It took me until my teenage years to realize that I was medicating with music. I was pushing back against my stupid school uniform, instructors who called me by my last name and my classmates, who, while friendly enough, were not at all inspiring.
Traditionally, historians thought in terms of invasions: the Celts took over the islands, then the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons. It now seems much more likely that the resident population doesn't change as much as thought. The people stay put but are reculturalized by some new dominant culture.
I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
At one point I took on a new job, and I just didn't have time to do anything but work.
That was the big lesson for all of us. Everything was going great on paper, but we all became miserable because we were so caught up in the machinery of how you make that happen, it took away the sheer joy.
As I look back and connect the dots, all I want to do is go back and hug my scared young self, who took a lot of steps out of impulse not knowing what will happen. So many nights of disappointment, so many others of being disillusioned where I would have just gone ahead and quit it all - I still do not know what kept me hanging in there.
I was quite emotional when I finished my lap, but had to wait for other drivers to cross the line to hear whether I'd actually done it. It feels very special, but I acknowledge that the old master, Nigel Mansell, took his 14 poles from only 16 races.
I'm the youngest of four, and they were all very into sports. I was the first one to express an interest in the arts. I took piano lessons and singing lessons, acting lessons. So it was all new to them, but my parents were great.
If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn't have a lot of the animal problems that we do. I'm a big spay-and-neuter supporter. Don't have babies if you're not going to take care of those babies. We don't need more. We just need to take care of the ones we have. Take responsibility and breathe kindness.
It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan.
It's just coincidental that the acting took off first over everything else.
It took me all my life to learn how to salt a tomato.
I turned pro and won Rookie of the Year on the South African Tour and then it took me two tries at the qualifying school on the European Tour and to get my card and the rest is history.
I was molded, spent my time underneath a lot of goo. And then the bits and pieces were sculpted. It took probably 10 days to create each character after all those camera tests.
I feel bound to respect Ronald Reagan, as every American should - not least because he chose a career of public service when he could have made a lot more money doing something else, and not least because he took genuine risks for peace.
My first-ever concert was the Barney concert when I was, like, six. My mum took me because I was obsessed with Barney. Barney was actually my first crush... He's, like, literally better than all the guys in the whole world.
So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.
From Rebecca Miller, I took the idea that the director needs to arrive every day an hour ahead of everyone else and walk through the entire day.
My mother took my picture to a model agency and the rest is history.
If you just casually look at a baby, it doesn't look like there's very much going on there, but they know more and learn more than we would ever have thought. Every single minute is incredibly full of thought and novelty. It's easy as adults to take for granted everything it took to arrive at the state where we are.
I took an acting class at Cerritos Junior College and I did a handful of plays, maybe five or six plays.
Then in 1969, I spent the spring term at Cornell University in New York. The invasion of August 1968 had already happened, but the hardline regime took several months to crack down on dissidents.
I was asked to do a reading of 'G.B.F.' and I loved the script. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd read, but it took a year to get a green light for production.
I went to all the Love-Ins. I took my kids. I enjoyed myself.
Because I came out as a singer, I took the time to get an acting coach.
It took me many years to understand that my identity is more Israeli than Jewish.
It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.
At the end of 'Afterlife' - hmm, how do I do this without spoilers - Skye took a very strange journey that crossed the boundary between life and death. And now, for her, that boundary is permanently blurred.
Then my mother was taken ill and died and my father took me to St. Mary's.
Apple was our benefactor at starting General Magic, but about a year later decided they would rather BE General Magic and tried to make us blink out of existence... which we eventually did, but it took a few years.
Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game.
I sat down and collected all of our eleven sales for the past six months and I added them all together and divided by eleven. I then took that average and presented it as the average price for a Manhattan apartment. The media ate it up.
I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.
What you come to discover is, it isn't how you get there, it's that you get there. If that's what it took to get me where I'm at today, so be it.
The director took my face in his hands and asked me to show him my teeth, as with a horse. This happened on a Wednesday, and by the following Monday I was shooting.
Prog didn't really go away. Just took a catnap in the late Seventies. A new generation of fans discovered it, and a whole new array of bands and solo artists took it on into the new millennium.
