If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.
In about 9th grade, an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school, so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Then I got accepted at the Julliard School, and by then, I was serious about it.
I was interested in a lot of subjects from very early on. And that's uniquely Chicano because every Chicano I knew always had three jobs.
My imagination completely controls me, and forever feeds the fire that burns with dark red light in my heart by bringing me the best dreams. I've always had a wild imagination, a big heart and a tortured soul so I feel that dark fantasy, love and horror are in my blood.
MTV didn't exist in 1980, but by 1982, it had gotten to be a force to be reckoned with.
I've never had a couch that needed to be cleaned or learned how to couch-clean in general. That feels too grown-up.
Ever since I was a teenager, I always had a very strong sense of my own personal style. Kind of for better or for worse - actually I don't think it's ever been for worse. The way that I dress has always been a pretty accurate reflection of my personality and my life.
Cam disappears at the end of 'Rapture.' It was the only way for me to say good-bye to him at the time, and it's the way he prefers to split, anyway. I always knew I would return to him. He's been my favorite from the start. Readers have long asked what happened to him, but I had to wait for his story to come to me on its own.
When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it.
I grew up in an apartment that would have made a trailer look really decadent and nice. Pretty much the only dependable thing I had was books.
In my child's-eye view, whenever I was exposed to pain, it meant that my mother had let me down.
And not only my own brothers and sisters agreed so but my brothers and sisters in law; and their children, although but young, had the like agreeable natures and affectionate dispositions.
One of the things I learned, one of the strangest things, is how to think. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't see people, or go for a walk in the forest. All I had was my head and my books, and I thought a lot.
Anders Thomas Jensen and I had talked about making a movie which addressed the cancer issue, and we didn't want to make it heavy-handed. We wanted to do something which had a lot of hope in it. And then for some reason we came up with a romantic comedy.
I had a lot of growing up to do. A lot of times, I learned the hard way.
The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.
The situation in Iraq was dire at the end of 2006, when President George W. Bush decided to implement the surge and selected me to command it. Indeed, when I returned to Baghdad in early February 2007, I found the conditions there to be even worse than I had expected.
Even to me, as I was trying to tell the government what had happened, it just didn't seem to matter.
The Golden Rule of Parenting is; do unto your children as you wish your parents had done unto you!
I'd distract myself until finally it was a combination of things. The show was over and I had time on my hands. I had taken time and played and just relaxed.
I had to write something and couldn't think of a plot, so I decided to write a Cinderella story because it already had a plot! Then, when I thought about Cinderella's character, I realized that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, and I would hate her before I finished ten pages.
We had people of all backgrounds coming together - all races, all creeds, all colors, all status in life. And coming together there was a kind of quiet dignity and a kind of sense of caring and a feeling of joint responsibility.
I'd had no particular interest in the Southwest at all as a young girl, and I was completely surprised that the desert stole my heart to the extent it did.
I certainly often go to a movie and don't remember exactly what the trailer had in it, except that it looked cool.
I became a freelance stylist to survive, and then I had a kid. I bankrupted in 1988 and had a kid in 1990.
I had a breakthrough, I think my life just became calmer, I gave up drinking. My priorities changed as I had a young daughter. The group didn't want me to record for the Think Tank album... so I took it as a sign to leave.
I could jump, I was quick, I could catch and all those types of things, but when it came to just flat out speed, that's something I had to work really hard at.
My mother read nursery rhymes to me, and my grandmother told me folk stories, but as a child I had no interest in writing whatsoever.
When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.
Some forms of motor neuron disease are genetically linked, but I have no indication that my kind is. No other member of my family has had it. But I would be in favour of abortion if there was a high risk.
If someone had told me years ago that sharing a sense of humour was so vital to partnerships, I could have avoided a lot of sex!
When you get to that point where you don't want to live, and you don't want to die, it's a desperate, horrible place to be. And I just hit my knees. And I had to use 'The Passion of the Christ' to heal my wounds.
When I was 15, I had this illness and was basically housebound for two years.
So we had life, death, illness, everything - every emotional involvement we had, we experienced. And I think that made what we had to do on stage, stronger. We got very much involved in what we were doing.
To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.
I've got corporate executives, my bosses... this is true... who will text message me... and say, 'Hey a, heard you had chemotherapy today, want me to stop by and pick you up something to eat and bring it to you?' Whose boss does that? My bosses do that.
