I've been telling people 'I'm going to go to California, and I'm going to be a big star' since the womb, but lately it was immediately followed by, 'Would you like soup or salad with that?'
Everywhere you look, there is a charity or a project in school to get involved in. In eighth grade, there was this program called CJSF, California Junior Scholarship Foundation. We were involved in soup kitchens and toy drives, and your school can set up something like that. If your school doesn't have a program like that, set one up.
My grandmother on my father's side, a nightclub singer, was a Jewish refugee from Prussia who ended up in Jerusalem, where she met my grandfather - a British army officer. I remember as a child having bowls of chicken soup made by her. There were lots of interesting components, like feet and necks.
I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.
Whatever I'm doing, I'm in that moment and I'm doing it. The rest of the world's lost. If I'm cooking some food or making soup, I want it to be lovely. If not, what's the point of doing it?
I do talk a lot - far more than my husband - but I'm not good at talking to a lot of people. I either talk a lot of rubbish - which I'm sure I do a lot of the time anyway - or I stare at the soup. I'm no good at social presentation.
I started working at a soup kitchen in skid row of Los Angeles when I was 13 years old, and the first day, I felt really scared. I was young, and it was rough and raw down there, and though I was with a great volunteer group, I just felt overwhelmed.
I worked from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m. every night for a year to write the first 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' book.
I always eat a meal at home before I leave for the airport, so I only eat the soup and salad on the plane.