I was always a little insecure. I had brothers that played football, so I was just a straight-up tomboy for a minute. I didn't know makeup and hair stuff. My friends had to tell me what a straightener was. I didn't know fashion or any of that until t...
When I was going to school, I just wanted to be like everybody else. I would pull at my hair to try and get it to lie straight. America was where I would consume and absorb black culture, buy Ultra Sheen and watch 'Soul Train,' but I still had that w...
I was raised in a little church, the Grundy Methodist Church, that was very straight-laced, but I had a friend whose mother spoke in tongues. I was just wild for this family. My own parents were older, and they were so over-protective. I just loved t...
If I had been straight, I would have been an entirely different person. I would never have turned toward writing with a burning desire to confess, to understand, to justify myself in the eyes of others... I wouldn't have been impelled to live in New ...
To be straight, I was kind of a dork, and in order to fulfill the creative fires burning inside me, I participated vigorously as a Civil War re-enactor through most of my teenage years, traveling across the country to participate in large scale reena...
I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I ...
The Weezer 'Blue' Album is a classic. I think My Morning Jacket's 'Circuital' is a great album to have. Any Led Zeppelin album. Pink Floyd 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' or 'Animals.' I always catch myself at concerts being like, 'Oh, I just stared at t...
I love watching Billy Bob, just as a punter anyway. I like his work. But working with him is really easy and really straight-forward. He's immediately good. He doesn't have to work up to it. He doesn't make your life difficult. He listens. He's a ver...
When service is overly attentive, I become uncomfortable - I don't like it, for example, when a waiter tops up my glass as soon as I take a sip of water. It's better when you realise you need something and then the waiter is immediately available. Yo...
There is always this quarrel about what is preferable: the straight, naturalistic, epic storytelling or the modernistic, disjointed, slightly hermetic one. To me it does not matter, as long as it's good. I like both kinds. Although the common reader ...
I can feel things - tap into emotions. When I meet a new person, I know their life straight away. I suppose you could call it a special intuition, but it's my number one quality, and I'm always 99.9 percent right. If I don't like someone, it always t...
Even though my first marriage broke up, I'd say that I've had two good marriages and two good men. I've been very lucky. I like to think it's karma because, in a relationship, I give 300 per cent. I'm straight with my men, and I like to think it come...
I grew up when one of America's greatest black playwrights, August Wilson, was writing about life in Pittsburgh, but I never saw myself in any of his straight-male plays. And then I see 'Angels,' which was so honest and painful, and it had this black...
What's it like to figure out you're gay and then begin the process of coming out? Well, for most of my life, I felt doomed. I could imagine no path that would allow me to realize my authentic self. I felt the need to lie, even to myself, insisting: I...
The liberal feminist movement never imagined that women would take seriously the encouragement to become our own heroes and claim life for ourselves, on our terms, no matter who we are. Pro-choice and pro-life, Christian and not, poor and rich, black...
When my hair is curly, I use Suave coconut conditioner. It's not a leave-in, but I use it like one. It is so light and really brings out my hair's curl. A lot of leave-ins are too heavy, but this one is just perfect. When it's straight, I love Freder...
I would love to see no more ghettos, but the things is, there's no diplomacy in the ghetto. They want to tell you something, they tell you straight! An upper class, more educated person - they find a diplomatic way to tell you the thing. I love it wh...
Hey everyone. This is Elizabeth Stone, the one who wrote a A BOY I ONCE KNEW and BLACK SHEEP AND KISSING COUSINS. To those of you who read either one, thanks! But another Elizabeth Stone, not me, wrote WOMEN AND THE CUBAN REVOLUTION and VALLEY OF THE...
It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. I cannot fathom how he isn't the number-one box office star in America, because every straight girl I know would see her soul to share a milkshake w...
Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be Vice President of the United States of America. Let's get that straight. She's a truly close personal friend. She is qualified to be President of the United States of America. She's ea...
The Beliebers have done some pretty crazy stuff. Last week, the night before I was due to do a show in Germany, four girls went into a dumpster so they could sneak into the building. They climbed in and hid. When the guys working on the truck started...
