Dad really had little to do with the songs, except to perform them.
I think that consciousness has always been the most important topic in the philosophy of mind, and one of the most important topics in cognitive science as a whole, but it had been surprisingly neglected in recent years.
But when 9/11 struck, I had a change of heart. I knew the story had to be told because what happened at 9/11 is a direct result of what the economic hit men are doing.
My parents read me fairy tales every night and I used to believe I was a fairytale princess, like every young girl. I had all the Disney dressing-up costumes and would play every character.
My being a teacher had a decisive influence on making language and systems as simple as possible so that in my teaching, I could concentrate on the essential issues of programming rather than on details of language and notation.
I was sad that Corpse Bride was so short. I would've liked to have had her around for way longer. She doesn't actually have that many scenes.
My partner and I had our first son in 1996, and the office became the baby's room. Our second son was born in 2001, and the office became the kids' room.
Within our culture, every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy, basically.
Ever since childhood, when I found out that the ultimate fate for all humans was death, sheer terror and morbid curiosity had been fighting for supremacy in my mind.
When I came to New York and I opened the window of the thirty-fifth-floor apartment, there's light pollution and fog, and I couldn't see my star. So I drew it on my wrist with a pen, but it kept washing away. Then I went to a tattoo parlor on Second Avenue and had it done.
I have had so many great moments, but I would have to say that dancing the Swan in 'Swan Lake' was such a unique and passionate experience for me. It was such bloody hard work, even at that very early age, that I would not want to try to replicate it again now.
Well, I would have much preferred to have had a normal childhood. I would have loved it if my greatest dilemma, at 14, was whether to go to Benetton for my pullovers. I would have preferred not to have cried all the tears I have cried.
If I had caused any trouble worth mentioning, you would have read about it in 'Star' magazine, which is probably why I didn't cause any trouble worth mentioning.
Until now, I've not done a project where the produce, rapper and singer has never worked together like this before, and I had a chance to try a variety of styles.
I was always used to being centre stage - something that had its good and bad points.
I have had a very singular kind of life since I started working so young, so I am very used to traveling, working, taking time for myself.
Everything that Traffic ever did, I'd give Steve a complete lyric, titled, written out with the verse, the bridge, the shape and rhyme and then Steve had to figure out how the meter of the words would fit musically.
I used to shake my head when I heard about mothers who were shocked - shocked! - when their kids came out. I didn't understand how they had missed seeing something so essential when looking at their children. But too many parents see only what they want to see, and that's true whether our kids are gay or straight.
I never had a time line for my life. I didn't say I wanted to be married at 28 and have three kids by the time I was 32.
I thought I was kind of a hotshot because I had had two years of work experience at Morgan Stanley, and I was about to get my Stanford M.B.A.
While in the Florida legislature, I strongly opposed the Stand Your Ground law because I believed it would provide defenses to people who had created the scenarios they sought protection from. Or it would leave juries without the proper rules of engagement that ought govern predictable human interactions.
Wilt Chamberlain lied when he said he had 20,000 women.
It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.
There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops' hearts, not just their heads.
I went to Brooklyn College and met this beautiful Jewish girl named Merle, with dark hair, exotic looking and brilliant. So we got married and had three children.
The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.
Pa did not like a country so old and worn out that the hunting was poor. He wanted to go west. For two years he had wanted to go west and take a homestead, but Ma did not want to leave the settled country.
I grew up in Iowa, and the improv comedy club Comedy-Sportz across the river in Illinois held auditions. They took me even though I was only 16 - you really had to be 18, but they never checked me for ID.
The commentary track became a lot like the movie and there are some funny, long, awkward pauses that you can tell we're just trying to find stuff to say. None of us had gotten to really talk about the movie until that moment and they were in New York and we were in L.A.
But even before that, in 1980 I went so far as to write a book about what had happened. And I wrote all about the bank robbery, I went ahead and printed it even though I had no use immunity for it.
Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.
Well, pioneers always suffer. I don't care who is the first to embark upon things. For instance, settlers that settled the West, Western Canada and the U.S... they went though hell doing it, but it had to be done.
Viv had this kind of stage presence where you couldn't ignore it. He walked onstage, he looked dangerous. You just didn't know what he was going to do.
It was just this crazy craziness, and the fact that it was shot in Paris, and it had these incredible people in it. It was an easy thing to say yes to.
I remember being out here at the Sunset Marquis, and whoever knocked on the door, I would take that picture that I was writing and I would put that in the typewriter, so when I had the meeting, they would say: 'Oh, you're working on it right now?'
I always had a trunk full of good reviews. I'd get magnificent reviews, and I'd be standing out on the unemployment line!
