My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music.
When I wrote my eighth thriller, 'Inside Out,' in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners.
I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids, who are mooning me and singing me songs.
It took me until my teenage years to realize that I was medicating with music. I was pushing back against my stupid school uniform, instructors who called me by my last name and my classmates, who, while friendly enough, were not at all inspiring.
My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare.
I don't take reviews very seriously, but in their totality I think they are representative of how the audience feels, and of what their reaction is. There's always one guy who doesn't get it.
Those who easily forgive invite offenses.
People who never get carried away should be.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
I live in Spain. Oscars are something that are on TV Sunday night. Basically, very late at night. You don't watch, you just read the news after who won or who lost.
I'm pretty sure it was President Bill Clinton who brought me back into politics and following it.
In 1800, in the first interparty contest, the Federalists warned that presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, because of his sympathy expressed at the outset of the French Revolution, was 'the son of a half-breed Indian squaw' who would put opponents under the guillotine.
It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black. So I'm supposed to think a certain way. I'm supposed to have certain opinions. I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them.
People who truly love us can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive us our worst sins. Rarely do you find someone capable of both.
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
I'm especially interested in projects from authors who were always wonderful writers but who got stuck in the midlist mire due to the challenges of traditional publishing.
Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.
I'd stay away from investments in a variety of sectors that are capital intensive. Anyone who says we need $100 million before we know if what we're doing makes sense and the customers want it - that's not going to work.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
Vicars, MPS and lawyers were amont those who considered me to be the best hostess in London.
I'm a true singer who grew up singing in church, so I love singing my heart out.
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.
Anyone who knows me knows that I always like to keep moving.
I think it would be super, hella cool to hop into a cab & hear my song on the radio - like, 'Yeah!' - and also be like, 'Who is this Griz guy? He's horrible.' That'd be really cool.
I do not know of a Chinese blogger who has gone to jail, but I know several who have had their blogs shut down. I also know some Chinese bloggers who have received threatening phone calls from police warning them to 'be careful.' In some cases, they stopped blogging for a while.
I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn't know what they want. And that can be really, really frustrating.
I didn't know who Langston Hughes was till he met me backstage.
I can't write about rich people having relationship problems and breaking up in New York. I don't know that world of Terrence McNally. I knew I had to write people who talk the way I talk. And they talked very different than Terrence McNally.
She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
I don't want to see that two-tier Senegal, that two-tier Africa, when you have those at the top and those at the bottom, people who are hungry, people who do not have enough to eat.
You know who helped me a lot? Jane Fonda. She said, Look at how many times I've been up and I've been down. So don't worry about anything.
Perhaps a child who is fussed over gets a feeling of destiny; he thinks he is in the world for something important, and it gives him drive and confidence.
I think a role model is a person who says, 'This is who I am.'
Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises.
I have found that the players who have played in that game really do have respect for their adversaries.
