My life motto is 'Do my best, so that I can't blame myself for anything.'
When I was 13, I told my dad I needed to record myself because I sounded awesome, even though I didn't. By 18, I was a lot better. Then I got a publishing deal, so I was writing songs for other people professionally.
I'm at peace with myself and where I am. In the past, I was always looking to see how everybody else was doing. I wasn't competitive, I was comparative. I just wanted to be where everybody else was. Now I've gotten to an age when I am not comparing anymore.
My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh.
When she became very ill with heart trouble, I saw that it would be impossible for my parents to provide for my studies, and I obtained their permission to go to sea to make a career for myself there.
My parents are really well intended, and I think their way of dealing with things is denial and guilt. Nobody wanted to talk about it. But all I did was blame myself.
And God is always calling me to open myself to all kinds of people that I've never thought about before and also calling me on this inward spiritual journey.
I've always worked on the fringe of the British press establishment, carving out this niche for myself.
I looked at myself and realized I had a lot of boundaries up about what I would talk about, what was private for me and what wasn't. I decided to just get rid of them. It was quite liberating.
I didn't think of myself as a tart, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who did.
Yeah, you know, if I'm having an emotional scene I do like to go off and be by myself; not to say that I'm a method actor or anything like that, but for scenes like that that are more emotional, I do like to take that night off and not be so social.
I can only speak for myself - I don't care how I look.
I said to myself, 'I've waited a long time in my life to have a child, and I'm missing it, I want to continue to have a career, but not this way.'
I'm not trying to be sexy. It's just my way of expressing myself when I move around.
Knock wood, but I started acting professionally when I was 16, and I've always been able to support myself since then.
To be very honest, I cannot drape a saree myself. I have never draped one on my own, ever. But it has been done on me so many times, that now I have memorised all the steps, and if someone challenges me, I will surely be able to do it.
What I find really interesting is to try and mix it up, to push myself and try different things. I don't want to stay in my comfort zone. I want to take risks and keep myself scared.
I learned easily and had time to follow my inclination for sports (light athletics and skiing) and chemistry, which I taught myself by reading all textbooks I could get.
I'll do humor about myself, I'll poke fun and everything, but that's me and I can do it to me. I think it's cruel to do it to somebody else.
I learn how to put myself in situations at practice that cause me to zone in on what I'm trying to accomplish at meets. I try to make my practice surrounding as close to competition pressure to focus on what I need to do on the big stage.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
I consider myself a kind of a nerd, because when we go to the coffee shop in the mornings, we sit there in a very neat row with our laptops. It's just like being at work, but with coffee and panini. And, of course, you don't get paid.
When I wake up in the morning, I don't think of myself as being better than anybody else. I think of myself as a good hitter.
I'm just kind of odd. There are dark forces in the world, and if you pay attention to what's going on around you, you end up incorporating it into the storytelling. Maybe it's some aspect of myself that's coming through that people are seeing, that I am in fact a quiet psycho.
There was a lot of playing by myself, wearing last year's Halloween costume and wandering around the yard talking to myself - which may account for my fondness for doing different voices.
I'm going to get myself one of those, um, movable computers - what do you call them... ? Laptops! I am bad. I still call my radio a wireless.
As time went on, I got envious and wanted to do a lot of stunts myself.
It is scary to write - period - for me, but once you get past the idea that it's scary to write, I still can only be who I am. As a writer, my job, to me, is to expose myself - to really sort of dig in and find out who I am and then put it on the page.
Most of my characters are an amalgamation of people that I've met, my family, or myself. Being a writer, you can draw only from what you know. I am lucky to have really rich and interesting people in my family for, you know, interesting family nights and great characters.
There's simply too much fuss about myself.
I didn't like children. I didn't think of myself as a child. I didn't like any of the things other children were interested in.
I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.
There are actually times when there are crimes out there in the world and I find myself trying to figure it out and I ask myself, what am I doing?
I want to develop a small make-up line myself. I want to combine all the things that I love and just create them the way I want them to be.
I told myself after 2008 that I was done for good. But they say you can't keep a gymnast away from her sport.
I was always into pop music, Destiny's Child, songs with catchy music. Even when I was writing when I was younger, it wasn't all about expressing myself; it was just about making fun music.
