I think one thing that kids who grow up on farms really have going for them is they have exposure to death and birth in a totally different way. I think it takes away a little bit of the mystery and a little bit of the fear, and I do wish I had that....
I was part of that group of kids growing up in the '80s under the Reagan regime, what I used to call 'living in the shadow of Dr. Manhattan,' where we would have dreams all the time that New York City was being destroyed, and that that wall of light ...
When I was 11 years old, I was bullied. It mainly started when I moved to California to pursue my dreams of being an actress. Kids back home in Texas, who I thought were my friends, were saying things behind my back. They said that I would never make...
I wasn't a rebel. It kind of clicked in my head, like, if I want to do this, I can go out and do it. Some kids, it clicks for them, and it doesn't work out. But thank God for me it did work out. I put in all those hard hours of work, and it has gotte...
It sucks to be the runner-up because I've been the runner-up for a long time in my career. I would get so close and then lose a huge movie and sometimes it's one kid who beats you out for three different movies. It's so frustrating at the time, but w...
I'm very sensitive about being held up as some sort of example. I don't consider myself any sort of role model at all. I have great advantages over many other working women, and my schedule allows me more time with my kids than many working women hav...
I first started going to shows when I was about 16 - seeing local bands. I mean, I loved music before that, and I played a bit of guitar when I was younger and thought maybe I'd become a guitar teacher or something, but when I saw other kids doing it...
Some days I want to look like a hipster kid, and then other days I want to be prim and proper. I really wish I had, like, seven lives so I could go from being a hipster one day to a punk the next. But that's the great thing about fashion. In a way, i...
My parents actually ran drag clubs in Australia, which is how I grew up. It was normal for me. It was my normal. I knew the other kids didn't do it, but for me, it was life, and nothing was wrong with it. I would see nothing wrong with Beyonce having...
You don't have to know anything about baseball to respond to Babe Ruth because he's just this magnificent human being. And a really good story because he was this kid who grew up essentially as an orphan, you know, had a tough life, and then he becam...
I guess I worry about weird existential things, like how do we spend our final act. This is a very emotional question. I can't answer it without crying. I think, You're 56 years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do no...
If there's a 13- or 14-year old kid who is yearning for something beyond the social forces in his own world, in his own neighborhood, the library is the only place where he can go to find that. It was exciting and thrilling to me all the time I worke...
Mostly I want to talk positive; I wanna talk about a bunch of great kids that I coached and made me look good and the university that I've seen grow from a cow college, which it was, only 12,000 people, and when I came here, we weren't at Pennsylvani...
My mom is one of my role models in a complicated way. I learned from her how to be a good mom. She was one of those natural moms who really took to it. Her chosen profession was teaching. She loves kids. But she was extremely frustrated and unhappy b...
The average teen today spends about 35 hours a week in front of a screen of some kind: iPod, movie, TV, video. And a lot of it is good, but a lot of it's not. And so I think you've got that five hours a day of media coming into your kid's head that's...
I'm keeping my day job, because Poptropica is something that really energizes me. I'd love to create a TV series or write a film that's not in the 'Wimpy' universe, but I know it will be difficult to create something from scratch. But I love creating...
The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when the...
The secret to my 5 o'clock shadow is a little device called the George Michael 3000 Custom Beard Trimmer and Personal Massager. Just kidding. I actually shave every morning, and thanks to my vast knowledge of Eastern philosophy and mysticism, I will ...
I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership, but raising children isn't. Hey, it made me a better leader: you have to take a lot of people's needs into account; you have to look down the road. Trying...
Every single thing that you learn really just gives you more comfort. It's something I counsel kids all the time: if someone is willing to teach you something for free, take them up on it. Do it. Every single time. All it does is make you more likely...
The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's...
