I just would never go audition, and yet I was in very visible places where people would come looking for actors. I say I'm lazy, though I'm sure if I were in therapy for a lot of years, it would turn out to be a lot more than laziness. After awhile, it was, like, too embarrassing for me not to go on auditions. I had to be humiliated into it.
There have been a few friends who have taught me some great lessons in life. I wouldn't like to name them. They did things that I never expected out of them that left me heart-broken. It was during these rough patches in life that they left me alone. I know now that it was only my position that they were interested in.
Every time I get a bit worried about having made some second rate choices in life I go back and read about the Suffragettes or William Wilberforce, people who were 'wrong' in their own time, and think, 'Ah well.'
Growing up in the Sacramento Valley in the '70s, we were all pretty big into cars. Of course, I had to nerd out and be a fan of Bob Tullius' Group 44 Jaguars instead of Corvettes/Camaros.
First round of the tournament being a Major, I think the butterflies were a little different than that.
My greatest mistake is that my dreams were too small.
When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.
New York is about as cosmopolitan as it gets. It's a fairly mixed and woke town, so there weren't a lot of situations growing up where I felt like the outsider or the alien.
Tennessee Williams was so adept at portraying characters who are both fallible and vulnerable. Women were a huge influence in his life, his mother and sister in particular.
The bombers were enemies of Islam and enemies of the country. We will do everything and anything needed to stop them.
Jews have never, ever, ever wished to be separate, unless they were forced to be.
Of course, we wore silly outfits, the pictures were corny, and some people still focus on that. But ABBA wasn't a big intellectual thing. We were a pop group.
I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.
My parents, once I made it clear to them that I wanted to do science, they were totally sympathetic.
One of the things that was a blessing for me is my parents were music lovers. Neither of my parents played an instrument, but they were avid record buyers. And I grew up at every age listening to all kinds of music.
Before the Internet, we were in a different sort of dark age. We had to wait to hear news on TV at night or in print the next day. We had to go to record stores to find new music. Cocktail party debates couldn't be settled on the spot.
Eleven days before 9/11, I was on a plane with the 9/11 hijackers who were carrying out a dry run.
I think, in the past, being brave - being powerful, being strong - were qualities that people associated with being masculine. And I think... no, I don't think - I know that now we're realizing they can be feminine, too.
If we were the problem, it would be very convenient - kick Greece out, everything's fine. What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the euro zone? We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice.
The weak economy, widening income inequality, gridlock in Congress and a presidential election: Those were perhaps the dominant economic and political themes of 2012.
I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity.
The reality is that not only were we massively hit in 2008 when the bubble burst, and then we realized how deep the social gap, the economic gap in the world is between the super rich and the poor; also, we realized how impacted the environment has been. So there's been a physical consequence of that.
The happiest times in my life were the days when I was traveling with Les Brown and his band.
I would practice while listening to records or learn from musicians who were better than I was.
When I first started designing, all women were dressed like men, and I said, 'Hey, guys, let's be women, put the two together - it's not either/or. Let's celebrate our bodies. Our bodies are different.'
Age, style, where you come from, where you were born, it's different every time, which, to me, is refreshing because it says that there isn't any one thing, one formula or kind of character that makes a great comedian. Everybody has had a different approach.
Margaret Thatcher was in my year, and our first-year college photograph shows us standing side by side in the back row. We were both grammar school girls on state scholarships.
My family was totally non-religious. There was no question we were Jewish, but we were not observant.
Tupac and I were just close friends because we had such an insatiable drive and passion for acting and entertainment.
My records are borderline dance records. They've got a real electro-rock heart and soul, and the vibe of the sentiment is pop, but there's a lot of people that were like, 'This is a dance record.'
I have a 4-year-old and a 14-year-old, and think I missed a recital and a graduation, and they were like 'It's OK mommy, we'll take pictures.' It was my upset, though... they were just fine! I just give them a kiss and a hug and let them know that I love them every day.
Comedy has sort of been my life-long obsession. I literally obsessed over comedy. I really didn't play sports - for me it was just comedy, computers and chess club; those were my big things.
Secular thinkers have no more been able to work free of the centuries-old Judeo-Christian culture than Christian theologians were able to work free of their inheritance of classical and pagan thought. The process... has not been the deletion and replacement of religious ideas but rather the assimilation and reinterpretation of religious ideas.
Let's be honest: It wasn't just the banks who messed up. There were a lot of people who tried to buy assets they couldn't afford. That's a reality.
I had been working with a community of survivors who had lost their relatives and were too scared to talk about it.
