My mother worked when I was growing up, so I was under the impression I'd find it easy to be a working mum. But I found it very hard to be away from my family, even for short periods of time.
My mum had me brought up by nannies and governesses. I didn't have much to do with my parents until I was 21.
Someone has to pick up the tab when people get out of repaying their own debts.
I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.
An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
I don't know anyone who hasn't woken up one morning, one day in their life and wish they were someone else, or wish they could do something or wish they were capable of something.
Any society that could come here could pick up the lights from New York. What should we do about that? Should we darken New York from now until the last human expires? Would we want to turn off all the radars at JFK airport?
Self-esteem is made up primarily of two things: feeling lovable and feeling capable.
Is anyone serious about the politics of happiness? David Cameron dipped a toe in the water, using the word lightly, but denying the hard policies it implies. Labour shies away from it, but should take up the challenge.
Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
I wake up in the morning, I do a little stretching exercises, pick up the horn and play.
When I go, God's going to have to give up his favourite chair.
There's something about that idea of looking up and hoping, and thinking, 'I'm good.' Some things, like show business, are absolutely subjective. People look at a TV show and think, 'I could do that.' And maybe they could do that. But they're not.
I was learning to track rhinoceroses in Africa and tracked right up on an animal that really I thought was going to kill me.
If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir.
I've grown to love California: It's the dream of every English musician to come here and work in the sunshine. To walk up Sunset Boulevard, knowing you're going to make music - that's it.
You'd believe that a patient with hypertension, if you know you have hypertension or diabetes, you would take your drug every day. The compliance rate is more like 30% or 40%. Which means that 60% of patients don't take their drugs, and they actually go into these crises, end up in the hospital.
Most television shows are going to require an actor sign up from four to six years, but an anthology show really amounts to five or six months at the most. I thought serious actors might be attracted to that.
There are companies trying to build business within Saudi Arabia, and what they find is that if they try to bring on locals and teach them how to become senior executives, they just don't show up to work. They are not predictable as to when they'll come in and how much of their hearts are into that opportunity.
When people note that more and more voters are cutting their landline phones and that more and more people are refusing to pick up phone calls from numbers they don't know, they are identifying problems that the polling industry has long struggled with and continue to try to adapt to.
I think the Tea Party movement is great. I think anybody who has been frustrated over the last few years with the Republicans and Democrats, when they were trying to grow government and have spending and we weren't focusing on creating jobs and get our private sector growing again, I think that's when people started to wake up.
You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.
When you're working in front of the camera, there are always things that occur to you after the director has said 'Cut.' I could probably, if I sat down and thought about it, come up with instances where I wished I had made this particular choice or that particular choice.
I love and collect contemporary art and go to all the art fairs. I love Damien Hirst and Matthew Barney. I grew up in Italy and had a humanistic education in philosophy and literature - things I love and appreciate. People are richer and more complex than just their day-to-day professional pursuits might suggest.
When I was growing up in Iraq, there was an unbroken belief in progress and a great sense of optimism. It was a moment of nation building.
Pittsburgh, for a while, became a production centre. There was one $400 million year. Hollywood was bringing productions in there. Films like 'The Silence of the Lambs' and 'Innocent Blood.' So my guys, the guys I worked with, were able to have careers and live at home. But then it dried up, and a lot of my friends left.
I've always been a big fan of time travel, and I'm very into the notion that some day we'll be able to do it. Beam me up!
I grew up on DC Comics, moral tales where the bad guys got their comeuppance. To me the gory panels or grotesque stuff just made me chuckle.
When I feel good about myself, things start happening for myself. When you look up, you go up.
It's important for everyone to stand up for what they believe in.
Unfortunately, the rights to 'System Shock' trademark and copyright are both up in the air.
There's show business, and the business is sometimes in capital letters. You just have to give it your best shot when up at bat.
Don't get me wrong: there are some fantastic people who work at British Cycling who kept me together, who were there when I was struggling with it all. They were walking the same tightrope in many ways, because if you do speak up, your days are numbered.
There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that's because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they're up there onstage in the spotlight making a huge audience keel over with laughter.
Newsflash for any of the current, past or future Survivors out there... when you contemplate strategizing about the other team, the best idea is to shut up and keep it to yourself. You're welcome; this bill is in the mail.
