I speak often about my personal experiences with malaria in the field as a young public health officer because it had such a profound impact on my life and my work.
My career had zero to do with whether or not my husband also worked. It had everything to do with personal identity, personal goals, and making the most of my life.
For 'A.D.,' when I got the script, I was really moved, because even though it told a story that I knew all my life, it was told in a different way. It was told from a very personal point of view.
My first novel, 'When You Were Mine,' was a very, very personal story and drew a lot on the people in my life and the relationships that I had.
I've always been able to decide what was more important at different points in my life, but I never gave up personal things to work, never.
I share personal things about myself in the context of my interviews and in 'It's Messy' - but that's 20 percent of my life.
It's been real weird. It wasn't how I expected my life to turn out. Especially, mainly pertaining to the show. It never crossed my mind that one day I'm gonna be big and famous and have my own TV show, you know?
I've been led by my nose all my life and tried to make perfume by boiling sugar water in jam jars and stuffing them full of gardenia and rose petals when I was growing up in Swaziland.
It's so fun to make up stories, but I find that the songs that I'm most proud of came from a real thing in my life - 'Peter Pan' being one of those.
I love 'Peter Pan' to death. It's one of the most influential pieces of storytelling in my life. It made a huge impact on how I grew up. I love the cartoon. I love the 2003 version.
All of my life, I've been blessed with a fast metabolism and a petite physique.
If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.
I grew up Presbyterian, just a basic Protestant upbringing. There were years in my life when I would go to church every Sunday and to Sunday school. Then I just phased out of it.
Thought is powerful in all phases. Even in my career, even in my life, things end up exactly how I visualized them.
My life has been going in ways I never could have dreamed of - doing the closing celebration for the Olympic Games and being appointed the creative chair for jazz at the L.A. Philharmonic. So I've just decided I'll go with my flow and be very prepared.
I want to be in Philly for the rest of my life.
When Phish broke up, I made some comment about how I'm not gonna go around playing 'You Enjoy Myself' for the rest of my life.
I change my phone number, and with my soul shrunken by terror, I make the decision never to see Pablo Escobar again in my life. Overnight, I have stopped loving him.
I don't want to feel shamed into making a choice about my physical appearance or my body... or even about the choices I make about my life. I want to be feel empowered and inspired because they feel good to me.
I've certainly experienced physical pain in my life.
