I was born into a very religious family where everything was about setting the right example for the community and having to obey orders blindly. I felt that everyone was growing up in the world, except me. This is probably one of the reasons why I had such a rebellious attitude towards any form of authority.
'English Vinglish' has given me so much respect. I am really thankful to director Gauri Shinde and her husband R. Balki. They blindly believed in me.
My dad instilled in me to naturally question all authority. I don't follow anything blindly. That's religion, cops, doctors, schools, you name it.
I can do anything for the person I love. I love my parents, and if they ask me to blindly marry someone, I will do so.
I've always been on the side of science that tries to help man. I play an active part with the foundations I'm involved in. Science gives hope. If it were offered to me? Never say never. But I wouldn't kill or steal to have my sight. My blindness doesn't define my life.
That American confidence is more alive and well than it should be, to this day. But it's such a problem. There's a blindness to that confidence, a presumption that what's good for me is good for you. No! That's what teenagers think: the world revolves around them. As a nation, we've got to stop thinking that way. We're getting too old for that.
A girl once came to my beery flat in Kensal Green, opened the blinds and cooked me breakfast. I married her.
Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off their bliss.
My kids are blissfully unaware of anything I do. I asked my four-year-old, Harrison, what I did, and he said, 'You're an electrician.' He must have seen me changing a lightbulb.
Comfort is number one for me with shoes. I like to do a test walk in heels to make sure I won't fall or get crazy blisters.
I've been through the entire list of Polar problems. I knew it would be hard, but it's harder than I ever thought it would be. I've suffered from blisters, a high-altitude cough, frost nip, and I even managed to break a ski they told me was unbreakable.
During the Second World War, we lived in a flat on Whitechapel Road in the East End of London. At one point during the blitz, the air-raid sirens went off every night for 30 nights, and each time, my parents would grab my sister and me and take us to the shelter beneath Whitechapel underground station.
It's often hilarious to me that I'm writing about Tonga or some tropical place and there's a blizzard outside and the cows are on their backs with their hooves in the air.
My favorite New York memory is that blizzard in '96. I get chills thinking about it. It's my favorite time here - call me crazy. I'm from Canada, and it's very cold up there.
I was born in a blizzard, a special out-of-season blizzard, the worst blizzard Oslo ever suffered. Family, home, circumstances, the country I lived in and the weather I was born in all conspired to make a skater of me.
There are a lot of things that are personally uncomfortable to show, especially me without makeup and completely bloated or crying. But I've realized that it's time for me to show my audience that you don't have to be perfect to achieve your dreams. Because nobody relates to being perfect.
I was never particularly wild, just very busy and often didn't think about what I was putting into my body. Today things are very different. I stopped smoking in my late 30s; I avoid wheat and gluten as this makes me feel bloated and sluggish; exercise regularly and bounce out of bed.
Mother always said that even when I was 3, I used to get the 6- and 7-year-old kids on the block and punch them and say, 'Listen to me.'
I felt like I had a really bad case of writer's block... Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can't get it out, I start feeling bad about myself - a lot of self-loathing.
There is hardly a place in New York that you can't walk a block and a half and get a cup of coffee. Believe me, I've been all over the world. There's no place like that but New York City.
