Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it's like to be tw...
My poor mum had a lot of problems with me around that time. I was young but I'd been working for years, so if she asked me to clean my room I'd say, 'You can't tell me what to do after I've worked a 12-hour day.' It gave me a power that no one that a...
Where nothing in a person's earlier years lends itself to an old age devoted to continuing intellectual and physical pursuits, a late-life interest in Tolstoy or even crossword puzzles is unlikely to appear, no matter the urging by well-intentioned s...
While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lea...
I think about 'The Simpsons,' which has been going on for 25 years. Homer is still in his late 30's. Lisa is 8, Bart is 10. Their stories are told. Yet the series keeps going on and on like a zombie that won't lie down and die. That feels forced and ...
I wrote my first play at the age of 10, 55 years ago, and I've always found it a fantastic relief to imagine I know what things would be like from the point of view of other individuals and to send out signals from where I actually am not. Playwright...
Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive t...
My dad was working abroad, in Iraq, and he was a doctor. We used to go and visit him, in Baghdad, off and on. For the first ten years of my life, we used to go backwards and forwards to Baghdad, so that was quite amazing. I spent a lot of time travel...
I began dancing when I was 7 years old. I was told that I had the perfect ballet dancer's body and had these crazy high arches in my feet that resulted in an amazing point. Ballet was very disciplined and, frankly, a little boring, so I eventually tr...
What's great about TV, and what I love about being on 'Parenthood,' is you have this family. I'm now going on four years of working with the same 100 people, and that helps you feel like your life has more roots. It's more conducive to having a famil...
I hope to keep writing journalism as long as I write fiction; it's afforded me such amazing adventures and opportunities. It does take a lot of time, so it's hard to do both at once, but I try to do a big journalism piece every couple of years, and I...
For the last 20 years of my life, I've had the mantra to do amazing parts with amazing people in amazing projects, so I'm attracted to good story, writing and character and good people. That's what I'm always searching for and I don't think that's ev...
Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God's perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to s...
I love heels, and as a size 36, I've accumulated a wall of amazing high heels from catwalk shows over the years where designers had to make especially small shoes. Tom Ford's golden versions are my favourite. I do, however, also live in my flat Saint...
Every year, we couldn't believe it, and even when I look back on it now, to sell 14 million singles, 50 million albums and sell out arenas and stadiums, what Westlife achieved was crazy. It's like One Direction probably don't realise how big they are...
What's really important for us is that our home base is in L.A., and when we move to Toronto - where 'Suits' is filmed - we move as a unit and are always together in the same place. My 5-year-old goes to two schools, which I was worried about, but it...
I thought Steve Jobs was amazing. He was such a great businessman. Someone that has just been really continually successful with their brand and hasn't gone away, Madonna is incredible. We've all kind of listened to her for years and seen her grow up...
It was nice to finish up Stanford. I think I always felt that I would be there for four years and graduate, and definitely didn't want to leave early. A degree was definitely a plus, and I was having a lot of fun in school. But after football, you kn...
There's a famous artist, Ron English, in New York, that just, or Andy Warhol for that matter, that did pop art that terrorized society. And that's, for the last like 10, 15 years, that's all I wanted to do, is terrorize society and make them look int...
Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagemen...
For thousands of years, human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he ...
