time I went to Yale, I'd been acting for a long time and I was really tired of it. I was restless - and a little bored - and I was really eager to investigate different parts of myself.

It is kind of hard to figure out who you are when you've lost your job at age 13, when that was basically how you identified yourself.

In the last few years, losing my father, going through a divorce and not getting some jobs I really wanted, is making me a much more interesting person, I think. This all really does feel like a rebirth, a new chapter.

I wasn't really happy with the way 2008 turned out for me. I wanted to change some things.

I guess I'm in a state of becoming. Even though I've had a full career and I've been around a long time, it's like dinosaurs are coming back. It's all new. I'm having to be on my own and seeing how exciting life can be now.

I think I went through my phase of feeling sort of invisible when I left my small hometown in Canada and moved to the big city of Vancouver. I kind of had to decide right there in that moment what I was going to do with the rest of my life and make a thousand decisions after finishing high school. Fortunately, I chose acting.

Time to open up a new chapter in life, and to explore a larger centre.

I spent a lot of time flailing around, not really sure what I wanted to do, in my 20s and early 30s.

It's been a long road. A humble Dearborn beginning. Secretary mom, dad teaching handicapped children. Working for what they had. Eventually, I moved to L.A. but, not good for me, I felt rejected. So I stopped acting and, needing to feel good inside, became a chef.

At 26, I barely knew who I was.

I feel like my transition, in a broader sense, began the second I left home and came to New York. Because all of a sudden, I opened myself up to options about how to be.

It took a few years before I realized there was life after football.

I don't want to go out losing. But at the same time, it's what I need. It's what I need to do because I feel like I have other things in life that are calling me to do, to go to.

I had to figure out at 61 years of age: 'Holy moly! Who am I?'