The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.
When you leave, you basically want to go eat, because I talk a lot about food in my act. So when you leave, you leave hungry.
My father is an economist who specialized in foreign food policy, and my mother worked for AID, a branch of the State Department, so food in regards to world affairs was talked about a lot.
Wherever I go, I am Italian. The way I talk, the way I eat, the way femininity is important to me. The way I love Italian food.
I found out a long time ago that if I indulged by stuffing my face with great food, lying about reading books and watching TV or talking on the phone, I was not a happy camper.
The problem of the world today is the people talk on and on about democracy, freedom, justice. But I don't give a damn about democracy if I am worried about survival.
You know, when George Bush talks about freedom not being America's gift to world but God's gift to all humankind, it smells like market testing to me.
If we want to talk about freedom, we must mean freedom for others as well as ourselves, and we must mean freedom for everyone inside our frontiers as well as outside.
I was on Oprah's show recently talking about the people who impacted me the most. One was a teacher and one was my soccer coach. I didn't even go into my family, who had the most influence.
Growing up, my mother and grandparents often talked about our family's Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation - what kid would?
At first, when I got bad press and people would talk bad about my family or something like that, I would get really upset, but now it's just not worth my energy.
When they talk about family values, it's in a repressive way, as if our American tradition were only the Puritan tradition or the 19th century oppressive tradition. The Christian tradition.
The President also talked at length about how well the American economy is doing. Apparently, he got his information on this topic from his millionaire supporters. For the average working family, these are trying economic times.
It was a wealthy family, and they heard me talk about movies, and they told me I should go into movies. That's the benefit of hanging out with rich people; they have no sense of what is or isn't possible.
There's a lot of things that go on when you're on tour that cannot be controlled. I'm not even talking about myself, but of course there's sexual activity and drugs, fighting and language; it is certainly not a place to raise a family.
My ideal day would be to get a good work out in, listen to music, talk to my family and friends on the phone, read and go to a good movie.
You don't know what the Chinese expect in the way of beauty. The presentation is just a farce. You come into a room filled with 50 people and they don't talk to you. There's very little interaction.
Never once does 'Snow White' herself look in the mirror so she isn't aware of her beauty or what apparently that does to people. It's really just the queen and the prince that talk about it.
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.
Not to sound corny, but intelligence is big. Everything fades, and everything can be modified. But intelligence is something you can't fake. I'm not even talking about whether you can read a thesaurus backwards. But there is a beauty in common sense.
When I'm at home, I don't discuss business. I don't talk business. I don't answer the phone. It's just me, my wife, my children, my dogs. That's my world.
