We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Northwest D.C. I was essentially raised by a Panamanian man and a Jamaican woman. That's why I have such a fascination with Jamaican food.

My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society.

If you don't go towards the thing you fear you won't be able to say you lived.

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement.

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear... that as far as the world is concerned we might as well never have lived.

No matter how famous and established they were or however blessed they were with great songs or long careers if they lived alone they lived alone. That's not the way I wanted to live prior to the tour or after.

Look at Gleason in The Honeymooners. He was humorous but the way he lived wasn't really humorous. He was a bus driver. Who wants to be a bus driver? He didn't have any money and he was not famous. But despite that the show is humorous.

I made a conscious decision back then that I would rather be the best actress who ever lived than the most famous one.

I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.

How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?