When I was 5 years old, I moved with my mother and brother from Philadelphia to a small town in Florida. People talked more slowly there and said words I had never heard before, like 'ain't' and 'y'all' and 'ma'am.' Everybody knew everybody else. Even if they didn't, they acted like they did.
I grew up in east Tennessee, and everybody knew everybody's business.
I'll be walking down the street with a mate, and someone will stop and say 'All right Crouchy, how's things?' and so on. Once they're gone, the person I'm with will say 'Do you know them?' and I'll say 'I've never met them before in my life'. Happens all the time.
I like the idea of a world, even within a big giant city, where you're not anonymous. You have an identity, and that's an identity that's known just sort of by shopkeepers. I felt that as a kid, and I loved it.
I didn't know Chicago was so aggressive. It's real aggressive out here. Everybody kind of recognizes you out here. But it's a good feeling.
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.
What fame does is there is an illusion of familiarity that is cast into the world. So it's about negotiating with that illusion because, oftentimes, you encounter people who have encountered you, but you haven't encountered them. It's a little weird to find your footing.
If you ever hear anybody refer to Elizabeth Taylor as Liz Taylor, you can be pretty sure the person doesn’t know her.
I had more problems with the men in our own government, and not because they were male chauvinistic pigs but because they had known me for so long. I might have been a carpool mother and a friend of their wife, and so they'd been to my house for dinner and things like and they thought 'how did she get to be secretary of state when I should be secretary of state?' So that was more of a problem.
The routines of social intercourse in established settings allow us to deal with anticipated others without special attention or thought.
The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided - after weeks or months or sometimes years - that he likes you. It would be chulish and unfriendly of you not to return the compliment. And so, just when you are at last feeling comfortable with vous and all the plurals that go with it, you are thrust headlong in to the singular world of tu.
The people who can step up my experience are those who have a common set of experiences with people I know. Think about it. How often did a total stranger come into your life to make your evening better? Not very often. But the friend of your friend? That happens all the time.
I just grew up in Ajax with all the players from Ajax. We only had two or three foreigners, so everyone knew each other and knew the system.
Funny how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie.
It's a lot more common now for someone to know a Mormon rather than just know of Mormons out in Utah, ... We seem more normal. We're not as exotic.
I'm with my friends more than I'm with my parents, but I know more about my parents than I know about my friends. That's something you get out of living with a person.
