I started working out with my mom in 4th grade. She used to take me to the track.
I would have liked to have had more to do with Kristin Bauer van Straten. She's the nicest human being that I think I've ever met.
You know the things I went through as a youngster, coming into the business, all the good, the bad and the ugly that came. I'd had a rough life. I grew up single parent. My mom, she was like a father to me.
Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy. Marilyn Monroe, because she was a curvy woman. I'm drawn to things that have the same kind of silhouettes as what she wore because our bodies are similar.
I really enjoy encountering a celebrity who's like, 'Let's go; you'd better have your A-game on.' You sit down with Madonna, and she's like, 'You'd better have something for me. If you're not ready to dance, I'll eat you up.'
I like how strong Sade is and how she doesn't give away too much.
I make the best eggplant parmigiana. Except maybe my mother. The way she makes it is delicious. If I told you how, I'd have to kill you.
Even though we have laws against it and HR departments to handle it, a woman - especially if she is young and just starting out - can never be sure that reporting harassment won't hurt her career.
I hope the next actress offered millions to play the 'fat girl for the day' stops to think about this before she signs the contract - even if just to ask, like any professional actress would in any other situation, 'Why does she weigh 350 pounds? And why me for the part?' If the director can't answer these questions, don't do the movie.
I fell in love with Virginia Woolf in college. I especially admire how well she writes about daily life, how she captures so much meaning and consequence in the smallest details of a day.
I love the Wendy Syred boutique in Taunton. She has fantastic off-the-wall stuff, such as Vivienne Westwood. And I always have huge success in Omah Shoes, which is also in Taunton. I've got such small feet - three and a half - but I always find my size there.
If you think about 'The Pill' by Loretta, that was totally blacklisted back then. But she revolutionized and liberated a generation of women - country listeners and beyond - that were sort of in that box and were able to break out of it.
If you try singling me out to my mother, she'll be down your throat. She has three sons, and she's equally proud of us all.
A friend of my mother's, Irene Lopez, was a Spanish dancer. She saw me bopping around the room and said to my mother, 'Rosita might have talent. Can I take her to my dance teacher?' There was no thought of a career at that time, but I knew I loved the attention, and that's so much a part of being a performer.
When I was a baby, my mom used to have a dance school, and she used to teach classes there. We didn't have money for a babysitter, so she always brought me with her to the dancing school. Back then, I was already watching and listening to Michael Jackson for a long time.
I had dinner with Marlene Dietrich in the early 1970s. I went to pick her up and she had someone with her, a dreadful man. He was writing a book about her, and he said to her, 'You're so cold when you perform,' and she said, 'You didn't listen to the voice.' She said the difficulty was to place the voice with the face.
To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.
My parenting style is probably like that of my parents, because you do how you learn. My mother was very nurturing and loving, but very stern. She was a disciplinary. My dad was also very loving.
I do think that it's extremely important with this character show her assuming power with a great deal of grace, and find out how to do things she won't like - the things she's called upon to do.
My mother was the nicest person in the world. I still have people coming to me to say how she was so warm, generous, and kind-hearted. She never washed her dirty linen in public. She always maintained her equations with people.
I think it's very comforting for people to put me in a box. 'Oh, she's a fluffy girlie girl who likes clothes and cupcakes. Oh, but wait, she is spending her weekends doing hardware electronics.'
I love reading other people's diaries, especially someone like Virginia Woolf's - such a formidable woman that it's a revelation when she shows you a more vulnerable side of herself.
The funny thing about New York City is that if you hide from her, she's just gonna say, 'Whatever, kid!' and leave you in the dust.
Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.
I think every girl has that a guy she has trouble letting go of.
Beyonce was just always full-out. She's like a beast. So you learn that no matter how you feel, just do it. Just like Nike: 'Just Do It.'
Years ago, I did an interview about my mother for a publication called 'Info' magazine, and during that interview I told the reporter about my mother's leiomyosarcoma. She had had a hysterectomy, but at the time of it, the doctors didn't even think to look for sarcoma.
I played the piano as a boy for six years, from the time I was six to 12 years old. My piano lessons ended when my father died because our family had no more money. I used to have a mestiza teacher. She'd come once a week to teach me piano lessons, and she'd bribe me each time with an apple; otherwise, I wouldn't play.
I have great respect for Sandra Day O'Connor. She has broken so many barriers for women in the law, and was a master negotiator and pragmatist in her days on the Supreme Court.
My mother told me on several different occasions that she was livin' her dream vicariously through me. She once said that I was getting' to do all the things that she would have wanted to have done.
Sarah Silverman. She's the reason I do comedy. Her DNC speech was my favorite thing I ever heard. Sitting down with her and laughing would be incredible.
I'm like, 'Would you be the person in the room that would boo when Dylan went electric? I know I wouldn't. Or are you the person that left The Beatles after 'She Loves You,' or 'Drive My Car?' You weren't on board for 'Revolution 9' or 'Day In The Life,' were you?'
My last divorce was in '68. What made it come to a head was a promise. See, I had promised her that the next year I wouldn't work as much. But then I got in trouble with the IRS, and I had to continue working just as much to pay the government. So she said I lied, which is something I never did.
They expect a certain amount of leniency or mercy from me because I'm a woman, and if you've ever met my mother, you should know that's not even in the cards. She's much tougher than I am - she's a retired schoolteacher, so she's seen it all.
GaGa is one of my favourites. Her voice is incredible and she's fearless and she's ahead of the game. She's ahead of the entire game, and I admire that.
God blessed me with two unbelievable parents, and I am just like both of them. I have the smile and charisma of my mother and the big heart of my mom, because she wants to save the world and help the world, so I am just like her.