Healthcare is very much a high priority for me. Healthcare is also a huge issue for business, both big and small.
I grew up listening to so many different things, and having a dad that also sang, music was innately born into me. Going through high school and college, I'd go see anyone who came to town, it didn't matter the genre.
I acted out a lot. I was very nerdy. I was very isolated, which I made up for by kind of talking and trying to entertain people and get them to like me, so I did theatre and improv in high school and college, but always as a hobby.
A lot of high school students on TV and in Broadway are played by people in their late 20s and even early 30s. That seems weird to me.
I went to Washington, D.C, for the first time my senior year as part of Girls Nation, put on by the American Legion Auxiliary, which sends high school students to D.C. to form a pretend federal government. There was an energy about the city that made me feel like I just had to come back there.
I've been really humbled by other women who've reached out to me across the country. Not just women who are running for Congress and federal office, but elementary school students running for student council or high school students who are their class presidents.
It worries me that undergrads and high school students are forced into books they aren't ready for, like Faulkner's, and then they are afraid of putting their toes in the water again.
I became a teacher all right. I wanted to become a teacher because I had a misconception about it. I didn't know that I'd be going into - when I first became a high school teacher in New York, that I'd be going into a battle zone, and no one prepared me for that.
My high school teacher, Reggie Andrews, was a huge factor in my learning my instrument. He didn't play bass, but it was the part where he gave me a knowledgeable perspective of what it was that I was doing.
Lately I've been going to all these high schools talking to the students, answering their questions, listening to what they have to say. It has been an incredible journey to be around them and try to give them what my mother gave me.
I don't follow trends. I'm a trendsetter. I represent all the younger generations; fly kids, creative kids - they look up to me. I got a program that's called ROAR. I go to all high schools everywhere we go, and I talk to all the kids, and I give away 30-35 tickets and passes to the kids doing good in school. Stuff like that means a lot to me.
Three high schools. I was funny. I thought I was being funny. I just had an opinion about everything that was said in school, so that got me thrown out.
Anything less than gold is a failure to me. It's extreme pressure, but I hold myself to a high standard.
Let me say I was trained at Juilliard. I have a very high standard. I expect everybody around me to work equally as hard because people pay a lot of money for tickets. They demand the best that we have.
The deal is that I hold myself to an extremely high standard, and it's a standard that can never be... it's unattainable. But it drives me to be the very best in everything I do.
We will not play with inflation. We are living a delicate moment. President Obama spoke to me today about the high unemployment affecting the United States. In this crisis period, when the developed nations are not recovering, it's prudent to maintain the established inflation target.
I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.
If I had been born in the circus, my parents would have pushed me on that little high wire at four years old. That's when the body is most limber to learn those acrobatics.
I love high-end designers, but a head-to-toe designer look for me is extremely boring. I've always mixed it up.
My shopping habits... I am not very brand-conscious about clothes. I buy whatever looks good on me. Likewise, I don't just shop only in malls or high-end stores.
