If I go to Germany, I learn something in addition. The German television is very precise and respectable. One has never stress. In Italy it is more dynamic. But I amuse myself madly in both countries.
I have absolutely no difficulty myself with the playing of God Save the Queen in the presence of Her Majesty.
I look to longevity. I just consider myself an actress and getting good roles. If being a 'superstar' gets me good roles, then that's a positive thing. But my goal isn't just to be a superstar. It's to act for a long time.
I amused myself playing with the journalists.
My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.
As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, 'All right, well, I'd like to headline a tour,' and then when I get there, we'll see what my next goal is.
I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring.
The only reason I don't like playing in the World Series is I can't watch myself play.
I can't say I've ever finished a film and been particularly thrilled with myself or patted myself on the back. And maybe that's what keeps me going, and that's a good thing. It speaks volumes about how I perceive myself.
I don't like to talk about myself.
I've never in my life bought a big piece of jewelry - like, 'I'm gonna get myself a big piece of jewelry!' Songwriters' lives are unstable and up and down. Even though mine has sort of has followed more of a going toward the sky trajectory.
What matters to me is my own estimation, and I'm very tough on myself. I need to be proud of what I've done and I work hard for it. I had a very Christian upbringing... lots of guilt. A good thing, It keeps you sane.
My main focus is to always try to be myself first, and then, hey, if I wear a cool jacket, that's a bonus.
I don't mock things, which makes me more vulnerable to mockery myself. If you're cynical, you're protected from mockery. But I have to be nice. I don't think I have irony. A sense of humour, yes, but not irony.
I'll tell you what I love doing more than anything: trying to pack myself in a small suitcase. I can hardly contain myself.
When I climb a fourteener, a 14,000-foot/4,260-meter peak, in the winter by myself, I leave an itinerary and information about where my vehicle will be parked and the name of the county sheriff to contact in case I don't get home.
'The Fifth Gospel' is set entirely inside the Vatican and told from the perspective of a Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic myself, yet authenticity and factual accuracy are very important to me, so the novel required an enormous amount of research.
Being an immigrant myself, but feeling very American, and also being the child of immigrants, I understand the feeling of wanting a home.
No one has taken my heart in their hand. I haven't given it... I have lent myself, rented myself out, but never given myself.
After all my probing into the human brain, I should still be aware of mysteries and come up with them myself.
As a writer, I don't have a sense of my own position. I try to disappear and not to think of myself at all when I'm working.
I don't know how to explain how, probably to my detriment, unselfpromoting I am. I used to have a cabaret act and I didn't even like to tell me people about that. I really hate selling myself.
When I was a teenager, I went to Europe on a backpacking trip by myself, and I met a woman who was following Sebadoh. It was the early 1990s, and that was my introduction to indie rock.
To be honest, when I'm home, every day is a Friday for me. It doesn't really matter what day it is for me. A lot of my friends actually have time off during the week, and so it doesn't prohibit me from enjoying myself when I am home on a Monday or a Tuesday.
I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.
It took me a while to figure that out and to realize what a gift that I had been given. And when I finally did, I dedicated myself to be the best pitcher I possibly could be, for as long as I possibly could be.
I wrote my first novel in the same conditions as most first novelists - I had a full-time job, I shared an apartment, I had no time - and so I became a compulsive outliner of everything. Ever since then, my process has consisted of trying to forcibly rid myself of that compulsion.
The truth was I felt ugly growing up. I only really started feeling comfortable in myself when I was 40.
I'm not fond of biographies. I don't like writing about myself.
When you're in love, you're so happy that you want to tell people about it. But now I have to censor myself. You need to protect the happiness you have.
I think of myself as a positive agnostic. I don't know, therefore I'm open. I don't know, therefore I'm interested.
There were a lot of rumors spread about me. Of course, I didn't show up to defend myself, so my absence helped create even more.
I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.
If my life depended on being a social-media person in terms of talking myself up, I probably would be in trouble because - not that I wouldn't be able to step up to it - but I wouldn't love it. I wouldn't want to be that person; that wouldn't be my natural thing.
And, obviously as a, as one who likes to travel around myself a lot, I think the Earth is a beautiful place. And, I'm looking forward to some new perspectives.
Sometimes I'll post goofy photos of myself on Instagram without make-up or making silly faces. I don't always look like a little Barbie doll.
