My mother goes crazy over babies. Some people just do. They love 'em! I never have. Babies scare me more than anything. They're tiny and fragile and impressionable - and someone else's! As much as I hate borrowing stuff, that is how much I hate holding other people's babies. It's too much responsibility.
For me, it's not an option to despair. The question is: what can we do to make someone's life better? Take the unimaginable strides made in places like Bosnia, where I cut my teeth, and Rwanda. Their stories aren't perfect, but I wouldn't have dreamt they could happen in a million years.
I first started doing service, actually, as a kid, doing service projects. Later in college, I started doing international humanitarian work that brought me to places like Bosnia, Rwanda.
I've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.
For me the much more significant question is what did the Americans do, if anything, to help the Croatian army, because they are the ones that changed fundamentally the map of Bosnia, not the Bosnian army.
I have always lived abroad, but inside my family, we always speak in Bosnian and preserve all the Bosnian traditions. So it's always inside me, always in my heart.
America took me into her bosom when there was no longer a country worthy of the name, but in my heart I am German - German in my soul.
I had Courtney Love's left bosom out of her dress on my plate in front of me. It was extraordinary. I didn't know where to look.
Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: 'Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?' They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.
I want to have bosses around me, 'cause at the end of the day, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, you want to make relationships to keep 'em, you know what I'm saying. So I make my relationships to keep 'em - all my relationships - not try to burn bridges that you may need to cross over one day.
Even the most high-maintenance boss isn't going to sit and watch you the whole time, making sure you're paying attention to them, whereas with a child, it's like, 'Wait, what? You're not watching me right now? Really? Then I'm going to go spill this milk.' Even bosses from hell don't behave like that!
Having the support from everyone, the bosses, whoever within the team, definitely makes it much easier for me as a driver.
I remember, when I was 6 years old, we were having an event at school where different dolls were on display. I said that the tallest doll needed to be on the end, and my little friend said to me, 'Oh, you're just so bossy.' I remember thinking that wasn't a good thing. But I kept insisting the doll had to be on the end anyway.
I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody's passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind leading.
I remember growing up and feeling all the time not pretty enough, too rude, too loud, taking too much space because precisely I wanted to maybe be bossy and loud and unapologetic and not really smooth all the time, and those were not really qualities that were valued for me.
I'm a boss by nature. I'm bossy. I'm not imperious, but I don't really want people to curtsy low before me and back out of rooms, but I do like to run things.
I'd never thought of directing as an option for me. I don't know why, because I'm incredibly bossy. I was surprised how collaborative it is. As the producer, you have to get the money and schedule on time, and that's not what I do best.
There were high school coaches such as Charles Boston that took me under his wing and taught me the fundamentals of football. And when I went to college there was Robert Hill who took me there and he showed me what hard work and determination would do if you put forth the effort and you take a little time.
I decided that my means were sufficient to enable me to devote myself to botany, a determination which I never, during the long period of my subsequent career, had on any occasion any reason to repent of.
I am interested in 18th century natural philosophy, science, particularly botany, the study of hybridity in plants and animals, which, of course, then allows me to consider the hybridity of language.
