Writing is hard work, not magic. It begins with deciding why you are writing and whom you are writing for. What is your intent? What do you want the reader to get out of it? What do you want to get out of it. It's also about making a serious time com...
When my mother died, my father was in a crisis, my sister was in a crisis, everyone was in a crisis. I went round the night my mother was lying in the kitchen, and I organised everything, from the undertaker to the funeral... I looked after everybody...
I don't hold myself out as a role model. I don't believe that everyone should make the same choices; that everyone has to want to be a CEO, or everyone should want to be a work-at-home mother. I want everyone to be able to choose. But I want us to be...
To really care about others, we have to understand them - what they like and dislike, what they feel as well as think. Emotion drives both men and women and influences every decision we make. Recognizing the role emotions play and being willing to di...
Yakima Canutt was famously John Wayne's stunt double, and in the Western movie 'Stagecoach,' there is a fantastic scene where there are some horses thundering along, pulling a carriage. He climbs out onto the horses and drops down underneath them, so...
When the idea of 'Chopped' surfaced, it was originally meant to be taped at some guy's mansion with him and his crazy Chihuahua. A stuffy fellow in a tuxedo was to host, and the losing chef's dish was then fed to the dog! I am not kidding, I saw it! ...
I had a little epiphany when I was a writer at 'Chicago' magazine. I sat down to dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. Somebody poured a white dessert wine with chocolate cake. It was a wine I would never have expected to make sense. The idea of any wine tasti...
As a print journalist, you can be frustrated by people who don't call you back, parts of the story you can't get. TV gets you access to everyone because people call you back. It also allows you to satisfy your curiosity. I am a very curious person.
I am lucky because I can - and I like to - mix the beautiful Caraceni jackets I inherited from my grandfather with a pair of Tsubi jeans or wear a favorite pin-striped suit from him for more formal occasions. I'm crazy about pinstripes and vintage fi...
I look at people like Picasso and Da Vinci and Escher and Miles Davis, and they'll write or paint that one definitive masterpiece of maybe 50 that they have that's really trying to go outside the box, trying to do something that's tough. And then whe...
I don't really get the same kinda romance that I would get from, like, jazz. And even to a lesser extent to rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll has a romance to it - how can I put it? A very vulgar romance, but still a romance; whereas hip hop has more facade...
You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it's supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you're supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn't happen like that. You're like 'Oh, this isn't as exciting as I thought it was goin...
Since the advent of the Internet - more recently compounded by blogging - everyone can be a published voice. Any cowardly, anonymous anger-monger can have an audience of thousands. That doesn't make them a journalist any more than my throwing an onio...
Never be afraid to ask when you don't understand. It sounds like a little thing, but awful things have happened, international incidents have flared, and markets have collapsed just because people couldn't make sense of what was being said. They didn...
I found a nanny/child care position in Beverly Hills taking care of a 3-year-old and a 17-year-old. They had a large, wealthy house. I learned that I liked the way rich people lived. I learned that they were not smarter than me.
I've always liked adventure television. Pre-'Survivor,' I did a series on cable called 'Eco-Challenge,' an adventure race with experts mainly, and here we have 'Expedition Impossible.' I like the outdoors and I like doing something fresh for televisi...
I desperately miss my girls when I am working, and I often feel guilty, but also feel the journey I am on is for them too. When I am on my 16th hour of a day and can barely keep my eyes open, they drive me forward.
Well, after I had the heart attack, it was a very simple choice. What the doctor told me I did and I did it religiously. I ate nothing but lean turkey breast or chicken breast or a piece of fish that was very lean. I mean I stayed away from everythin...
As soon as you tell me to do one thing, I do the opposite. As soon as someone tells me not to get any more tattoos, I have this intense fire burning inside me to cover myself with them. I don't care if it's self-destructive. I just have that need to ...
I don't want to have to be like a Scarlett Johansson - who I have nothing against - but I don't want to have to go on talk shows and pull out every SAT word I've ever learned to prove, like, 'Take me seriously, I am intelligent, I can speak.'
'iCarly' was one of my first major jobs, actually. I went into that audition and completely failed at it. I completely bombed... I forgot my lines. When I forget my lines, I kind of get angry. They had me do it again; I remembered them, and I booked ...
