I've been criticized for not having perspective in the past and I thought that of myself many times but not there.
It's been a strange day - a day when I thought I was on top of the world, planning my life. I planned all of my courses for the rest of the semester at Smith, and talked to my advisor about honoring in History.
I would have thought that I would have become one of those parents - just because it's my nature to be such a perfectionist - that anything falling short, I would have seen as a failure. But something has happened to me over the past few years - it's not Zen, believe me, I'm not at all Zen - but I'm so appreciative of even the chaos.
I was born in 1966, at the beginning of the Biafran-Nigerian Civil War, and the war ended after three years. And I was growing up in school, and the federal government didn't want us taught about the history of the war, because they thought it probably would make us generate a new generation of rebels.
I couldn't kill a chicken, I couldn't kill a cow - I was a vegetarian too at that time - so I thought, well what is there that I could kill? I couldn't kill this and I couldn't kill that.
There are few women in America that don't want to lose 5 pounds, but I refuse to let that thought dominate my life. And there are too many other real problems in the world - real obesity problems and real hunger problems - to worry that much about a few pounds that I'd like to lose.
And so while the great ones depart to their dinner, the secretary stays, growing thinner and thinner, racking his brain to record and report what he thinks that they think that they ought to have thought.
The Tea Party represents stakeholders in the American system; people who were never involved in politics or thought they had to be, yet realized that political corruption and incompetence threatened not only their families, but the future of the nation itself.
I was in college, and I studied everything, but was really not good at anything until I found philosophy, and, then, political science. I thought, 'Wow, this is something I really enjoy.' I kind of got into that whole world of law and political science. I was really into it and enjoying it, and then I took an acting elective, and that was it.
That's the beauty of creativity. It comes from the ether. I like to think, sometimes, it's like I haven't written it, it's more like I just reached up and grabbed it from somewhere. That song, 'Song of the Red Rock Mountain,' is one of them. I recorded it and thought, 'Where did that come from?'
I have come to understand and appreciate writers much more recently since I started working on a book last fall. Before that, I thought golf writers got up every morning, played a round of golf, had lunch, showed up for our last three holes and then went to dinner.
I didn't tell any of my friends that I wanted to be a comedian, because I was superstitious. I thought if I told people, it wouldn't happen. So I kept it all in my head for years and years.
I have to say obviously it is not illegal for people to go to dinner and to socialise and take hospitality off members of the media organisations, but it was the scale and the timing and the frequency of contact that I thought was shocking.
We thought it would be great to see if you could put pop music back into musical theater.
A priest once said to me, 'Think of a priest going to the altar as you walk out on the stage.' I would hate to think that anyone thought I was coming to preach. But art and music open up things that you can't put into words. It's about bringing joy when you go out there.
I've always thought that we, as human beings, would be naive and arrogant to pretend that we're the only life form in the galaxy.
I thought I would hate New York, but I love New York. I almost hate to say that being from Chicago.
I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.
I have always thought music as a way out of the ordinary mundane obligations of life.
The first time you hold your baby in your arms, I mean, a sense of strength and love washes over you. It washed over me and I never thought that possible.
My first single was based around the mishearing of the words 'make believe' - 'I thought she said maple leaves.' That kind of stuff is very central to my music and my life.
I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis.
We were unusually brought up; there was no gender differentiation. I was never thought of as any less than my brother.
And they were writing scripts where Christine had hit the glass ceiling. And I always thought Christine would never hit the glass ceiling. I thought her dreams would take her. Maybe her dreams wouldn't take her where she wanted, but she still had her dreams.
Can you imagine that Cuba and Europe's youth, who had forgotten about traditional music, who only thought of rock music, are now looking back towards their grandparents? That is a phenomenon.
The iPad - contrary to the way most people thought about it - is not a tablet computer running the Apple operating system. It's more like a very big iPhone, running the iPhone operating system.
I had to learn to jog because I run like a fish. All my friends found the thought of me running on screen hysterical because I do absolutely no exercise.
The best things that capture your imagination are ones you hadn't thought of before and that aren't talked about in the news all the time.
If I thought that any of this was pre ordained, then it takes away any kind of incentive to struggle, or to put up with things, to reach for those impossible dreams, all those dramatic things.
Will Smith is one of my favorite actors, and he's also a triple threat. He successfully crossed over from music into acting. Also, I liked 'I Am Legend' because it was so unexpected. The movie wasn't what I thought it'd turn out to be.
I liked Nicole Kidman because she is so fashionable she can do less is more. It was very, very simple, but it was so chic. Some people thought she looked washed out, I didn't at all.
I've often cringed when I heard myself described as a jazz singer. I've always thought of myself as a jazz vocalist.
Nobody had ever told me junk food was bad for me. Four years of medical school, and four years of internship and residency, and I never thought anything was wrong with eating sweet rolls and doughnuts, and potatoes, and bread, and sweets.
It was important that I got my own voice out there in the world. I'd used it on other people's films, collaborated, and I thought, 'You know, I can do this myself.' That was more important than anything else.
As a kid, I grew up on a farm in Florida, and I did what most little kids do. I played a little baseball, did a few other things like that, but I always had the sense of being an outsider, and it wasn't until I saw pictures in the magazines that a couple other guys skate, I thought, 'Wow, that's for me,' you know?
I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit.
