I've always been a late bloomer. My body developed late. From ninth to 10th grade, I grew like 3 inches. Just kind of stretched out. I was like 6-1, grew to 6-4 in 10th grade.
I went through puberty late. I was a little, little, tiny kid. I was still growing in college.
I didn't touch a guitar until I was 20.
Yeah, I've done Jim Breuer's radio show a couple times, and I heard from Larry the Cable Guy when I got 'Mike & Molly,' wishing me congratulations. I'm always the last one to the party, man. But that's okay. I got there.
At Rain Man, I was 38. And before that, I had really just started working when I was 36. I was very late. So I've got time, right? As long as I stay healthy and eat right.
Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.
I started growing late, so I was a late developer.
I like to work. I mean, part of it for me is that I was a struggling actor, could barely pay my rent, until I was almost 40.
I remember back in the early '70s, when I had a disastrous Grand Prix, my wife, Lynn, said to me, 'Don't worry, you're going to be a late boomer.' That's what she said to me, and I've always held that thought.
I remember when I made my first album, I was 32 or 33 years old and I thought I was way too old then.
Nobody thought that I could become a professional. I was not that good. It was really just one thing I had fun doing. But it was never realistic for me to become a professional until I became 17 or maybe 18.
I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.
I'm making my Broadway musical debut at the age of 73 - it's a kind of interesting career arc.
I didn't hit puberty until I was, like, 17, so I love to talk about that.
I was a late bloomer, but I realised that people really liked it when I played blues scales and, with the piano, I had that insatiable need to prove myself.
I became a dancer late and an actor late.
I think at a certain age I became conscious of the power of words. And it was fairly late. I was kind of a goofball - but I was always subconsciously thinking about issues.
The ages two to 15 I spent at different stages of shortness. I didn't become a tall person until I was 16.
I think most people start rock bands in their early twenties or teens, but I was almost thirty at the time when the band started really doing anything and it took another several years before people started caring about us.
I naturally have an athletic build, thick legs yet a lean upper body. I filled out much later than all my classmates, and I thank God for it now. I had to learn to fix what I can and accept what I cannot fix...That's probably the hardest thing.
I feel like today we always glorify the young, just-plucked-from-college writer. But it's much harder to start writing later, in middle age, struggling on a book around a full-time job and family.
I was the undersized underdog who people never gave a chance. From that, the motivation to prove people wrong just grew and grew... Looking back now, I'm glad I didn't hit puberty until later.
I was never a prodigy. I was never a child genius.
I know that some of the great painters and some of the great artists didn't even start to 'peak', as you say, till they were in their fifties and sixties. And God knows, history is full of artistic people that weren't even recognized till they were dead and gone.
I was a million miles from being a Premier League player. You see some people, at 18 they are ready. At 21, I wasn't. Physically nowhere near.
