Adapting to New Environments Quotes

Back home I had always been comfortable around people. I was the troublemaker, always being funny - that's just who I am. I'm Latina; I've always had that extra little flavor. But when I got to New York, it became about being comfortable with myself in a place where I didn't know many people, and that was the big challenge. Ultimately my personality helped me build relationships with the people I was working with, and I was able to stand out.

You need to know everything and feel 100 percent safe so that you can live and breathe in a role and so that you feel comfortable taking risks and trying new things and being bold. If you don't feel comfortable, if you're in a scenario that's not conducive for that kind of environment, then that's when you don't do well.

The only other time I've been away from home was when I went to college. And that was just an hour away, so I could always go home if I needed to.

I am so used to plunging into the unknown that any other surroundings and form of existence strike me as exotic and unsuitable for human beings.

I've been traded a couple times, but I've enjoyed the experience of new cities and cultures and all types of things.

You can bloom wherever you're planted, if you put enough effort into it.

Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits.

Once I started to retire, I was telling all of the girls in my generation, 'Wow I feel like an outsider in this locker room because this whole new generation of women has stepped in,' and that was one of the signs where I said maybe it's time to retire.

Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm and trepidation of the town mouse.

Wherever you go, things change you. I mean, obviously moving to Miami and becoming part of the NBA has given me a different perspective on style than I had when I lived in Chicago or Milwaukee.

Almost nobody travels willingly from sameness to sameness and repetition to repetition, even if the physical effort required is trivial.

I grew up with this crazy upbringing of living many places and always being the new kid in town, not like a service brat where you're always going to school with other new kids in town. I was constantly arriving in small towns and going to school with kids who'd been together since they were in kindergarten.

When I made the decision to go to Europe, a lot of people questioned it. The first six months I was there even I was questioning it, but I think I learned a lot more about myself in that six months than I have my whole life.

I spent years overseas. I spent 11 years abroad.

Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in.

I was raised in California, so this whole New York winter thing is completely new for me. I've already justified buying seven coats!

I did go to Beijing, with a two-year assignment. I stayed four years. And those four years were the most formative four years in my life. What I learned was more than I would have learned in 10 years in America or Europe, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Whatever I did in 1960, half a century ago, I couldn't do that today and enter the field. The field has changed so much, you have to adapt to the times whatever you're doing. That's the reality of life: you have to be a different person today than you had to be then.

For a lifetime I had bathed with becoming regularity, and thought the world would come to an end unless I changed my socks every day. But in Africa I sometimes went without a bath for two months, and I went two weeks at a time without even changing my socks. Oddly enough, it didn't seem to make much difference.

When you travel you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak....You begin to be more accessible to others, because they may be able to help you in difficult situations.

We have embraced change - change in the economy, change in the government, and change in the schools…. innovation and change are in our blood

Don't put down too many roots in terms of a domicile. I have lived in four countries and I think my life as a writer and our family's life have been enriched by this. I think a writer has to experience new environments. There is that adage: No man can really succeed if he doesn't move away from where he was born. I believe it is particularly true for the writer.

When I race in Australia or Korea or Japan, I know it will be a big change for me because Ferrari fans are worldwide. It's very nice if you win, but it's not so good if you lose. All this is part of being a Ferrari driver.

I only lived in Sudan until I was four years, so I cannot really relate to that. It is just a different lifestyle.

So this idea of moving seemed like a good way to sort of represent that metaphorically. It also is something for me personally. When I was in fifth grade - so about 11 - my folks moved us to Denmark.