I went from being a beanpole - like a normal kid of the 1950s - and exploded. The weight piled on and didn't stop until into my adulthood.
One October day in 1976, a Cuban airliner exploded over the Caribbean and crashed, killing all 73 people aboard. There should have been 74. I had a ticket on that flight, but changed my reservation at the last moment and flew to Havana on an earlier plane.
When I started out as a music journalist, at the end of the 1980s, it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded, beatbox disco soared, indie rock took off, and new wave invented a language of teen angst.
Boy bands should be exploded from a great height. They're just pretty people singing music written by others.
If you think of feelings you have when you are awed by something - for example, knowing that elements in your body trace to exploded stars - I call that a spiritual reaction, speaking of awe and majesty, where words fail you.
Music and fashion have had a kind of incestuous relationship since the Fifties. It started with people like Elvis Presley and pop icons like James Dean. Then it exploded in the MTV days. Now, with the Internet, it's instantaneous.
The theory of permanent Muslim-Christian enmity, though it flourishes in the caves of Tora Bora and parts of the American academy, was long ago exploded by the historians.
At the end of Season 1 of 'Cheers', it was the lowest rated show in all of network television... So we turn to 'Bill Cosby'; when he came to Thursday night, he just exploded. And once the audience was there, we said, 'Hey, by the way, we also have this other great show. It's called 'Cheers'.'
My favorite Aspen memory is saving an upside-down cake that had exploded from the high altitude.
I had to be a grown-up when I should have been a little boy, and now that I'm a grown-up my little-boyness has exploded out of me. I've lived my life backwards.