I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.
I read daft history books. Sometimes the books I read are a bit crackers or strange.
Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.
Conventionally, one looks at history as something of the past. But after Einstein, who knows what is in the past and what is in the present?
I think that a lot of women that know they're going to be part of history somehow decide to have a character to be remembered by.
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music.
I'm not interested so much in collaboration. You see that from the history of my albums.
I always loved music. You know, my parents said I started singing when I was 4, in the car.
My first car was a Chevy Cavalier. My dad somehow convinced me that it was a hot sports car because it was red.
So I was always around music and my dad was in his own way a progressive jazzer, a big band jazzer guy.
I did rebel. I was the rebel in my family, because my dad wanted me to go and just travel with him.
Watching my dad, Ralph Lauren, design clothes when I was young, I was always inspired.
I think women look for that quality in a man of being a good dad whether they're immediately wanting to be a parent or not.
I grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. My dad took me hunting, trapping and fishing when I was a kid.
I just wasn't cut out to be a Chinese Tiger Mom. I'm more of an Irish Setter Dad.
I think one of the saddest things that's happening to literature is that it's getting over-simplified by this diet of simple political ideas.
I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.
If I can't eat the meal in a restaurant, and the waiter asks, 'Is everything all right, Madam?', I tell them that I'm on a diet.
I try to not be too hard on myself regarding my diet. I've always been a workout-to-eat kind of a girl.
I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
A healthy diet is a solution to many of our health-care problems. It's the most important solution.
