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Norman Mailer
Two Pulitzer Prizes
Sometimes, when you're writing a novel, you can feel the fear of future reviews. You can recognize that reviewers are going to hate this, hate this passage. It's a passage that a writer who is interested only in success for a given book will take out, but nevertheless you like it. You like it because you feel you are saying something there that others are not necessarily saying, and you want it. It seems true to you, and so you decide to keep it, and then you have to take this inner measurement. Just the way certain ambitious young fighters, for example, and their managers will contemplate whether they want to take on another fighter or not - a fighter who may very well be able to defeat them. On the other hand, if they win, it means so much to them. It's a gamble. And so, in that sense writers very often gamble -- very often, every day, every week, every month, every year -- with the themes in their book. How much do I dare to say? Because in a certain sense you can say anything you want, but then who is going to publish it, or if it's published, who is going to read it? Who is going to review it?
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Peyton Manning
Super Bowl Champion Quarterback
It's part of the game that you're going to be criticized, and you're going to be critiqued and analyzed from every different angle. So you better have thick skin as a quarterback, and I'd say that's a big part of it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think sometimes the media doesn't like when they're challenged. There's nothing wrong with that. You see guys that are speaking up for themselves, but as soon as it becomes a distraction to you, that's when it's getting to you. If you go into a game and you go, "Boy, I better not throw this pass because if I throw this interception, the media is going to criticize me. They're going to call on the radio shows and talk about me," that's when it is affecting what you do. You need to go out there and play the way you know how to play, and deal with it the way you want to deal with it.
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Peyton Manning
Super Bowl Champion Quarterback
The first time, my first pro game, in the pre-season, I was thinking, "God, this is pro ball. I know they hit harder." I got hit a lot in college, but I'm going, "Well, this is pro ball. These guys hit harder." I was in my hotel room, practicing getting hit, falling on the bed, just kind of giving in, my pre-game preparation. So you get used to that, but you get so focused on your job at hand and what you want to try to accomplish -- of completing this pass, you're getting your team in the end zone -- that you kind of forget about it. They remind you well when they hit you in the back. You know that they're still there, but you can't drop back thinking about them. If you're doing that, then that's going to affect your decision-making.
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Wynton Marsalis
Pulitzer Prize for Music
From the kindergarten to the third grade, I went to an all black school. So then, everybody liked me. I was the funny (guy), I would crack all the jokes. It was different, like we were all the same. And, then from the fourth grade to seventh grade, I went to an all white school, except there were two or three black kids, so then that was totally different. So, whereas in the black school, everybody would like you. If you made good grades they said you were smart. In the white school, you were like the enemy or something, but not all. Some of the kids were cool, but a lot of them, their parents didn't have a lot of money, so it just was a very strange transition to make, in terms of school. Because at one end, you go form, when you do good, you were elevated, you were given credit. At the other, you always had a battle on your hands. It was always like a battle going on because I had a lot of pride when I was little, from my great uncle, and if somebody called me a 'nigger' or a name I didn't like, I was just going to fight, that just was my way. Well, these white guys, they weren't like what you see on TV -- all scared of black people. If you wanted to fight, that was cool with them, too.
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Wynton Marsalis
Pulitzer Prize for Music
I think I enjoy being nervous sometimes. It's good. It's like whenever you are getting ready to get into a fight, you get nervous. You say, "Oh, well, looks like we're gonna have to fight." You'll be going up with somebody that'll try or just take your money or just tell you something you didn't want to hear. You really didn't want to fight because deep down you have the feeling that you are going to get beat up, but it makes you just pull something out of yourself. I'm gonna get beat up, but that's all right. I'm gonna put something out here. I get nervous sometimes when I play. Students ask me all the time, "I get nervous, what should I do?" I just tell them, just figure that the people that are there to hear you, they want to hear something sound good, and there is nothing you would rather be doing in front of all them people than playing because that's what you spend most of your time doing. Auditions are the worst. You get more nervous I think for that than playing for people. Because with people, you get a certain warmth. For an audition, everybody is doing a job. "Oh, well, let's see if he can play." And you know the people who are listening to you are really on the highest level of hearing, and they can really discern every mistake. When I get nervous, my palms start to sweat, my mouth gets dry, but I think, you know, "Wynton, you gotta play!" Hope it comes out; sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
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