Being sent away to boarding school at seven is as great an inspiration as any songwriter could have - to be taken away from one's family and locked away for 10 years. It does create an incredible intensity of emotion.
As soon as a roast is announced, I get everybody - family, friends, waitresses, cab drivers - giving me jokes about the person getting roasted. I'm the mouthpiece for the masses.
How many people have a family grave in the backyard? I'm sure I'll end up there, or I'll shrink my head and put it in a glass box in the living room. I'll get more tourists to Graceland that way.
Although I enjoyed writing Film Music it was always a means to an end, in that it enabled me to keep a wife and family and write my classical music, which has always been my passion.
If I make a speech, I need a translator. But music does not need a translation. People understand me through the sound. That I think is very important. This is just one planet, like one family.
One way and another I was having a ball - playing gigs, jamming and listening to fine musicians. Then came a crisis at home. My stepfather fell sick, and it meant I had to support the family.
When you're around your family, and you have that history and that shared language, you say things you'd be embarrassed to hear quoted back to you later.
A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that.
New Year's Eve was always a big occasion at home with the family. Every year we would get the karaoke machine out and I'd entertain everyone, even as a young kid.
My father was a carpenter, a very good carpenter. He also worked for the Jones boys. They were not family members, we weren't related at all. They started the policy racket in Chicago, and they had the five and dime store.
All my family back to the 1700s were water Gypsies. My brothers and me, we were the first ones to be born on dry land. All the rest of them were born on barges in the canals.
I may be the first actress to admit that beauty doesn't hold you back. I think beauty is a gift that you have to make the most of. I've worked hard at trying to look my best.
I like 'Zorro.' I like people you can believe that don't have those stupid powers. That is the beauty of Zorro. He's just a guy working for the people, to save the people.
I find Los Angeles to be a place of great physical beauty, in which you have the oceans and the mountains, and there's a vertical sense and a desert light that you can see forever.
I like the idea of accessibility, coming from a lower-middle-class background myself, I feel like beauty and products should be accessible to all women over the world.
The beauty of Rome is that you can wander into a pizzeria just about anywhere and get a real Italian pizza that's thankfully worlds away from the Super Supreme I used to order at Pizza Hut as a kid.
For me, the beauty of a person is a matter of the whole package. You have to look at the whole thing, not just a matter of outward appearance or whatever. It has to do with one's character, personality, upbringing and so on.
The destruction of the natural beauty, the ecosystems, and the majesty of mountains affect us in ways we're not even aware of. Every time a mountain is beheaded, we chop off a little part of our souls.
Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.
I'm now more about romantic beauty. The dominatrix thing is over. You never look as good in person as you do in 'Maxim,' but it's fun. It's all like a fantasy.
I have several computer companies. One of them I have a program for wide-format printing. I have a beauty program. So I have several different programs that I own for printing.
