I thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company, as so many people who leave public life do.
Of course it's true: the public want to see young people - young people are the people who go to the cinema. It's a sad fact of life, but you've got to accept it and not whine about it.
I'm not eager at all to present my life out there for public consumption. I like to do one or two films a year and then do what is absolutely obligatory in terms of promoting them. My life outside of films is vital to me.
I've also said you don't rule any options out, because if you are in public life because you want to make a difference... obviously, you have to be open to those kind of possibilities.
I'm also taking singing classes as well, not that I ever plan to sing in public in my entire life. I actually have a phobia of singing, so I decided to take some singing lessons to help me get away from the phobia.
The press always causes a certain amount of hesitance for people who are considering entering public life. So simply encouraging women to enter politics, on any level, not just on the state level, is extremely important.
It's hard to think of anything that is more socially beneficial than raising children well. It needs to be valued and respected, I believe by everyone in public life regardless of your political party.
I actually think the civil service, who are the malignancy at the heart of public life, have consciously prevented, talked ministers out of, made it difficult regulatory-wise, to allow more pressure on alternative energy sources to grow.
Why should anyone be interested in my life? It's the prurience I find so extraordinary. Why, why, oh why should my private life be of any interest to the public? The only people who should be interested are my friends.
My children are the thing that make life work because, you know, I screwed up my life, and I know it was me, and it was really hard because it was so public, and that was very, very hard.
When I was living in New York, there was a lot of screaming in my life. I would just get into these altercations all the time. Being in public, dealing with shopkeepers, just trying to cross the street - things like that.
In our era of celebrity, where every life is made public through email, blogs and Facebook, one of the greatest oddities may be that there is not a livelier discussion about the individual's basic need for a more private space.
A lot of what is publicized now is really pretty trivial stuff - you know, what I eat for breakfast, where I have my pedicures, questions that I just cannot for the life of me understand why someone would want to know that.
Sometimes it's interesting to see something that you're not used to seeing, which is the main ingredient of life, and it's removed from the usual entertainment. I think it's important to give the opportunity to people to witness the life of somebody ...
On the show, we are not trying to get people to eat their vegetables; we are not trying to get people to become Democrats. We are basically trying to encourage people to get involved with public life so that politics isn't left to the wealthy and pri...
People have tried to corner the market on being offended, corner the market on language and corner the market on opinion. Should I lose my job 'cause I offended somebody? No, of course not. Your life should never be affected by public opinion.
My father was a public figure all my life, and so the presidency was an extension of that. I guess you get used to it, though you can stand back occasionally and think, 'Boy, this is really weird!'
I think one of the odd things about public life, coming from the outside, is that people seem to be paranoid. Maybe they were quite frank initially, but then they did one thing which went wrong.
I have a responsibility to not look crazy in public. I don't want to be the person where later in life when I have kids, to say, 'Don't do this' and my kids go, 'But Mom, you did it.'
I wanted to make a film - and I've been wanting to do this for 16 years - about life in care, and bring it to the public's attention, because I had never seen anything, on TV or in the cinema, which said: 'This is how it feels to be a kid in care'.
The part of my writing I find the most rewarding is when people write to me or speak to me in public to tell me how his or her life has been changed by my books.
