My foray into young adult lit was by no means planned. I wrote the first 'Alfred Kropp' book as an adult novel, which everyone loved but no one would publish - until I changed my protagonist from a thirty-something P.I. into a 15-year-old kid. After that, it was off to the races, and I am so glad.
Have I ever made a mistake? I am sure. Do I think I can stand on my record? I do.
I am terrified of flying. I am a wreck right before I get on an airplane. That, and the ocean. I can only get in there for 10 minutes, I have this strong urge to run out and I won't go back in for the rest of the day. I've always been like that.
I am often asked the question: 'What is your favorite type of food?' Although I always answer Japanese, the real response should be and is pierogi, the delectable Polish dumplings that my mother, Big Martha, made so well in many incarnations: potato, sweet cabbage, blueberry, peach, plum, and apricot.
I am just the most boring person you will ever meet. I'm the good Southern daughter. I'm not outrageous.
I am very confident about my work because I have worked very hard.
If I am running 100 yards, I should be cut. Because then I am getting beat. I do not need to be doing that. I need to be running 20, 30, 40 yards as fast as I can over and over and over at optimal energy and efficiency and speed.
Don't get me wrong, I am a proud Republican, and I want to support my party. I am a firm believer in the Republican principles of smaller government, low taxes and economic freedom. I have spent my time in government service fighting for these principles.
I am not self-destructive. I am not a person who wants to die.
I am, by nature, an honest person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. There is no 'behind closed doors' with me.
I am excited to join the Workday Board at an exciting time in the company's growth and look forward to leveraging my past experience as a technologist and entrepreneur to provide advice as they continue to look at new areas of growth.
I'm going into my first Olympics, whereas people I'm racing against are going into their third and fourth and probably last Olympics. So there's more pressure on them to perform. I've still got a whole future ahead of me. I am not even the Olympic champ.
Certainly what happened to the dinosaurs was not good - that was a terrible day for the dinosaurs, very sad. But I have to say, there are a lot of threats we face as people and, as someone who lives in Los Angeles, I'm personally more likely to die from driving on the freeway than I am from an asteroid, so you have to put that risk in perspective.
How the hell can you change gender in the rural areas? I am a woman. We don't have good doctors; we are not rich to do such procedures.
I wanted to be someone who wanted to produce music, and here I am, and I'm happy about it.
I am proud to be black man.
The way that I am now, I don't want to accept mediocrity. I don't want to accept the easy road.
I'm not one of those New Yorkers who so much identifies themselves with the city that they can't imagine living anywhere else. I plan to live a lot of other places, but it is defiantly is a big part of who I am. I have a complicated relationship with it. It has changed so much, but I love it, and it's my home. I'm really glad I grew up there.
I don't think I'm mainstream. I think what I am is lots and lots of different cults. And when you get lots and lots of small groups who like you a lot, they add up to a big group without ever actually becoming mainstream.
I am tired of our characters being so incomplete. When do we ever save the day in a film? When does a Latino actor get to be the hero?
If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it's that I've never been a kept woman.
I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don't have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don't adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind.
I have a certain sensibility that I bring to my writing that comes from knowing two things: what I as a reader like to read, and what as a writer I am capable of. I know my own limits. I know there are things I cannot do.
Even though I am very tied to and close to my heritage, I learned Spanish in college; I didn't grow up with it. Growing up in South Texas is different from Miami or L.A. where it is a necessity to speak Spanish.
My contract is just for this year, but I have an option for next year. It is not signed at this moment, but I am only concentrating on this year. I don't know exactly what I will do in the future.
I don't have a favorite medium; I was brought up on TV. so I am clearly of the TV generation, but it depends on what you are trying to sell; sometimes a fully integrated solution, sometimes a pure Internet solution, sometimes a pure billboard solution.
I'm thankful for the work that feminists like Gloria Steinem have done. I am a feminist, but the geography for women today is vastly different than it was in the '60s.
I struggle with myself every day - I am a lonesome person. I talk to my family - and I connect to some people deeply along the way - but I am a restless soul. Singing is the most immediate relief.
I think just having everybody know who you are is more of a challenge. More than anything about it is just knowing people are watching. I know who I am, so it's watching things I say, what I do. Even if I'm in line at one of the rest stops or something, it's just being on my Ps and Qs at all times more than anything.
I'm not afraid to have a character say, 'I am a Christian,' or, 'I believe in God,' because I think they represent real people on this Earth.
I am an indifferent cook, but I can make pie.
People have seen me at my best, but I don't think most of them know everything that it took to get me to where I am today.
I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.
In an interview, I lose control even of what I am, for it is the interviewer who edits me, finally, into what he thinks I am, and never have I been happy with someone else's version of my life after that person has spent an entire two or three hours fathoming it.
I am ready to fight according to the rules, and I ask for the opportunity to prove myself.
I think I am still underpaid. I want to make as much money as my male counterparts.
