A person like myself, born and raised in the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, to lower-middle-class parents. But I had the opportunity to get an education, to go and earn a commission in the United States Army, to serve for 22 years, to lead men and women in combat.
When I was younger, my mother and I, we'd have these crazy, crazy fights. Everyone would storm out mad, and the only way that I'd be able to express myself was to write her. We would write letters back and forth for days. When I'm writing, I feel uninterrupted. I write what I'm going through and how I see it.
What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself.
When I first got pregnant, I freaked out. Then I had to remind myself: I'm turning 30.
I was racing through life, utterly confused and angry. I don't know if I was out of control; it was more like I felt frustrated with myself and everything I saw happening around me.
I was perceiving myself as good as a man or equal to a man and as powerful and I wanted to look ambiguous because I thought that was a very interesting statement to make through the media. And it certainly did cause quite a few ripples and interest and shock waves.
Nowadays I'd describe myself as earnest, terribly earnest. I'm the person who wants everybody in the room to feel important and happy.
I really wanted to give people that tool, that thing, that answer, 'Well, what are you going to do after Katrina? How does New Orleans come back?' And I'm thinking to myself, New Orleans is back. We're the definition of 'back.' We're the definition of 'rebirth,' of 'renaissance.'
I myself have already spent a third of my life in Germany, first in Cologne and then, since 1994, in Berlin.
I suffer a lot with mental health and stuff, so I had to find something that was going to make me OK with who I was and also give me some peace and happiness with being alive. So yeah, I've worked hard on myself.
I'm looking forward to being able to retire from being a public figure and being able to afford to be myself!
Writing and singing does give me some kind of release from the demons of my past, it is a therapy of sorts, but to be honest, my marriage played a more important role in the acceptance of myself than performance has ever done.
I want to work for myself, and I do work for myself. I make plenty of money working for myself.
A woman's body never really belongs to herself. As an infant, my body was my mother's, a detachable extension of her own, a digestive passage clamped and unclamped from her body. My parents would watch over it, watch over what went into and out of it, and as I grew up, I would be expected to carry on their watching by myself.
What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.
All novels are about crime. You'd be hard pressed to find any novel that does not have an element of crime. I don't see myself as a crime novelist, but there are crimes in my books. That's the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world.
If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.
I have started exploring my own life and have started valuing myself. I have started valuing my individuality.
Through teaching myself how to be happy and get through things, I hope I can also do that for other people.
I've messed myself up more playing music than when I played football.
I just think of myself as a comedian, really.
I think if you look at the realm we're discussing, which is the political realm, I think it would be impossible to find an action by any politician intended to specifically favor either my firm or myself.
Lisa understands me. I'm very complex, but I have trouble opening up to people. I tend to keep things to myself. All my life, I've been kind of shy - opening up is always a challenge and Lisa can understand that.
There was a moment in my life when I really wanted to kill myself. And there was one other moment when I was close to that. But even in my most jaded times, I had some hope.
I am not the sort of person who divests myself of everything that came before I came to Australia. I want to take all the knowledge and experiences I gained when I was in England and put it at the service of Australia because I have to bring something to Australia - not just money but myself.
I'm an impatient person in many respects. I like to put myself in uncomfortable situations. It forces me to deliver.
I wouldn't change being married. It was good for me, and I was happy for a period of time, and I learned a lot about myself.
Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that.
Pretty much at all times music motivates me. How can I say this without sounding in any way proud of myself? Obviously I've always written songs that are critical of our government, and talk about our times. Hopefully you attempt to be timeless while doing it.
I wouldn't call myself a dancer. I would never even dance in a club - I can't move my feet! I'm terribly shy about moving. I feel comfortable in my body, but dancing is like learning another language.
Some advice I would give myself from the Spirit Squad years - try and get taller.
Nothing's funnier to me than laughing at myself.
As soon as I went to painting school in New York, I took an experimental film course, and everything clicked and came together. I realized my love of music and drama and the visual arts all came together. This happened in 1989. Since then, it's been a long road of educating myself in every possible way.
Whenever I'm on my computer, I don't type 'lol'. I type 'lqtm' - laugh quietly to myself. It's more honest.
I have time to breathe, time to be myself more often, I am a lot more relaxed and less guarded.
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.
