On average, I order about three meals for myself in one sitting.
When I'm writing, I try not to think things like, 'Gosh, I have to finish writing this book.' Books are very long and it's easy to get discouraged. Instead I think to myself, 'Wow, I have this great story idea, and today I'm going to write two pages of it. That's all - just two pages.'
I always felt myself to be an unlucky person like Donald, who is a victim of so many circumstances. But there isn't a person in the United States who couldn't identify with him. He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make.
While I am most at home in London, I cannot really label myself as either British or Trinidadian. I write in the English language and live in the U.K. I find it hard to say that I am an entirely British writer, especially when I supported Trinidad in the 2006 World Cup and also support the West Indies cricket team.
Every evening, I would excuse myself from playing in the backyard and go inside to watch the evening news... I wanted to get out there and see the world, and as a kid, I knew that Peter Jennings had a thirst and hunger to travel the world, too.
I'm a big micro manager; I'm a stickler about organisation; everything needs a place, a purpose, and micro managing myself even when I'm in the studio.
I try to physically and mentally immerse myself in whatever it is I am doing. That is good for me as an artist. I am always looking for that part that I have never done before, which makes it all the more difficult, because people want to hire you for what they've already seen you do.
The beth din is the court of the chief rabbi. I see myself taking an active role within the beth din.
I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality.
I realize that as the quarterback, you have to assume some sort of leadership role because you have to talk in the huddle on every play, and you're essentially giving out orders to the team. But in my mind, I have to prove myself on the field before I can start asserting a leadership role.
I wore myself out physically and mentally over my career, and I couldn't be there for my daughters in ways I should have been.
I don't see myself acting for the rest of my life.
I came across the Indonesian genocide in 2001, when I found myself making a film in a community of survivors. They were plantation workers, and it turned out they were struggling to organize a union.
Of course, I have to consider that I've written a lot of prose, but I do in my heart think of myself as being originally, and still primarily, a poet.
I've always stayed pretty fit. I felt I needed to give myself energy by exercising and things like that.
I consider myself Istanbul's storyteller. My subject matter is my town. I consider it my job to explore the hidden patterns of my city's clandestine corners, its shady, mysterious places, the things I love.
I don't mind if somebody comes up to me and shakes my hand, but if I'm in the middle of a restaurant and somebody asks me for a picture, I can be a jerk and say no, or I can say yes and draw more attention to myself, which is exactly the opposite of what I want.
I found the right man, got married, and just had to keep not reinventing myself, just deciding that it doesn't matter what you are if you are a good person.
I've never been passionate about just music, I've never seen myself going into music in that sense. My love for music has always been connected to the stories told through music, which is why I was drawn to theater and why I think 'Glee' is so powerful.
I don't know who I can compare my style to because I listen to everybody from old to new. If I hear stuff that I like, I'll definitely gravitate to it and spin it in my own way. I'm a mixture of a lot of people, honestly, but I'm myself.
Back when I was 16, when I should have been doing normal high school things, I availed myself of my brand new driver's license to spend as much time as possible in Milwaukee's Renaissance Book Shop, a tumbledown five-story warehouse that the city was finally able to close down in 2011 for safety reasons. It was my teenage paradise.
I look after myself. I train and go to the gym.
My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.
I don't think I put too much pressure on myself.
In my marriages, I'd lost parts of who I was because I was trying to mold myself into what I thought a man wanted me to be.
I have a very big sweet tooth and I love treating myself to something that I wouldn't necessarily eat during the tournament such as a nice-sized cake.
But more than anything I kind of pride myself in continuing the process that we're trying to accomplish, and that's just to get better and work on my fundamentals. So that's been kind of in the theme now for a couple years and we stuck with it and that's kind of what I want to keep doing.
My goal was simply to be a working actress. I never imagined myself on Broadway.
I just put myself in a hotel and was smoking coke for a while. Then I met up with the wrong people. I ended up getting in a hassle. I had to call the police and get myself arrested or get attacked, ripped off and got to jail. So I called the cops on them and myself.
I hate pride, but if I were going to be proud of anything it would have to be something I'd done myself. Race pride is kind of stupid.
This 'Making Mirrors' album is far more personal, even if there's a character element to the sounds I'm working with. Every song on this album I stand behind; I feel like I have a close relationship with them. There are older songs where I can feel myself writing a story, so this is the first album where I'm proud of every lyric.'
All I wanted to do was write - at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn't need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.
I have this part in myself that sometimes gets me into situations that can never end well, just because I want to prove to myself that I'm no good.
I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say.
I don't get myself caught up in the rhetoric of any personal comments that are made.
I told the record company I didn't feel the need to be at red-carpet events. I wanted a career. But I wanted to keep myself intact as a person.
