I ain't going to sit here like, 'My neighborhood was hard, and I had to get out there and grind.' We made it hard for ourselves. We chose to stay on the streets.
I sat next to a young woman on a plane once who bombarded me for five hours with how she had decided to be born again and so should I. I told her I was glad for her, but I hadn't used up being born the first time.
I had a very supportive family environment that gave me room to explore and discover things about myself.
Music definitely gave me a focus. I was an artist without an outlet. Let's just say if I was not famous, I could have been infamous. I could've had my own episode of 'American Gangster.'
We haven't had a slew of artists, but the artists we do come out with have always had the same momentum.
Childbirth changed my perception of my wife. She was now the bloodied special forces soldier who had fought and risked everything for our family.
My parents are proud to be Canadian, as I am. They had a lot to do with my success and sacrificed a lot over the years.
If I would have planned it, I would have had what Gosling has, that kind of art-house career.
My mother, as a girl, had remembered this woman from Maine, someone who was part of the extended family somehow, and I recall her talking about this great, risk-taking woman. There are the most amazing, heroic stories in everybody's lives.
'Sunrise Sunset' is a letter I wrote to a girl I was once with who I really thought I was going to fall in love with. We tried to make it work but always had trouble maintaining a real relationship because we were both so caught up with work, life, and everything else that at the time seemed like it was the priority.
I'm so compulsive about stuff, I know if I had ever gotten pregnant, of course, that would have been my whole focus. But I didn't choose to have children because I'm focused on my career. And I just don't think, as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both.
My parents divorced when I was 3 years old. They had a lounge act in Las Vegas, where I was born. The band broke up and the marriage dissolved, and my mother, my sister and I moved to Southern California. And I didn't see my dad a lot growing up; he was on the road a lot. I'd see him every couple years.
My first ten years in Hollywood were really tough. I'd be coaching friends who came to me for acting advice, and then they'd make it before I did. I'd still be helping them while they were on movie sets and I had four lines on a TV show.
I went back to Kolkata around two years back after a gap of 14 years, and though the city had changed, the people hadn't. Everybody is cultured and knowledgeable there. I have emotional memories of the place.
In high school, I didn't realize that science or engineering were male-dominated fields. When I got to college, and I was one of two girls in a 50-person class, that's when I realized that this was a unique decision I had made as a girl to go into engineering.
Back in 1993, I was studying in Delhi, and I had a girlfriend. I had never touched a girl before that in my entire life. One day, I decided to go out with her to a garden. We were sitting beside each other, and I just glanced around to see if anyone was looking at us, and I put my hand over hers. I thought love started in this way.
There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.'
I had a friend who had been teaching music for a long time, and he knew a bunch of teachers, so I just put up the money and started a school.
I think if anybody had the opportunity to stay in one place and play ball, they would.
I had a prostatectomy in the fall and fortunately it was encapsulated and I didn't have to go through chemotherapy.
I was in the army, and I had given up the thought of being a composer.
We had to play both ways on the field, so I was offensive center and defensive end.
I spoke to a million in one service, in Korea, in Seoul. And that was the largest audience I ever have had.
My wife and I had children when we were children ourselves.
I have had a career in which, almost without exception, every single person I've worked with has helped me.
A sack is way better than any nightclub. A touchdown is way better than any bar experience I've ever had.
I raised my sister. I was six when she was born. My mother had to make a living for herself and it was very hard, so I was looking after my sister, cooking and cleaning, and she had four jobs.
There's no secret, but inspiration has to find you working. And that's one of the key things that I've always remembered. And if I put my mind to it tonight, I think I could take a guitar, and by 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, something will have happened - I'll have had something to hang onto. But I think that's the key.
At first, I didn't want to accept that I had been abducted. I kept thinking, 'Next week, I'll be freed.'
It was extraordinary 'cause I was 17 years old when I first danced with Edward Villella. And we were both young. But I had seen him dance, and he was already a star. So he was just so gentle and wonderful and kind, and we had a great rapport together. He was one of the most exciting dancers of our day.
I think of myself as an Olympian. I have had a dream since I was a very small child. And because I have parents without whom I couldn't have realised that dream.
On my reservation, we had one of the most abundant fisheries in the world and hundreds of thousands of acres of wild rice beds. We've lost a lot of it, but there's still natural wealth that could support our communities.
Let's say, 100 years ago, I'm not sure how many people had to empty out their relatives' homes; they just stayed in the same house, because they lived there. Nowadays, almost everyone, at least once in their life, somehow, has to deal with this experience.
At the earliest age, when I saw a 'wet paint' sign, I had to touch the paint to see if it was wet. When I get stopped at the stoplight in the middle of the night, and there's just no cars coming, and the light is red, I go. I don't think I'm putting anyone in harm's way, and I'll just take the consequences. Because I'm a Libertarian.
At the time I wrote 'Forever,' I had a 14-year-old daughter, and she was reading a lot of books about young love.
I had a desire to prove to myself that I was actually in control - that I wasn't a puppet.
