I remember in the first season going, 'This is retarded. I can't believe they're making chefs do this.' But then it actually does show off certain skills. And at the end of the day, this is entertainment and this stuff is very entertaining. Is a lot of it ridiculous? Of course it is. But that's what makes it interesting.
I was trained in the '50s as a New Critic. I remember what literature was like before the New Critics, when people stood up and talked about Shelley's soul and such things.
I remember a couple of instrumental albums, just don't ask the names.
Growing up, I remember thinking country music was all honky-tonks and beer and trucks - Britney Spears was my first concert.
When I was 4 or 5 and I could put complete thoughts together and really feel them, I remember watching the Grammy's or something like that and getting real emotional because I wanted to be up there.
I remember that when I got to NYU, everyone was writing scripts. But I was 18 at the time, and when you write a script, so much of it is about what you pull from life, and this sounds sort of cheesy, but I felt like I didn't have enough life experience at that point to write a movie.
I remember knowing, for a while, for a long time, that I was kind of abnormal in some sense.
I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.
After I lost my legs, all I wanted to do was snowboard again. I remember spending an entire year on the computer, looking for 'adaptive snowboarders' or 'snowboard legs' or 'adaptive snowboard schools' or just something that I could connect to. I already knew how to snowboard - I just needed to find the right legs.
In 1979, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the league. I remember that. Soon after this, the story began to be repeated ad nauseam: the NBA, a tottering mess in the seventies, was saved in the eighties by these two.
I remember lying down for a nap one day at about 4:00 and walking up at 11:00 the next morning.
Every Monday night, there was a scary movie on Spanish TV, so my parents used to send me to bed. I remember lying there, listening to the TV, and imagining the movie in my head. And so probably the scariest movies I ever saw in my life were the ones I imagined.
It was he who impressed, time and again, the necessity of singing as nature intended, and - I remember - he constantly warned, don't let the public know that you work. So I went slowly. I never forced the voice.
When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places.
I felt that I had been influenced by being in the city enough and I wanted to go off by myself to see what was going on. I remember going out there and looking in the mirror and thinking I wasn't anything.
I remember I was a little girl when Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie Fisher from America's Sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, and the reaction back then was enormous! And Angelina Jolie was in trouble, too, for taking a husband away from another America's Sweetheart. Don't take husbands from America's Sweethearts.
I remember my mom bought me one of their shirts for Easter so that I could wear Helmut Lang for Easter. That was my first piece.
I remember doing my mosaics or being in my little hiding place behind the couch snooping. I'd get bored sometimes, of course, but I think that's good for a kid, because it forces you to be creative.
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'
I started writing with intent to publish on January 1st, 1985, when, as my New Year's resolution, I resolved to finish a book before I turned 25. It's one of only a few New Year's resolutions I remember keeping - I finished that one with a couple weeks to spare.
I remember growing up, having sports to go to, having recess, those were the things I looked forward to. Yes, I'm an athlete, but I had buddies who weren't, and they looked forward to it, too.
The first job I had was a Pampers commercial. And I used to go with my father whenever he would do a performance. I remember clinging to his legs, saying, 'Please. Take me with you.'
I remember when I was about 12, I read M. R. James' 'Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary' under the covers, way too young to fully understand what was going on with those stories - completely terrified but absolutely loved them.
You just don't see Muslims being matter-of-fact Muslim. They're always defined by their Muslim-ness. We're either terrorists, or we're fighting terrorists. I remember seeing 'True Lies' and going, 'Why are we always the bad guys?'
I remember secretly going off and crying. All of a sudden I'm being blocked and have to be intimate in a scene, and I'm going, 'I can't even look people in the eye very well. How am I ever going to do this?'
I tend not to look at my work after I've done it. In fact, the only time I typically get to review it is when the fans bring up comics at shows, and I kind of flip through it and be like, 'Oh, I remember doing this!'
I remember the first reading of the script we had and everybody was sitting around the table. I was very impressed with the level of acting that was in the room, particularly with Jennifer who has so much responsibility.
People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.
I remember candy rationing until I was, like, 7.
I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.
When I first met Alan, I was absolutely terrified. I was 19, he was Alan Rickman, and he's got that voice, and I remember meeting him in the hair and make-up trailer and thinking, 'I'm going to die. He thinks I'm rubbish. Why am I here?'
I remember having mice in the house and my father taking some newspaper and beating me because mice was running on me while I was asleep.
I grew up reading Updike. I remember being alarmed to find that he had published short stories by the time he was 22. I think 'Pigeon Feathers' was the first collection of stories I read. Only much later did I discover his non-fiction reviewing and art criticism.
What I remember as a child is that other kids didn't care about suffering. I always did.
I like to think that I can run, but I remember once running up and down through different terrains while on set in Iceland, and I face planted.
