I'd always vaguely expected to outgrow my limitations. One day, I'd stop twisting my hair, and wearing running shoes all the time, and eating exactly the same food every day. I'd remember my friends' birthdays, I'd learn Photoshop, I wouldn't let my ...
'Ms.' always flouted the rules of the ad world that say, especially for products directed at women, that the ad must be connected to the editorial. You don't have food ads unless you have recipes. You don't get clothing ads unless you have lavish fas...
End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary t...
Being a typical Briton, I love my home comforts and always try and find an English pub where I can tuck into some traditional English food, accompanied by a nice pint. Fortunately, I haven't been ill with food poisoning or anything like that, which i...
Good food and a warm kitchen are what makes a house a home. I always tried to make my home like my mother's, because Mom was magnificent at stretching a buck when it came to decorating and food. Like a true Italian, she valued beautification in every...
It's always on everyone's list, like, 'What's New Orleans like?' I think people have a pre-conceived idea, like it's just Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street. But really, there's so much culture, the music's great, the food's great. It's not good for the w...
I always have this image of a woman running across a desert carrying children, trying to find water and food, not knowing when they'll get that. And her feet are slashed up from the dry, hard earth... Even when I'm uncomfortable, sometimes in pain, o...
Musical freedom has always been very strong for me, something to strive for, to be able to play the music you enjoy playing rather than playing music that other people want to hear, which I find rather shallow and unrewarding. So I make albums I like...
It's been said of me that I must get out of bed every morning and go cartwheeling down the road. Of course it's not true. There certainly was a time in my 20s when I wanted a bit of freedom, and I found that difficult, but if I'm ever having a time w...
At the beginning of my career as a writer, I felt I knew nothing of Chinese culture. I was writing about emotional confusion with my mother related to our different beliefs. Hers was based in family history, which I didn't know anything about. I alwa...
My husband is Dutch, and his family, when you sat down to eat food at the table, you never left the table until you ate living bread and drank living water. They never left the table until they'd read Scripture together. So morning, lunch, suppertime...
While I have felt lonely many times in my life, the oddest feeling of all was after my mother, Lucille, died. My father had already died, but I always had some attachment to our big family while she was alive. It seems strange to say now that I felt ...
You don't wanna walk around and say, 'I'm somebody's niece, I'm somebody's cousin, I'm somebody's daughter. Who are you?' And I think that's always the challenge when you grow up in a well-known family, is ultimately, you have to face yourself in the...
What used to keep me up at night was the fact that I didn't know how I was going to pay the rent. Now that I can pay the rent, I'm worrying about people I care about, you know, the people I love. The little aches and pains of my children that I, my f...
Our family makes us who we are, defines us totally. When you go to a therapist or have analysis, whatever reason you go in for, they will always bring you back to your family. We're strong or weak according to what family we have. You might have left...
That's the beauty of the acting world. You can play so many different characters who know and do so many things that you have no idea about as yourself. So I'm a big fan of workshops and classes and learning new things because you can always apply it...
Wigs have always been a part of my life and have become a staple accessory in my closet. I can remember being a little girl and hearing all the commotion in my house from my mom, aunts and grandmother when picking out their wigs for the day. It was s...
I was four when I started modeling. My mom was very much an off-the-stage mom who knew nothing about the business. She married my stepdad when I was about four, and he had been an actor. Because I was a really smiley kid and could read, which is some...
I shouldn't have to play live just because I've made a record. I get lots of letters 'cos I'm not into the street credibility thing. I don't like that whole thing at all, I've always thought of it as a very glamorous business, the whole thing about p...
My hand still shakes when I sign autographs. I still go and sit in the movies like everyone else and look up there and go 'God! Movie stars! Wow!' And I'm in this business. I walk out there just fascinated, and I always want to stay like that. I'm ju...
'One Tree Hill' will always be very, very special to me. It was my first television show. And my first gig in the business. It was surreal. I booked the role when I was 13. I had just started high school, and literally, I think, a week into high scho...
