When I first started, I would go to Weist-Barron, and I studied with Rita Litton and ACTeen. For teenagers, it's a really, really great school. We did a lot of on-camera stuff, so you see yourself and what you do on camera.
The kinetic quality of New York, the kids, dirt, madness - I tried to find a photographic style that would come close to it. So I cropped, blurred, played with the negatives.
My first venture was to trade bicycle parts and hosiery yarn. The initial days proved to be difficult, and I earned very little from my business. But I kept at it. Each day, when I retired for the night, I told myself that money would come in the next day.
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
One of my business partners would remind me that no fashion line lasts forever, that we would hit the down curve eventually, and that we needed to look for new brands that complement the first one.
It would be hard to play a character you don't like - for me anyway - or can't find something in them to like.
All of my life I have asked the question, 'Who would I be if I had grown up in a loving home?' And I have no way to answer it. I don't know if I would be placid and satisfied with whatever is around me - a happy, jolly, sedentary person.
I would say I'm more traditional than I am superstitious. I don't, for example, have to do things ritually before the game in order to feel comfortable going to the game. But I don't think I'm naturally a football player. I don't have that grit and that killer instinct.
I would never really analyse what I do. I leave that to other people - I'm not a critic. I just want to get on with whatever I have in hand, you know? Just try to make the best job of the available material.
I think a part of the reason that those early plays were short was that I just kept having these ideas, and I'd just go off and write them. I wasn't trying to write one-act plays - it's just how the ideas would be expressed. Every condition I was in seemed like it could be a play.
I used to have a blankie, and when my mom had to wash it, I would sit outside the dryer and watch it go round and round, and cry.
If golf wasn't enjoyable and there wasn't a lot of humor and enjoyment, even though the game is so frustrating, you would wonder why you put yourself through it.
I fell in love with stories watching a British television puppet show called 'Thunderbirds' when it first came out on TV, about 1965, so I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I went out into the garden at my mom and dad's house, and I used to play with my little dinky toys, little cars and trucks and things.
In medical school, you're taught to write in this convoluted, Latinate way. I knew the vocabulary as well as anyone, but I would write kidney instead of nephric. I insisted on using English.
It's hard to write new stuff when the songs you have written before are still changing and evolving. It would be like building something when the foundations there are not really solid.
I was always interested in comedy, like when I was 5 years old. I watched 'I Love Lucy' and 'Benny Hill.' I would always joke around with my sister. My mom was into comedy, too. She would go to the video store and get a couple of movies and some stand-up comedians' tapes.
My parents were very volatile but very loving. My father would get jealous if my mother looked at somebody. I used to be insanely jealous. It comes out of insecurity. It can come and go, but you get to the point in life where you don't have this raging jealousy and protectiveness about your world.
Mum and dad would drive me to the ACT Academy of Sport gym at 5 A.M., sit in the car and read a book, and then drive me to school. I appreciated it when I was younger, but I didn't really understand how much they were putting into it. Now I look at budgets of $70,000 to compete, and I think, 'Wow, they've put so much into this.'
All kids love to get dirty, but if I wandered into the garage, my father would say: 'Son, you're not going to have filthy hands like mine. You're going into show business.'
In all the time that people have known me, has anyone ever heard me talk about the importance of rushing records or finishing with the most touchdowns? So if that's never been important to me, then why would that be a motivation to keep playing?
And check this out: If every American had one meat-free day per week, it would be the same as taking eight million cars off American roads in a year.
I never in a million years thought I would be the person to go to for self-esteem; that was not my intent. But I happen to love beauty, I love the way people look, and I love making women look beautiful.
Name one experienced coach anywhere in the world that would hand over their playbook to the other team. Unless it's a fake playbook, it just doesn't happen.
I did keep detailed journals from about fifth grade on, and every so often as I was growing up, I would re-read them and reflect on the previous years of my life.
I went to a Catholic all-girls school, and we would play cassettes of music we liked, and when it was my turn, they would laugh at my choices. I would play Billie Holliday, Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf, but it was fine; if I had to listen to their choices, they had to listen to mine.
I've always been inspired by women, and my mission was to inspire women. I always wanted to become a certain kind of woman, and I became that woman through fashion. It was a dialogue. I would see that the wrap dress made those women confident, and made them act with confidence.
I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird'... I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.
If you took away all pain, if everyone lived forever, everything would be bland, flat and boring; there would be no reason for art, music, newspapers, love because we would all be in a mono state of happiness.
Africa has lost its dream, and when people don't have a dream and don't pursue it, they flounder. People are shocked that I would move to Africa. But I say the place of greatest need is the place of greatest opportunity.
I think my fans would probably be surprised to know I'm not insane - I'm not a crazy person in real life. I'm a pretty low-key dude. I like chilling at home and playing with my dog.
To an observer situated on the moon or on one of the planets, the most noticeable feature on the surface of our globe would no doubt be the large areas covered by oceanic water. The sunlit face of the earth would appear to shine by the light diffused back into space from the land and water-covered areas.
This is going to sound crazy, but there was a period of time where on TLC they would show those surgeries - like a woman had a 90-pound tumor, or they separated these twins. And my sister and I - she lived in Ohio when I lived in California - would watch them together on the phone.
The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.
Sometimes we're tone-deaf in Washington, and we listen only to ourselves. We do not hear the cry of people who want answers, want action, want protection, and have some darn good ideas as to how to provide it if only we would listen.
Chileans have this rumor that they're great soccer players, but I stunk as a soccer player. I always had to hide my nationality when they were picking teams because, just by the look of me, they would think that I was a great soccer player.
Comedy can be, especially in a writer's room, really aggressive, kind of a very male-dominated room, and it would be hard for women. It's not a nurturing place. It's not like a lot of women are going to say, I can't wait to live that lifestyle and be in a writer's room until 2 or 3 a.m.
