I'm very comfortable in my own skin now. I started just being myself more and more. For women, this happens as you get older. I loved my 40s - I thought they were fantastic. And I'm loving my 50s. I'm going to love everything because you're either older or dead!
I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.
I used to think that deadlines should be ignored until the product was ready: that they were a nuisance, a hurdle in front of quality, a forced measure to get something out the door for the good of the schedule, not the customer.
The decision to use only the name Christo was made deliberately when we were young because it is difficult for one artist to get established and we wanted to put all the chances on our side.
My parents were just as smart as I am, just as hard working if not harder; I think my father and grandfather were probably better men, yet I've been able to accomplish things professionally that they were not able to.
Belushi was one of my very first heroes. At a time when film, television, and music were undergoing tectonic shifts within American culture, he was at the center of it all. At that moment, he had the number one show on television, the number one film at the box office, and the number one record on the charts.
So many of the things I've predicted were technologies that were just sitting right in front of us.
Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.
I was always really interested in startups and fascinated by what they were working on.
I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he had a great record collection. He had - it was all - these were the songs. So I heard a lot of these songs, like, my whole life, so for me it was easy. I already knew what I was going to sing.
If the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were private companies and were chronically unable to accomplish one of their key missions, their shareholders would have long ago revolted, fired their management, and their stock would be trading at values near zero.
I didn't know I was doing film noir, I thought they were detective stories with low lighting!
It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought, artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren't. Never something you set out to be.
It's not about where you were born or where you come from that makes you a good scientist. What you need are good teachers, co-students, facilities.
We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.
Yeah, I think if I were to go again, I'd try to go more on gut feelings and stick with it. I was on to Frederique. I found clues for everything, I found tons of stuff.
I have three younger siblings, so the four of us were outside all the time after school playing games, making up games. My sister made up a game called 'roof ball.' We'd play that constantly. She always beat me in it, and it made me very mad. But we were outside all the time.
If I had to compare any of the two, I'd compare the first one in Edmonton, the first one here in New York because it had been so long in New York since we had won. Obviously, being the first time to ever win the cup in Edmonton, they were fairly similar in that regard.
I was never directly pressured by peers, but by surrounding myself with others who were experimenting with smoking provided a certain false comfort.
If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
I'm the female Bob Woodward! If I were a liberal, I couldn't write another book. I'd be so busy collecting awards! I'd be posing for the cover of 'Vanity Fair!'
I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.
Everyone in the United States asks me about being a woman CEO. To be honest, it has had no impact on my career. While I was at BCG, it didn't matter whether you were a man or a woman. The only thing that mattered was that you were good at your job.
Boxing is a dying sport, really. Years ago, the world heavyweight champion could be said to have reached the highest pinnacle of sport. Even in this country, boxers were heroes. Think of Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno.
I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.
There are many talented people who haven't fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, or they were too cautious, and were unwilling to make the leap of faith.
During my undergraduate training at UCLA, I was studying finance and securities; my particular interest was with mutual funds. Wanting to get into a high position at some of the companies that were doing that, I knew that law would be useful.
I think you have to remember that Americans saw their purpose as so innately good that they could excuse the pain they would inflict on others to carry out those purposes. Because the purposes were so good, they would justify this pain we were inflicting on other people.
My days, if they start in the morning with a cuddle from my son, are just so much more glorious than they were prior to that.
I won it, at least five million times. Men who were stronger, bigger and faster than I was could have done it, but they never picked up a pole, and never made the feeble effort to pick their legs off the ground and get over the bar.
When I was a kid, there were some people around me who were a bad influence. When I met my girlfriend Sofia, who is now my wife, I think it all changed. She was very important for me, because she steered me back on to the path I wanted to be on.
Two more years were to go by before I knew anything about William Blake. Many years later, when his wife died, my godfather gave me the two books as a remembrance.
It was all a back-handed blessing, and my friends were the ones who kept the faith, read my work, and urged me to submit it to publishers (by sending it out for me - they would not hear no for an answer.
I had the great good fortune to interview Peggy Lee. Her memories of working with Walt Disney and his team were warm and upbeat.
I was depressed about the roles that were on offer, so I had to make my own stories.
The one I remember is going into London, as it was for us in Essex, on New Year's Eve in 1981. There were four of us and we'd had a few lagers on the way. One of my mates threw up in the Tube and then stood up and fell over in it. We thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen.
