When I first met my husband, he had a very good job - company car, pension plan, grudging respect from his staff - the lot. I, on the other hand, was badly paid and devoid of ambition. Then I had a couple of books published and confounded all expecta...
At times when I am myself sitting at a retreat, and at the end I get into my car to drive away, I watch my hand move forward to turn on the radio. When I can be mindful, I notice the fact that I actually don't want in that moment to listen to the new...
You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love t...
I was this kid, and I was scared to death of all these pros around me... My head would shake, and my hands would shake, and I discovered if I kept my head down and looked up, my head would not shake, so I started to do that when I could, when it was ...
There are 4 billion cell phones in use today. Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who've historically lacked access to education and opportunity. Information networks have become a great leveler, and we shoul...
I'd gotten the message in my home, starting with my grandfather, that real work, the kind that makes you sweat and gets your hands dirty, is a respectable, necessary thing. But I wanted to write - and writing didn't qualify. Whenever I told my parent...
I've always thought Harper Lee might have made a great decision. Much as you'd like to have more books by her, there's something about just one that's kind of mysterious and nice. On the other hand, the New York gossip about me was that I'd never wri...
Whenever I read stories of people doing huge pranks on set, all I think is, 'These people have too much time on their hands.' Besides, I don't want to make some poor assistant clean up someone's trailer after I've filled it with, say, Cadbury eggs. S...
The people in my life are friends I have by choice. I've made a conscious effort to have them in life. I only have the time and energy for so many people, which has cut down my friend group to a handful, but I'm so much happier with fewer good people...
I want to create an environment where I can create technology, get it into the hands of someone to market it, and move on to other technologies so I can keep innovating. I want to be a serial entrepreneur: Incubate an idea, get it to a good state, an...
I spent my childhood clad in 1970s hand-me-downs, primarily from male cousins, which mainly consisted of a selection of beige, brown and orange dungarees. That, combined with a perfectly round pudding-bowl haircut, made me look, on a good day, like a...
I think I can see people wanting to hear more music-music now as opposed to all hip-hop. You know, which I have nothing against hip-hop. I think some of it is really good. But on the other hand, some of the real great artists are just being lost beca...
The actual truth about Gad is it's one of the original 13 tribes of Israel, so you can actually trace my lineage back to, like, those guys who had, like, a hand in the Bible and have since become very famous from that. So I come from very famous line...
God offers us counsel not just for our own safety, but for the safety of His other children, whom we should love. There are few comforts so sweet as to know that we have been an instrument in the hands of God in leading someone else to safety. That b...
When my first daughter was born, my husband held her in his hands and said, 'My God, she's so beautiful.' I unwrapped the baby from her blankets. She was average size, with long thin fingers and a random assortment of toes. Her eyes were close set, a...
I'm very happy with the way I look. I wake up some morning, catch myself in the bathroom mirror, and go, 'hey girl, you're alright'. But on the other hand, I find the website stuff, and the polls, something completely removed from my own personal lif...
I knew from the start that I wanted my life to be about music. I taught myself the notes of the piano aged three, and then I spent the next few years deconstructing chords to figure out how to play them. At 11, I researched online the sort of music s...
It is obviously no secret that I earn a lot of money. But it is also no secret that I give most of it away. I don't live a luxurious life. I drive a small second-hand Fiat. I don't have to worry about money, which is itself a privilege. But I never h...
Leaving the record companies tweaked something inside me and I realised I don't have to deal with labels to make something happen. If I want to meet someone, I don't have to go through the label - I'll just go to them. I took my life in my hands and ...
For the first ten years after I got out of graduate school, I studied success. I read every book I could get my hands on and took every training I could find, and that allowed me to become an expert in this area. I learned how to create high self-est...
Journalism is my first love. But music comes in a close second. What's important for me is that whatever you do, whatever your passion is, you should have another passion - something in your life. And when I put on that musician hat and I put the bas...
