When I was in college, I did do some writing of poetry, somewhat inspired, I think at that time, by Carl Sandburg, because English was still relatively new to me, and Sandburg, of course, wrote in a very easy-to-understand, very colloquial and informal manner.
I would have strong opinions and be prepared to argue my case, but if you talk to my colleagues, I think you'd find they consider me the jokester, the informal mayor of the West Wing.
I wasn't naive, but at the end of my Miss America year, when two different executives attacked me during what I thought were informational interviews about jobs, I was shocked. I didn't see it coming, and the worst thing about it was the shame I felt, as if I'd done something wrong.
The way my father raised me was really informative of how I think about my role as a female and how I view myself in a professional and personal capacity. So he encouraged me to set the bar very high for myself, to set great goals for myself.
I never think of access or good will. I just want a good interview. I want guests to be informative and entertaining. I've never been concerned about someone's liking me tomorrow.
I think you can do a lot, like describing people with their physical characteristics, things like that, but to me, I've always found it to be a much more informative question to ask somebody what they read.
I went out of my way to play games I didn't like or find interesting. Those ended up being a lot more informative for me. At home, I have literally thousands of games, and I think of them as pearls of wisdom from my predecessors.
All I can say is that with business and the interest of any party before me, I will consider and apply the law as it is written by Congress and informed by precedent.
I have to go with what the painting says to me. The painting is always informing me. I'm its servant; it's not mine. I'm doing what it wants.
The values that I have are the values I was raised with, from where I'm from, which is a middle-class place. So that informs everything about me, my politics and all that stuff. I mean, politically, I vote against my own self-interest at every election. I actively ask these people to raise my taxes.
The way the people around you position themselves around you to get in your pockets and in your mind is infuriating to me.
Thank God I never got in a fight. All of the jock dudes hated me, but all of their girlfriends thought I was nice so they wouldn't touch me. It was infuriating to them.
What's infuriating is when cis people think celebrating me is celebrating transness.
I'm a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative language, which goes against the trend in fiction.
I was lucky enough to see the original cast of 'In the Heights.' This one blew my mind. The infusion of Latin, hip hop and rap with musical theatre, great storytelling and talent was a powerful combination to me during a time when I'd not been moved by much!
Part of me feels like when you had a lot of success in your teens and 20s, it gets harder for you in your 30s because people are so attached to you as this ingenue. So even though you're older, they still think of you as that girl - that waifish young girl. And so it was sort of like a struggle.
I don't know what I am. I guess you can call me a character actor in the sense that I'll never be an ingenue. You know, that's over. My shot was missed. I take a normal person and make them more of a character. I don't know what that would be called.
They did cast me as an ingenue once, and the novelty was nice. But I said, 'There is nothing here to play!' I really like getting into the meat of a role.
For me, muscle cars are a tribute to American ingenuity.
If there was no Bill Bowerman, there would have been no me. He had about as much of an impact on my life as any one person could have. He taught me about competition and ingrained it in me. He taught me not to praise ordinary performances.
