I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn't get a job, so I wrote a play.
I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes!
In general I was a good kid. It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.
I took one thing to heart that I heard from Sidney Poitier in 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.' And it resonated so much with me. He says: 'Dad, you always looked at yourself as a black man. I look at myself as a man.'
My stepdad is Bruce Jenner, the Olympian. The first time he came over was like a blind date, and we had show and tell. He took out the gold medal for me and my sisters, and we were like, 'So? Who the hell are you?'
Acting was always something fun to do on the side growing up, but I never really took it seriously. I would do a commercial every few months, and that paid my school tuition. But in high school, I was mostly into sports and didn't go out for stuff during those seasons.
Think of the first Apple II being shipped in 1977. It took almost a decade for it to land in my school where I could see it.
I have seen countless colleagues struggle to come to terms with retirement. I learned a lot from Richard Dunwoody when he was riding, and I completely understand why he took off and undertook what most people consider mad challenges.
Back a hundred years ago, especially around Woodrow Wilson, what happened in this country is we took freedom and we chopped it into pieces.
I've always took care of myself.
My dad died in 1980, and I found out afterwards from mum that my piano lessons, which cost £2 a week, took up nearly a third of his income.
I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.
I love my husband's fried chicken, but I took it to the next level by swiping it with Cholula honey butter - I'm a total hot-sauce freak.
I took the obligatory economics classes in school, but I've long been a fan of the Milton Friedman philosophy and its libertarian bent: One must be free to do what one wants to do, as long as you don't harm another. This is the seminal treatise on free-market economics.
Over 17 years, I took on banks, landlords, real estate firms, local governments, anybody who treated anybody unfairly.
When I first put my hat in the ring, several very tried and true and loyal Democratic activists from our community said, 'What? She's not a Democrat. She's a Republican.' I took that as a compliment, you know, that people didn't necessarily know what my ideology might be because I wasn't driven by that.
My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, 'OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what it's like.' I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing 'Memory.' I was terrible. Terrible.
We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.
When I got home from hospital, and I was in a wheelchair in a plaster body cast, an aeroplane flew over. And I thought to myself, 'Well, if I can't walk, then I might as well fly.' And I was lifted into the aeroplane for the first time. And when I took the controls of the aeroplane, I knew this was something I could do. I thought, 'I can fly.'
I'm a huge Freddie Mercury fan. I think he was the end-all. I love his lack of inhibition, his talent, the chances he took. He made mistakes on his records, and he didn't care.
Upon graduation, I hit a wall. All of my good friends from UCLA were taking on jobs they were passionate about, and I felt left behind. It took a bit of soul searching, but in the end, I finally had the guts to pursue acting.
When we embraced social media, we took more control of the Newark narrative. We increased responsiveness toward residents. We drew more of our constituents in to participate in government and improve our cities.
I believe that all men and women are created equal, but it took our country until 1920 to acknowledge this for women. And then it took until 1964, the year before I was born, to outlaw discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. And same-sex marriage became the law of the land in 2015.
I knew I had to get out of Boston and stop making movies there, at least for one movie, otherwise no one would ever consider me for a movie that took place south of Providence.
It took me nine years to get through the fourth grade. When I got into television commercials, I had to take a crash course in reading. I was 32 years old, and I couldn't read the cue cards.
I couldn't do everything in the first or second day; it took me years to be able to get to the achievement that I've had. I wasn't perfect from the beginning.
I learned to cook in self-defense. My wife doesn't know what a kitchen is. In the first month of our marriage, she broiled lamb chops 26 nights in a row. Then I took over. I used to mind her not caring about food, but no more - as long as I can eat what I want.
I had decent but not great grades in high school because I was highly motivated in some subjects, like the arts, drama, English, and history, but in math and science I was a screw-up. Wooster saw something in me, and I really flourished there. I got into theatre, took photography and painting classes.
It was all about the ring. That's where you got your brains shook and the money took.
I loved it, it's such fun. I like that people are seeing it and then talking about it. Like when I took my son and his friends to see Napoleon Dynamite last year, we spent the next six weeks trying to explain it.
From the day he took office, President Obama has been open to any good idea when it comes to the budget, as long as supporting middle-class families remains our North Star. Republicans won't extract concessions over the full faith and credit of the United States.
My mother took great relish in introducing me as 'This is my son - he's a doctor but not the kind that helps people.'
Some women work while they are pregnant, but not me. That was a choice I had made. That's when I took a break. Men can work at whatever stage they are; whether they turn daddy, they still have their own thing. But women can't afford that because by being mothers, they have to be there for their kids.
The reason I took Early Edition - besides the fact that I liked it - was that it enabled me to start a production company in New York City. It's a low-budget film company to produce and direct movies.
My parents got me a sewing machine for Christmas during my senior year of high school. I made three pieces of clothing and had a fashion show at the end of the year, where we had to wear the clothes that we made. I took it to a whole new level; I made all my friends clothes.
In a faraway land called 'pre-2000,' what Earthlings now call blogging was called 'keeping a diary.' It's hard work to do well. I tried doing it in the early 1990s but had to stop because I no longer had a life - instead I had this thing that generated anecdotes to go into my diary. The diary took over and I had to stop.
