When Nirvana became popular you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors - old friends family.

Music was your real passion this thing you held dear even above family. It was this relationship that never betrayed you. Once it became your job - this thing that was highly visible this thing that became about commerce - that's when you were holding onto music like it was a palm tree in a hurricane.

Because I didn't have brothers I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family so I became one of them - but it was not my family. I've always been attracted to temporary families. They tend to be lost characters.

I'm a girl from a good family who was very well brought up. One day I turned my back on it all and became a bohemian.

My father was brought up in an orphanage in the Catskills. He was a factory worker. And because his family wasn't there for him family was everything. We could disagree inside the house but outside the house it was us against the world. So when I became a drag actor he looked sideways but said okay.

Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.

I eventually became proud of my strikeouts because each one represented another learning experience.

Have you ever watched someone become American? Last week at a national citizenship conference I organize thirty immigrants from 17 countries swore an oath and became citizens of the United States. It was a stirring experience for the hundreds of people in the room.

No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11 at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having.