I'm such a perfectionist and I like to have everything just right, but at the same time I try to be as real and as genuine as I can be in my life and in my career.
I wrote my first books when I was single and then I got married and then had a kid and there were different things happening in my life.
I've never done anything for money. My first love is things of limited commercial appeal. I could be happy doing Shakespeare for the rest of my life.
If my accomplishments frighten someone, it's nothing to do with me - that's to do with them. But the men who are in my life see me as a person - as a woman - not as a character I've played.
I went on countless auditions. I begged my parents until I finally was allowed to be in a theatrical play when I was 13. It was the most important thing in my life.
Now is the one time in my life I can be 100% selfish. I'm not married; I don't have kids; I can focus on my career.
It seemed like most of the memories faded before they had time to form. And after a while, my life with my father seemed like a familiar story or a distant dream.
I think how Chicago plays a role in my life - it had such a role in my youth and the decisions that I made as a kid and formulated who I am as an artist early on.
In terms of my career, having the gold definitely changed my life. The Olympics are different, you know? They're every four years and it's such a small group.
I found that when I did something for the sake of heaven, heaven happened. These things changed my life. I owe them to my encounter with Christianity.
All of a sudden I discovered that I'm allergic to caviar. It was the perfect metaphor for my life. When I was only able to afford bad caviar, I could certainly eat my fill of it.
I was born Muslim, but for a large part of my life, I wasn't necessarily raised Muslim. My father always kept everything around us, from Western philosophy to Eastern philosophy.
The greatest thing about where my life is right now is it's very relaxed and chill. I'm just hanging out, being myself and doing my work.
The most important thing to me is to give something back to my parents, because they've done so much for me throughout my life.
I really went back through a lot of the dark corridors of my life in this. I wanted people to know who I am based on my music, not on what they read in the tabloids.
Whatever dramas are going on in my life, I always find that place inside my head where I see myself as the cleanest, tallest, strongest, wisest person that I can be.
All my life, as down an abyss without a bottom. I have been pouring van loads of information into that vacancy of oblivion I call my mind.
My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways.
The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.
My mother really loved me. And one of the gifts that I have been given is that I have never thought for one second of my life that I was not greatly beloved.
'Ugly Betty' has been four years of my life, important adolescent years. I think that all I've really known was getting pampered and interviewed and getting my picture taken.
