Until I was five, my immediate family lived near my grandfather's farm where my mother had grown up and, with the exception of a few modern conveniences, had not changed a lot over the years.
As I grew up, I was continually to suffer hardships in different realms of life - in my family, in my relationship to Japanese society and in my way of living at large in the latter half of the twentieth century.
For a while, I thought the great disappointment of my life was that I don't have a family of my own. Then it dawned on me: That's not what I think; that's what married people think.
I wanted to be a ballerina as a child - I had a tutu, and I used to stage my own ballets in our front room with my family as the audience.
Basketball is my passion, I love it. But my family and friends mean everything to me. That's what's important. I need my phone so I can keep in contact with them at all times.
You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously attacking a daughter or a son, but in my family it was my mother. My mother, I would say, was a... very brutal disciplinarian.
I don't have regrets I didn't spend more time with my family because I've lived my life to the full, and you can't look back in regret.
I never saw myself so much as an actor. I wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles M. Schulz and create my own world and be able to have a studio at home and not commute and be able to be with my family.
Over the years, I've learnt how to strike a balance between both my lives and give quality time to my passion as well as to my family. Yes, it is tiring at times, and every working woman goes through the phase.
That case with my two sisters? That was a disaster. It was. They're really fine people. When my family and my two sisters' families - their children - grew up and so on, it just wasn't the same. But we took care of them very nicely.
I have mended fences with both my sisters. But do I have their families on my side? Not easily. My one sister, Florence, has two lawyers in the family and two doctors. Of course, I couldn't win that battle.
My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.
I believe it is time for me to begin a new chapter in my life by spending more time with my family and exploring new opportunities here at home in Arkansas.
When I was 13, I moved from New Jersey to Germany with my family. The high school was so supportive of my dream to continue with my theater training; instead of taking PE, I would get credit for dance lessons.
My wife, my family, my friends - they've all taught me things about love and what that emotion really means. In a nutshell, loving someone is about giving, not receiving.
I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts.
I don't attend parties. After the day's shoot, I go home and spend time with my family. I never take my work home, and neither do I involve my family in work.
In the second part of my life, away from cycling, I hope I will be able to benefit fully from my family and children in the same way that cycling gave me such joy.
I'm such an odd mix of things. My grandfather was Indian: I've got more family living in India than I do in the U.K. My old man was East London. I was brought up in Yorkshire. My great-grandfather was Irish.
I don't rehearse on either of my shows, 'Family Feud' or my talk show. I never rehearse with the guests. I don't want to have any preconceived thoughts, notions, because that kills my creativity as a host and as a stand up.
I've been on the cover of 'Time' magazine three times, not for my beauty but because what I was doing was newsworthy around the world. I've worked with teams all my life, but I've been nice and I've been kind.
