I knew nothing about my mum's family. Her parents were dead by the time she was 14. She was brought up by two aunts, and she only ever met one uncle.
I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don't think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.
Davos is probably the world's most elite society, but it dresses itself up as a non-elite event. Don't be fooled. You must wear a specially coloured badge, which shrieks your status to others.
You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.
When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.
When I had my first camera - I was a child of the '80s. I remember what it was like reusing the same tapes over and over again, and having really bad quality and images kind of bubbling up from under the surface.
Government shouldn't try to dictate what art looks like or what it portrays. Last thing we want is government screwing it up, which is what they would do.
I'm real, and that what you see is what you get with me. I want people to know that I'm just Julianne. I'm not somebody that needs to be put up on a pedestal.
I grew up on a farm and didn't have connections, and I had a dream that I believed in, and I felt passionate about it, so if I can instill hope into somebody too with the film, that's what I most want.
Be very professional because it will get you a lot further. You have to treat people with the same respect whether they're signing your checks or cleaning up after you.
Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up.
Yeah, I kind of grew up in front of the camera: I started modeling when I was two.
People feel they are not participating in the decision-making process. Decisions are exclusive to those at the very top. You have grown up with crony capitalism and it creates ever more resentment.
I think it's hilarious that you would give an endorsement deal to someone who you've heard their lyrics a million times and you thought it was cool. And then they said something a little messed up and you take the endorsement deal away.
It may seem strange, but the most grateful I've ever felt was when I was held up at gunpoint. After I handed over my wallet and the mugger ran off into the woods, I thought, 'Thank you for not shooting me.' I was overwhelmingly glad to be alive and unharmed.
Some of my clothes are things that we'd play dress up with when we were little, and it's funny that now I'm wearing it, like, as an everyday thing. But if I say 'vintage' or 'thrifted' on the blog, there's this community of fashion bloggers, and I've become sort of tight with some of them, and we, like, just send each other packages.
In a way, I had a very good and normal childhood. I had loving and caring parents. But I had a lot of quirks or problems when I was growing up. I had phobias and obsessions.
What I really like about 'Grit' - especially being the guy who goes on TV every week and says 'Never Give Up' and who truly tries to live his life to that credo - we recruited 16 people who said, 'I will never give up.' And the only way they can leave the contest is by doing the one thing they said they never would.
I love watching movies. It breaks up the monotony of the road and momentarily takes you somewhere else.
I think we live in a unique time - the verbs that make up our online and mobile lives haven't been completely invented or imagined for us. That was kind of a life path I was on.
Success comes from taking the initiative and following up... persisting... eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life?
I need my family to remind me in a loving and nice way to lighten up.
It doesn't take a degree in economics to know that something is wrong when it takes $30 or $40 to fill up the gas tank.
I was very fortunate to grow up with parents who love to travel, so I traveled from a young age. My dad's a heart surgeon and goes to conferences all over the world. By the time I was seven, I traveled outside the country for the first time. We went to Paris. The next year, we went to London, and then Brussels.
I grew up on comic books. 'X-Men' was my favorite team; Wolverine was my guy. At 8 years old, I dressed up as Wolverine with Adamantium claws that I made out of aluminum!
I grew up with all boys in my family, where there was no place for girlie stuff. But it's amazing to walk into my house now. Everything is pink!
You have to know why you get up every morning.
At school, myself and some pals, all football-daft, divided up the old English First Division and wrote off to half a dozen clubs each asking for a trial.
When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about plain, normal, everyday girls.
I saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman' when I was about 15, and I couldn't get up from my seat in the theater; I was so... I was weeping, and I was upset. And I find that people are still like that in a similar circumstance in a theater today, where they just can't get up. It's too heartbreaking.
There's always a part of my brain saying: 'Stop getting comfortable. Don't relax.' Because I find it difficult to write when I'm happy. I have to go out there and get battered up and bruised to write anything. I have to feel something.
You have seen on TV how hard it is to go up 129,000 feet and how hard it is to come down.
My biggest goal in life will be achieved when I have a family, when I have my own kids that I can raise myself and bring up based on what I know. I always think it's the wildest idea - raising a whole, entire human is insane to me, and I've always wanted kids.
I grew up loving women and without misogyny, rancour or prejudice, totally loved and loving. And no matter what has happened since, I don't think I have treated women in my life very badly.
I had an invitation to contribute a track to a Robert Johnson tribute album, and it was the first time I'd done anything like that in my life. I was not brought up with the blues or anything like that, and I really, really enjoyed it.
I came up in gospel.
