When I was a child I thought I saw an angel. It had wings and kinda looked like my sister. I opened the door so some light could come into the room, and it sort of faded away. My mother said it was probably my Guardian Angel.

When I was a kid, I loved Elvis, and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. But I had no connection to Hollywood – and being a movie star was such a far-fetched idea, growing up in Hawaii.

When I was a kid, I thought movies just came from air. I thought they just appeared.

I always wanted to do what my brothers were doing. I always wanted to play the games they played and play rough and wear pants and go outside.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

My father gave me some advice when I was very young – whatever someone tells you in the future, don’t forget Pele is the best.

My grandmother used to embarrass me more, when she would pick me up from school wearing a big fuzzy hat. I didn’t like that.

I would like to go back to Wales. I’m obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

My mama never wore a pair of pants when I was growing up, and now that’s all she wears. It was so funny for me when I first started seeing Mama wear pants. It was like it wasn’t Mama. Now I’ve bought her many a pantsuit because she just lives in them.

Devon holds a special place in my heart. As a child, I normally went on holiday to Bantham and have lots of happy memories from my time there. I used to catch sand eels in the early morning and go fishing for bass throughout the day. I remember a gull taking my bait.

I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

As a kid, even I knew everything about my favourite cricketers. I used to know everything possible. Now I see kids knowing about me. It feels good.

When I was ten, I won the horseshoe-throwing contest at summer camp. I was also the Wiffle ball champion in my town.

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

I never needed much, and I never thought I’d get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.

I was born in London 1947, after the war. A real wartime baby. I went to school in Brixton, and then I moved up to Yorkshire, which is in the north of England. I lived on the farms up there.

When I was 8 years old, I saw ‚Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ in Charlotte, North Carolina. I walked out of there and was so inspired. I loved the movie, and I knew I wanted to be that guy.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

I was baptized by my father when I was 4 years old.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

I had a rat-tail when I was younger. I had this nice Bobby Brown fade, with a rat-tail that was long enough to wrap around my face. I used to chew on the end and bite it.

My first job was singing on the Cas Walker radio show in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was about 10 years old, and I thought it was big time.

When I was a kid at four years old, that’s when I started amateur wrestling with my dad and family. And when that’s instilled in you, it never goes away.

I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.

I grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi.

I do remember how it was to be poor. I do remember that in my early years, we had to grow and raise all of our food, even our animals. And I remember in my early life, we didn’t even have electricity. So it was very, very hard times then.

When I was little, I used to adore gold. It was something special.

Even when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

When I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, Do you have any toy train schedules?

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

I raced with my brother from when I started to 2014 when I finished karting.

I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn’t anything going on the outside!

In my day, there were no vet video games.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

I remember when my mother, Shyamala Harris, bought our first home. I was thirteen. She was so proud, and my sister and I were so excited. Millions of Americans know that feeling of walking through the front door of their own home for the first time – the feeling of reaching for opportunity and finding it.

I think it speaks of all women having those few special things that make them feel feminine. And so when I was a little girl, I would associate Guerlain with that.

I used to draw a lot. If my mother would ask me to do something else, I’d have a hairy conniption. I’d just go crazy.

I used to make little movies when I was younger. I’d make my friends be in them and then edit them.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it’s not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That’s how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be a musician.

The vibe on ‚Starboy‘ comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid.

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.

I was a huge Mike Tyson fan growing up; his fights were always on in my house.

Childhood was very nice. The only thing wrong was that I was so introverted, everything became a big deal… ‚Oh, no, here comes the bus. Where am I gonna sit on the bus?‘

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.

Those of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the bedtime story, when our mother or father would sit down beside us in the semi-dark and read from a book of fairy tales.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

I have never sat down and studied the Bible, never consciously echoed its language, and am, in reality, as ignorant of it as most brought-up Christians. All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities.

For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself.