Every man, woman and child consumes, on average, 43 teaspoons of sugar a day. In 13 days, that adds up to a five-pound bag of sugar.
When I was really little, I was on a Pop Warner squad. I did it for a year. My dad was a Pop Warner football coach. I did it because my best friend was also on this cheer squad, and of course I looked up to my sister who was a cheerleader, so I wanted to cheer.
I love hair, I love make up, I love fashion, and I love throwing the shot put.
On my teams, as a guy who grew up hunting and fishing, I was in the minority in terms of music and lifestyle. I became good friends with people who listened to R&B and rap. But it wasn't just an issue of being around it - I was naturally drawn to it right off the bat.
I want make more records with my sister. I want to go on the road. I want to tour around the world. I want to continue to make great films and work with incredible directors that I respect and look up to.
I've never been the kind of person who would get up and wave my arms and scream and shout and say, 'Hey, listen to this, listen to this.'
Although I grew up in London, I spent summers in Missouri, where my dad lived. It's quite a liberal town, Kansas City. You'd be surprised.
People, when they come up to me, are like, 'Did we go to high school together? Or did I make out with you at sleepaway camp?' And oftentimes, yes, that is the answer, because I went to a giant high school and made out with everybody.
Ever since I was younger I wanted to be on stage, singing my songs in a glittering costume. And that happened and is still happening. I have to remember that this is what I wished for and be grateful because there are 500 other girls right behind me that are ready to snatch it up.
Women hold up more than half the sky and represent much of the world's unrealized potential. They are the educators. They raise the children. They hold families together and increasingly drive economies. They are natural leaders. We need their full engagement... in government, business and civil society.
I will never forget January 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped up the Constitution.
You cannot compare your athletic achievement to the importance of children and giving them a safe environment in which to grow up and enjoy life.
It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.
I called up and said, 'Dad, I won a MacArthur.' My father goes: 'I always thought your sister would win that,' and I said, 'Dad, just say congratulations and keep your private thoughts private.' At that point he laughed, then burst into tears, and it was obvious that he was so happy and proud.
It was a fairly happy childhood. My father was working away, and my mum brought up five kids all on her own.
When you're a kid growing up, you say you want to make it to the Major Leagues, and when you reach that dream, that's what it's all about.
Up until the Depression, recession had a moral character: it was supposed to purge the body economic of the greed and excess that attends a business expansion.
I loved 'Roger Rabbit' growing up.
If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn't it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?
Priority is placed on the chastity of women. You can be corrupt, or a murderer and still hold your head up high on the street without problems, whereas if there are any suspicions of your chastity and moral behaviour as a woman, you get lynched.
I always marked up a piece of paper before taking a job, looking at the pluses and minuses. If the latter outnumbered the former, I would pass.
Growing up, I really looked up to the classic Hollywood actors like Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Falk. I love character actors - I've never wanted to be the leading guy.
Characters in a book are very much like personalities divvied up within a family. In the end, it all averages out to a sort of overall averageness.
Greg Ginn was certainly a huge influence on my guitar playing. I put him up there with people like Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen changed everything; I don't necessarily like everything he did, but he definitely changed everything.
The whole celebrity thing is not something I'm overly interested in. I don't pop up at parties. It's just not my thing.
I grew up on 135th Street. I grew up on the poor side of New York. I grew up in Harlem.
The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel - often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation.
Playing further up the pitch, you have more opportunities to score and provide assists, and it's something I liked right from the start.
In many of the high schools in the South Bronx, more children will end up in prison than will go to college.
Here is what the practical impact of Citizens United means. What Citizens United means is that corporations call hundreds of millions of dollars into television ads, radio ads, and other forms of advertising to defeat those candidates who stand up and take them on.
When people come up to me and say, 'I read your book,' I'm thinking, 'How dare you! Who gave you a copy?'
I grew up on the north side of Chicago, in West Rogers Park, an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood. When I was 13, my parents moved to Winnetka, Illinois, an upper class, WASPy suburb where Jews - as well as Blacks and Catholics - were unwelcome on many blocks. I suffered the spiritual equivalent of whiplash.
Every radish I ever pulled up seemed to have a mortgage attached to it.
People wrote about me and started calling me a star, and I just hated it. There are aspects of it that are great - I mean, you can ring up any restaurant and get in, can't you.
In school, I learned about artists and how they were free to express themselves. I was allergic to conformity, and the lifestyle attracted me. I wanted to express myself in a way that slammed people up against the wall.
My parents always made me dress up for church. I really didn't want to.
