I was an only child, and Mother was always right with me all my life. I used to get very angry at her when I was growing up-it's a natural thing.
One has to look at my life story to see what I've done. I've paid a heavy price that many people don't realize.
That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.
I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it.
'The Godfather' changed my life, for better or worse. It definitely made me have an older man's film career when I was 29.
I could go off into the wilderness and write fantasy novels for the rest of my life and probably be happy; but I always want to challenge myself.
What is that song that Willie Nelson sang? 'Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few.' I think of that. No big deal. I've reached a stage in my life where I am content.
I don't go out, so I don't get attention from girls. They're not going to have posters of me on their walls. I just try to get on with my life.
Once I got cancer of the tongue and throat, I realised that stress is a killer and I had to try and get stress out of my life.
Ever since I was a child, I have loved being the centre of attention, but similarly, I can't remember a time in my life that I haven't battled with all sorts of quandaries, fears and weaknesses.
After college, I drove across the country twice with friends. It was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. I find it really inspiring seeing the country that way.
There's so many parts of my life that I've struggled with - that so many millions of others struggled with - about being an outsider, about feeling ugly, about having to overcome looking different to other people.
Journalists ask me, 'Why don't you ever talk about sex in your performances?' True, I don't talk about sex - not in my personal life and not in my professional life. This is modesty.
I applied for a job at 'The New York Times' many years ago, and felt correctly that my life depended on it.
Boxing has been the most difficult thing I've ever done. The biggest challenge in my life. I was a boxer. That was hard. Everything else is pretty easy.
I'm glad I made the decision, although the practice of law - and particularly serving as a federal judge - was a part of my life that I really enjoyed and treasured and look back on it with fondness.
Song-writing is therapy for me. I'm a very moody person, very difficult to live with. There's a lot going on and a lot of contradictions. My life is always one step away from disaster.
Forty freaked me out. I didn't see it coming. My life was in a state of chaos - I was moving jobs and moving house - and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sundance is going to be a defining moment in my life. But the unfortunate thing about Sundance is, when you have a film there, you can't have the opportunity to see other films.
'Shantaram' is the second in the series of a quartet of novels that I have planned about my life but is the first to be written. The third book is a sequel to 'Shantaram,' the first a prequel.
I feel that everything I do in my life I can do in a shorter time than most men can. It's the quality, not the quantity.
