I'm not great at dealing with death, I have to say. I find death very hard: my mum, my dad, Sid Vicious. I'm not a monster; I feel it and it scares me. One death at a time, please, is all my heart will bear.
My best album is called In Search Of A Song. That was my best shot right there. My finest hour, as they say. I could listen to the whole thing all the way through. There's nothing really crammed into it.
Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments - the American people really don't care.
I have another aspect of my career where I'm a scholar of Yiddish and Hebrew literature, and I'll say that when you study Yiddish literature, you know a whole lot about forgotten writers. Most of the books on my shelves were literally saved from the garbage. I am sort of very aware of what it means to be a forgotten artist in that sense.
I love performing, you know, because, like I say, I'm a ham for this stuff.
I say don't overreact; cool your jets. Focus on things that you can control: your business, your employees' welfare, your guests, and the quality of the product that you dish up. Do that, keep your chin down, pay attention to business, and the sun will come up tomorrow. That's the way I figure it.
It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.
I don't want to be the young girl that people say, 'Man, that Lauren Alaina girl, she's got a lot of talent, but she's lost her mind.' I don't ever want that to be me - ever.
I operate under the theory that all publicity is good publicity, and then, if that theory doesn't work, you just say that any newspaper article ends up on the bottom of the parrot cage. But, of course, you can't line a parrot cage with Internet bloggers, can you?
It's important to me that no one can say I'm not pumping out high-level research.
Some people are really proud of me, and some don't like it. I don't really know what to tell those people. It's like people that don't know me or people that aren't even my friends saying I've changed. I have two friends - exactly two friends. It's like, how can someone that's not even my friend say I've changed?
When you go through some controversy and you see your face on the news in a negative way for 48 hours... you doubt yourself. And your friends make the difference. They become a safety net that come in and say, 'That's not the case.' And the relationships that you've built... come to the fore.
I was in Puerto Rico going to school, and it was very jarring for me. 'Traumatic' is the only way that I can say it. Kids were making fun of me: 'Oh, you're a Yankee.' And I acted out a lot. A lot. But looking back, and through a little bit of therapy, everything I am has to do with that time.
Every time I go to the dentist they say, 'You really need to fix that gap of yours'. I'm like, 'My gap is paying your dentist bills.'
I'm not ashamed to say I love television. I put the TV on, and my brain switches off, and I just sit there for a few hours.
I'm glad people think that I can do well. I always say I would rather that be the scenario than on the other end of it saying, 'We thought she'd be real crappy.' I'll take the side that I'm on. I'll take that people think that I'm going to do well; they have faith in me and believe in me, and that makes me feel stronger.
Things pop out of people's mouths that you wouldn't expect them to say, so I've stopped trying to guess ahead of time who might be interesting to talk to.
I do feel almost violent when I'm watching things that I don't think are good enough. I get furious for the audience. I want to say to them, 'This play is not supposed to be like this. They've got it completely wrong. You should be electrified by this.'
I love pop music. I listen to it; I think you can hear it in my songwriting and my album. I'd definitely say it's country-pop music, but it's country first.
Our plans for 'Superman?' I can't say. This is the most super secret thing ever. It's like working for the government, like I'm on a covert mission.
People want to express themselves - that's what fashion is for. You can go to Target and get something that Rodarte designed for $34, but would you want to go buy the higher version for $3,400? I think most people would say no.
I wouldn't say no to becoming a Bond girl. Making it in Hollywood has been my dream ever since I was little, watching Marilyn Monroe movies. To star in a Bond movie would be bliss on a stick.
Honestly, I'm cool with everyone, and people pick up on that. I'd say, 'I'm not gay, but it's all good.' It's kind of like going to Paris when you don't know the language; some Americans get into trouble over there, but I'm just like, 'Sorry, I don't speak French.'
I'm not big on the pasty because they say the pastry in the pasty can bring on indigestion.
I would say that financial markets are very inefficient, and capable of extremes of being completely dysfunctional.
It's hard to say exactly what it is about face-to-face contact that makes deals happen, but whatever it is, it hasn't yet been duplicated by technology.
If the country has invested in the training of doctors or nurses or midwives for that matter, people are beginning to say, 'Should we not ask them to serve a number of years in the country who invested in their training?' I think this is now coming to be an interesting discussion.
Man, if I get a chance to speak on the microphone, I've got to say something somewhere in there. You know, I'm going to laugh and have fun, too, but something has to be said that has some substance, because this is a platform, and the power that we have with words and with this microphone is phenomenal.
The good thing I will say about the Chicago School is that it was always about the world, not about the abstract.
But what I was going to say was, I just figured I'm going to go boldly in the direction of my dreams, say it as Thoreau would say, and just see where it takes me.
I see a lot of actors that are doing things to please their coaches, their teachers in the past. They say 'No' to parts they should have said 'Yes' to simply because of the opinion of people in their past. I have no one in my past who is judging me and saying, 'Maybe you shouldn't do that.' I'll do it all.
I feel a lot of people listen to what I have to say.
Lobbying is not a bad thing. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't have lobbyists or we shouldn't have lobbying to petition our government. It's in the Constitution, and it's something that should be honorable and good.
I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.
People say 'Women's Wear' is a scandalous, gossipy publication. Sure we have gossip; we also have some very, very solid business stories. We are a creation of this business, which is fast, mean, tough, sometimes artistic, sometimes horrible.
It is difficult to meet fan expectations, especially when people say, 'Oh, the last one was the best one.' It creates more pressure each time for the next game to top the last one.
