Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have built already seven very large railway stations: one in Italy; two in Belgium; and in France, and in Switzerland, in Portugal, and also in the United States. And what happens is that stations are not things that come from one day to another, it takes many years.
I've been through a lot and played for a long time, so I can understand what others will go through. That's why I want to help them out. There are a lot of players who go to Belgium, for example, and have had terrible experiences. I know players, and they have come to me.
There are always people you can turn to for help and advice. Former coaches, people I used to play with in Belgium and in England. It is good to have people you can look to for support, but in the end you are out on the pitch on your own and you have to come through it for yourself.
'The world's wealthiest failed state,' as it has come to be known, Belgium endured 589 days without a functioning elected government between June 2010 and December 2011 and remains a dysfunctional, linguistically divided waxworks of one federal and five regional-cultural parliaments.
I had 10 years of lessons at the conservatory in Belgium, studying classical music. I learned how to sing, play the piano, and all the theory that I needed. By the time I left, I had confidence in my skills, and I knew that the experience had prepared me to become a real professional.
In 2000 I was really close to sign for Real Madrid. I was in Belgium, playing the European Championship. I even took a picture with the Real Madrid shirt because all the parties thought that it was a done deal. But Wenger called me several times and convinced me to sign for Arsenal instead.
I started playing at six. I was at a school always playing football with my friends. But I was always bored at home. I asked my father if he could start me in a football team. He took me to a team called Rupel Boom, who were playing in the fourth division in Belgium, and I stayed there for four years.
I'm a first - I was the first person in my family born in the United States. My mom is from Croatia, and my dad is from Iran. They met at music school in Belgium. I grew up as a pianist. I was really interested in piano and sort of discovered that I was a writer when I was about 13 and started writing.
In Europe, you have very different situation than you do in the United States. In Europe, it's very segregated. And you have the diasporas in Belgium that I saw. And they're being radicalized because they're not assimilated with the culture. I don't think we have that same situation in the United States.
In 2003, my mom actually gave me a call, which is funny because she works at the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, and let me know that there's a cool competition with robots across the desert. And I thought this was definitely something I wanted to be a part of. This was the first DARPA Grand Challenge.
For the jihadists, Muslim women who embrace Western mores, and wear tight jeans or mini skirts, are hated symbols of corruption that need to be eradicated. For the ideological mentors of Breivik, a similar disturbance comes from the burqa, which is banned in France and Belgium, partly thanks to their efforts.
One of the most bitter complaints of craft brewers is that big beer wins consumers by introducing beers whose names resemble the names of actual independent beers. After New Belgium came out with a popular beer called Sunshine Wheat, MillerCoors, through its Leinenkugel brand, came out with a beer called Sunset Wheat.
WhatsApp provides phone-number-based messaging, and people asked, 'Isn't that what SMS is?' Yes, but SMS is expensive, antiquated, and what WhatsApp did was modernize and level that playing field. For example, in Europe, if France wants to talk to Belgium, it's extraordinary costly because of border and telecom charges.
Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today's wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium - and tens of millions of Americans will feel a similar revulsion for the politicians and generals who were so spendthrift with others' lives.
Would I have voted to leave the European Union? Yes, I would. My theory there is that Britain was fed up having won two World Wars against the Germans and had reached the boiling and breaking point of being told where to live and what to do by a bunch of bureaucrats in Belgium. It was out of that frustration that the vote to leave was made.
Growing up in Belgium, I played football all of the time, in the garden, on the street.
We are proud of our ridiculousness. That's what made our Surrealism. Proud and ashamed of everything at the same time. I think that's my definition of Belgium.
When I was a kid in my neighborhood, there was nobody that supported Belgium. It was impossible and unthinkable because there was nothing they could relate to.
I played with Michy for Belgium. He is still young; he can finish and is very good. He just needs to adapt to English football, and he will. He is intelligent and a good player.
I still remember my days in Komarock estate, the days when it was all normal, and even though I am born and bred in Belgium, I could easily fit in and feel like any other Kenyan.
Belgium is half French-speaking and half Flemish, and I was born on the French side. So we spoke it a lot - like, in kindergarten, it was almost all French. But then I moved to New Zealand when I was 10, where we obviously spoke English all the time, so I lost the French a little bit.
The success of the Allies in the west was in a measure offset by Teutonic victories in the east. When the invasion of Belgium began, Russia made immediate efforts to counteract by invasion of East Prussia.
I read many riveting escape-and-evade accounts of airmen and of the Resistance networks organized to hide them and then send them on grueling treks across the Pyrenees to safety. But it was the people I met in France and Belgium who made the period come alive for me. They had lived it.
But I studied art in Belgium from the age of 17 to 18, and I learned French when I was there. Very reluctantly so. I didn't do a very good job. For the first six months I was very depressed and couldn't speak to anyone, and then it kinda hits you.
My parents, of Belgian-German extraction, were Belgian nationals who had taken refuge in England during the war. They returned to Belgium in 1920, and I grew up in the cosmopolitan harbour city of Antwerp, at a time when education in the Flemish part of the country was still half French and half Flemish.
When I was younger I would play in front of crowds as small as 500 in the second division in Belgium, so I know what that's like. It might be easier in terms of pressure, but believe me, I would always prefer to be at a packed Anfield playing against Manchester United. That's why you want to become a footballer.
Even in the Belgium team, we get the respect. Teams are not happy when they have to face us.
There are artists in Belgium who try to imitate American artists. But it's like, if you're Belgian pretending to be American, you won't be better than the American because you aren't American. You have to do your own stuff.
Belgium's 1986 team is like the Christmas movie that they bring out every single year. That World Cup is something we get to see and hear about all the time. It is part of our general education in Belgium.
I like to play as a No. 10. I think I have more freedom offensively. For Belgium, we have full backs who run hard and create a lot of space, which is good, and I like to play there.
In Belgium, we know the U.S. culture through the television, but it's not the truth. It's interesting to see that Philadelphia is really industrial. I love industrial cities. Everybody hates them, but I think they're the best places to be creative. The more gritty it is, the more I love it.
I think that's the reason why I'm proud to play for Belgium - because I can take ownership. I'm not saying that I'm not proud of being Congolese as well - but I'm saying this is also my country, and anything that happens in my country, I want to have a say.