Before MS moved in on me, I'd worked for seven years as a city lawyer, as the editor of a literary magazine, and before the age of 20, I'd also worked as a cadet journalist and as an assistant director in both film and TV. And then, after the lesions of MS, both on my spine and in my brain, I was the opposite of bionic.
I drive a lot. Just for pleasure. Sometimes I'll get in the Cadillac and drive around the city or the country, kind of trying to get lost basically. Y'know, just see where roads lead.
During one of his uncannily well-timed impromptu visits to my restaurant, Union Square Cafe, Pat Cetta taught me how to manage people. Pat was the owner of a storied New York City steakhouse called Sparks, and by that time, he was an old pro at running a fine restaurant.
Time is water, and the Venetians conquered both by building a city on water, and framed time with their canals. Or tamed time. Or fenced it in. Or caged it.
London has always moved and surprised me, reinventing itself in ways both fresh and familiar. It's a contrary, complex and creative city, an anarchist of a thousand faces - fickle and unfailing, tender and bleak, ambitious and callous.
It was so interesting going to high school in New York. You get a callous to the city and an empathy for every type of person.
The vibe of London as a city is captivating. It's both fast-paced and extremely rushed but still has the calmness that would attract any big-city person.
I love Pushkar because of the Pushkar Fair, which happens every fall - it's this camel festival, with ornately-dressed camels, camel races. But the reason I truly love this city is the Hindu mythology behind it.
'Tracks' is based on the book by Robyn Davidson who, in the mid-Seventies, decided to leave the city, go to the outback, learn to train camels and walk across the Australian desert to the ocean: a journey that is about two thousand miles and will take about six or seven months.
We chose NYU because their arts program was great, and they're a prestigious institution, but really because you're in a city. You're involved in a completely different way of life. You didn't feel trapped within a campus or in a bubble.
The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city's biggest strength, and it is Toronto's unique strength.
The Huashan project is a clear example of how an urban element, key to the successful growth of the city, can at the same time improve the quality of life for its citizens, thanks to an integration of all three bridges and the creation of boulevards on the banks of the canal.
Amazon's capitulation to those opposed to their expansion in New York City is an epic moment for people power over an enormous corporate bully.
One of the things is that the good intentions of Prohibition, from reading over the years and from becoming obsessed with the research of gangs in New York City, seems to have allowed crime figures at the time, like Luciano, Capone, Torrio and Rothstein, to organize to become more powerful, which pulled all the way through until the '70s.
I've always loved dogs and have had one since I was three. We bought her from a kid selling puppies out of a cardboard box on the street where we lived in New York City. Great dog. We named her 'Marcella' after a Raggedy Ann character. She grew up with us.
The fans know and the Cardinals know that I want to be a Cardinal for my whole career. I love this city. The way that this city has embraced me and my family.
St. Louis is a good example of a vibrant city. Having stayed in a hotel in 2011 overlooking Cardinals stadium when they won the World Series, their fans definitely show up loud and proud.
Carnegie was a life-long dream because I was a born New Yorker. I was born in upstate New York, and we've played Radio City, and we've played The Beacon, but Carnegie was this mystical place, you know?
I love Sam Mendes, but I went to see 'Spectre' with my kid, and the opening scene of the Dia de Muertos party, with this kind of tropical music, in downtown Mexico City, with all these people dancing like it's the Rio de Janeiro carnival... I had to laugh.
I've already done things I never believed I would. Even stepping out of Northampton and being in London - London always seemed like the big city I might go to for Carnival, go for a party and a chill and then head home.
