If you're going through friendship issues, I would say, first of all take a step back. How important is the friendship to you? Sometimes, if someone's not being a good friend to you and isn't treating you the way you should be treated, then you kind of have to move on sometimes.
First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book, but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. I was the typical African woman, I'd done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn't read it.
I started playing the guitar when we started filming the pilot to 'Lost in Space,' which was way back in December of 1964, and there's a little bit in the pilot that was used in the first season where Will Robinson is sitting around some bad foam rubber rock playing and singing 'Greensleeves.'
When I joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1992, there were no female four-star generals. I still remember the day in 2008 when a woman first achieved that rank.
My first husband would never make up his mind in less than five years, so I used to get him to think that whatever course of action needed to be taken was his idea. Then he'd go right ahead.
My mother's studies stopped with the third year of primary school, my father with the first. They taught me a deep sense of duty. But nobody was involved in politics in my family.
Look at the coded language the Right is using against President Barack Obama. Openly calling him a liar in Congress, saying he is 'not a Christian, he was not born here, he is not one of us.' That makes addressing such issues trickier for the first African-American in the White House.
The first thing I think of when I hear the name of Lucille Ball is a Hollywood legend. I have fond memories of growing up at her house, but she was a different person off the set than she was on the set.
I don't think I spoke to anyone apart from my daughter for the first two years of her life.
There are many ways to manipulate chip cards. For example, a number of years ago when American Express issued the first chip card, criminals would take a small hammer with a little device and bang the chip to destroy it without hurting the physical appearance of the card.
I'm very excited to see the wonderful 2-D characters in Poptropica come to life in the form of 3-D toys. When I first held the characters in my hands, it felt like magic. I'm excited for kids to have the same feeling!
My first priority is to my wife, as hers is to me, and to our child.
First there was the theatre of people and animals, then of people and the devil. Now we need the theatre of people and people.
I tell people: walk around for one month and write down three problems in your life every day. At first it's easy - you got stuck in traffic, you missed your alarm - but by the end of the month you're looking really hard to get your 90 problems. The most common things on your list are now billion-dollar businesses.
First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the character you're playing.
When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.
I do remember my first purchase: the Partridge Family's 'Greatest Hits.' I got it for $3.99 at a failed chain of pre-Wal-Mart-type stores called Jamesway. God, I'm old.
In any relationship, after the first year is over, you can't help but want your own space.
First, it doesn't surprise me that traditional music has experienced a kind of exhaustion in the 20th century - not forgetting that many musicians started to look outside the traditional structures of tonality.
For me, you say the words 'concept record,' and the first thing I think of is theater or the opera or something.
I studied writing at NYU. I graduated high school in Nashville and then went to the creative writing program, and in the first year, that's when I wrote 'Kids.'
You know the first time I sat in the chair I felt anything but up, it was very emotional for me. I had a chair in my hotel room, a chair at rehearsal, and I was trying to spend as much time as I could in the chair.
Our first priority has to be getting our fiscal house in order - and creating an atmosphere for the private sector in job creation.
First, I only get earthen lamps during Diwali, and I urge everyone to do so, so that people who make these diyas can earn money and have a good Diwali. Also, I celebrate the festival with special children. I take homemade sweets for them like halwa or jaggery and spend some time with them.
And they turned around and leased it to The Assembly Of God Churches - their headquarters are in Springfield, Missouri. They leased it to them for the first year. Then, after the first year, they will donate it to the church.
From my very first day in the Mayor's office, I have worked closely with the Council members who share our vision of a city hall that really protects taxpayers and cares... yes... about the little things that make a big difference in people's lives.
I think what I reacted to so strongly when I first saw 'Pinocchio' was that I identified with the character so strongly. The movie takes you on a whole journey, a rollercoaster of emotions, and that sometimes means some very scary places. But in the end, it comes out okay.
I would say that Barack Obama has always been a real optimist about what can be accomplished. He believes that government can be used to create systemic, long-term, real change. And the first lady is more of a skeptic.
If you look at my last songs and first short stories, there is a real connection between them.
Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.
I was a dancer from about the age of four, so I was always performing and forcing my parents to watch my brother and I do 'Jesus Christ Super Star' in the living room. My first step was community theater, and then I started to do films.
We don't have to live in a world where everyone reacts perfectly the first time around, and if you don't, everything falls apart, and no one speaks to you ever again.
In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was much better than I thought I was, and would make me do more in a positive sense. He was the first person who taught me not to be afraid of failure.
I'm so in love with the United States. Not as a patriot. I'm in love with America like it's my first girlfriend. The geography, the people, the smell, the touch, the taste, the gas stations. I'm madly in love with America.
