Growing up without a dad and not having a father figure - I noticed a hole in my life. For the longest time, I would run away from my problems instead of confronting them. I felt empty at one point. Not depressed, but empty.

Spanish is actually my first language, growing up, and I understand the culture. I understand the culture; I understand what the people want.

I always wanted to become a student of the game and at least get six to eight fights before coming to the UFC.

The medal just was an object, just a medal, and that's it. What really meant something was the blood, the sweat, the tears that went into getting that medal. I'll always have the memories of that with me.

I can speak for most songwriters - those breakup love songs are so easy to write, as far as the inspiration and all that.

How I'd like to start a new life in a distant land. Not because of racism or politics. But to be in a place that I knew hardly anything about, in a place where I wouldn't even care to know the prime minister's name. A place where names and faces would have no meaning for me.

The one thing I've learned, getting out to all those foreign and domestic locales, is that people in every country of the 'civilized' world wish - either secretly or openly - that they had the expressiveness, the flair, the I'm-so-glad-to-be-me spirit that black folks have made a part of American life.

I didn't have a normal academic career. I never studied cinema. I learned from life.