I don't need anyone to look after me financially and, while it's hard to trust that a man loves you for the right reasons, you have to take a leap of faith.
When you're 14, 15, and you get together and start making a noise, it is the world opening up. You have that indestructible feeling when you're young. But your ambitions when you are 13 are different when you're 25. By that time, your ambition isn't to be a star anymore; it's to make a living doing music.
You don't need tons of money to create art. You do need tons of money to be a part of show business. They are two different things.
I kept thinking, 'How do you make a modern musical?' Then it became clear that I could do it just like a small indie art-house movie, very naturalistically. I could create a world where it's o.k. to break into song, without an orchestra coming up out of nowhere.
We all have cultural bias, racial bias. One of the difficult things around this subject matter is to deny that we have places we go to subconsciously, and unless you consciously decide that that's wrong and you've got to do something about it, especially if you're in a position of power, it won't change.
I'm like, 'Would you be the person in the room that would boo when Dylan went electric? I know I wouldn't. Or are you the person that left The Beatles after 'She Loves You,' or 'Drive My Car?' You weren't on board for 'Revolution 9' or 'Day In The Life,' were you?'
At most schools, if you switch majors, you basically start over. That means more semesters... and more money. The former might be appealing, but the latter is a major problem for a demographic already saddled with student debt.
Let me tell you this, if I had wanted to have a library of audio and videotapes of Bill Clinton, I could have had that. And after I was accused of being a liar, I wished that I had of.
I had one of the best days of my life. I spent the afternoon with my two kids and my ex-wife at Serendipity. Then I came to the theater, and you know, I think I did the play the best I've ever done it.
In a leadership role in Iraq and in running my own business, what I've learned is if you don't listen, you're going to strike out. You're going to fail miserably. The people you work with have got to know you're engaged and you're listening.
People want to get to know you. I don't think America got a chance to know me in that short time.
There is a core value I wanted to illuminate: No matter what kind of family you have - straight, gay, married, single parent, separated, no kids, two kids, 20 kids, whatever - we all go through the human comedy. But if the bonds are strong enough, and the desire is there, you can get to the other side, still together and still a family.
A maturing process, and growth, is always painful. You ask any teenager, they will tell you, and it's just like that for the country. We need to grow; we need to evolve.
I thought back to my middle-school experience of having slumber parties and watching Romeo + Juliet and staring at Leo and thinking about my first kiss and what I wanted it to be like. And when you have your first real love, it's an epiphany, you know? It's like a whole new world.
The polls are just being used as another tool of voter suppression. The polls are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. Yours. They want to depress the heck out of you.
Especially in the day and age now with social media and cameraphones and things like that, you always have to act like you're being watched.
I'm like, 'Wow, I guess a lot of people didn't have this type of upbringing'... that old world technique of, you know, nothing's given to you, you've gotta work for everything you've done... It's just different from what I'm seeing today.
I'm a very happy university professor... the best thing about being a university professor is that you see young people as they're being shaped and molded toward their own future, and you have a chance to be a part of that.
If the world is telling you you're successful, but you don't feel it, you might as well have failed.
They expect a certain amount of leniency or mercy from me because I'm a woman, and if you've ever met my mother, you should know that's not even in the cards. She's much tougher than I am - she's a retired schoolteacher, so she's seen it all.
The one thing that people don't get about GE is that, to the people who work here, it's not a company. It's not just a job. You feel like you're part of a 120-year-old ever-growing, ever-improving family.
I always played the ugly sister instead of Cinderella or the Wicked Witch. But those are the parts I love, and actually, to be a character actress, you have more longevity, hopefully.
Sometimes fitness is a good thing to have, but you have to recognise that fitness takes you only so far, and skills are the most important thing. Fitness just helps you execute those cricketing skills for longer and more consistently, maybe.
When I was a kid it was much more difficult. You're trying to understand what the director wants. It's a learning process. Now, you go in and it's more of a collaboration.
People criticize you for trying new things. I think, 'I'm new! I'm 22!' I don't know exactly what my sound is or what I want my album to sound like, so I'm not releasing it yet. While I'm experimenting, I'll let you in on the journey, and you can hear it for free.
I suppose Virgin is an unusual brand in that I suspect we're the only 'way of life' brand in the world. We're one of maybe the top 30 best known brands in the world, yet if you look at the other 29, they all specialize in one area. Whether it's Google, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, etc., they all generally specialize in one area.
Whether 'Avatar' is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick 'District 9', released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race.
I never knew how ugly and how stupid I was until, you know, we had Twitter.
Las Vegas audiences are swingers. They're drinkers and swingers, and they like to have a good time and party. I never had a bad audience in my career. Sometimes it may take a little longer to get them, you know. But I would get them. I'd get standing ovations... Everything is attitude. It's very important to always like what you're doing.
Golf can be tougher than tennis when things go wrong, because you can't explain things by saying that your opponent played better than you. It's a cruel sport in that way.
I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.
Be your true self. Because if you're not, there are consequences to be paid.
Folks, I can tell you I've known eight presidents, three of them intimately.
It's really weird when we're out of the country, whether we're in Brazil or Greece or some crazy place like France or Germany. When you hear your song on the radio or in a store, and you're in a different country, it's really freaky and surreal.
Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.
Sufferers of depression have 'episodes' the same way those who suffer from multiple sclerosis do. It comes, wipes the floor with you, and then somehow returns you to the world. But it comes back.
