At her birthday, my seven-year-old daughter will say that she wants these big cakes and certain expensive toys as presents, and I can't say no to her. It would just break my heart. But when I was little, for birthdays we just played outside and we we...
I turned 40 on the set of the reunion show for 'Sheer Genius,' so it wasn't a hideous birthday because I had everyone on the cast and crew sing 'Happy Birthday' to me, and I won $10,000 for being the fan favorite. It was really liberating to turn 40 ...
When I entered high school I was an A-student, but not for long. I wanted the fancy clothes. I wanted to hang out with the guys. I went from being an A-student to a B-student to a C-student, but I didn't care. I was getting the high fives and the low...
When I had a record deal in the '90s, that was my dream - to make an album like Barbra Streisand's Broadway album - and they laughed me out of the room. Broadway wasn't cool. But artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban have brought the classic gen...
Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can d...
I am surprised by how not-adopted the video reply has been. What keeps other people from doing it, I think, is that they think a video comes across as 'I'm cool, look at how many e-mails I get.' That perception doesn't scare me, because I know who I ...
I think, as most of us do, I put such high expectations on myself that this spills over onto other people. And not everyone is wired this way. Some people can shrug expectations off their shoulders like a cardigan, remaining cool and breezy. Others w...
I wouldn't compare myself to any past Idol contestant, because I don't feel like I am like any of them. Maybe stories are cool but my story is different from most people's story. I don't like to compare myself to other people, I like to just be me.
When we first started recording, it was before rock, so people thought we were hillbilly hicks. That was something we had to deal with; the girls didn't think we were cool, although they did a few years later. We had ducktails and wore peg-leg pants....
I rolled the second car that I ever owned, a Toyota 4 Runner. This was winter in Colorado, two weeks before the 2002 Olympic trials. I was driving in the outside lane, and my rear tire caught some black ice, and we totally turned sideways to the poin...
I take cabs if I need to get somewhere or I take car service. I don't drive, I wouldn't mind riding a bike... People think that because you become an entertainer you gotta have this rock star thug image. I'm an artist, man. I'm going to live like an ...
I couldn't do my show without spending 12 years on the streets of Humboldt Park. It made me a better interrogator. Still, if they had taken me out of my squad car and gave me a show, I would've been terrible. But on 'Springer,' the spotlight was on J...
When I started 'DailyGrace,' I was dating a 26-year-old guy I thought was the funniest person in the world. My creation process every day was imagining him watching my videos and wondering, 'Will he laugh at this?' But somehow that's turned into an a...
I feel like I am a real artist and I want to be able to feel what I am singing about. So when I sing, 'Leave (Get Out),' I have been through that. I think it is just a new generation, whether people are ready for it or not. Teenagers are dating.
We didn't have a whole lot of money when I was growing up either. I would always ask for magic books or magic tricks for my birthday or for Christmas and the rest of the year I either had to mow lawns or find part time jobs to help supplement the cos...
The Queen of Crafts herself, Martha Stewart, and I have the same birthday. I prefer to think it's the glue-gun wielding, perfect-tart-producing Martha and not the copper pan-throwing, jail-going Martha. But I suppose if I am going to share a calendar...
I've always wanted to buy a sports car. After the England series, I went up to my dad and said that I wanted to buy a sports car and got his consent. On his birthday, I surprised him by bringing it home. It's a Porsche Boxter Limited Edition, and my ...
I like the way Quentin Tarantino creates a scene using a series of close-ups or showing very cool images of a person or people walking on some ordinary street in slow motion. I wish I could achieve that kind of slow-motion effect in manga, but it's r...
I don't want to be just known for the way I dress. I want to be known for how I play, how I treat people, and how I am as a role model. I don't just want to be, 'He dresses cool' or 'He dresses crazy.' You're going to have lovers and haters. I want m...
My dirty little secret is I don't drive at all, though I have my license and I renew it every five years. I'm phobic. I keep worrying if I drive, I'll end up killing someone. I hoped that by writing about a car crash, I might understand and heal this...
When you're drawing something, you kind of run a movie in your head. You might close your eyes or stare into the distance and kind of see a movie unfolding and, you know, grab a certain moment or think, 'Oh, yeah, that's when we need just the point t...
