The reasons why I left were to do with my interest in Buddhism. There were experiences over a period of about six months which caused me to decide to give up music so one morning I felt I had to go to E.G. Management and tell them.

I was lucky because on the morning after the burning of the Reichstag I left my home very early to catch a train to Berlin for the conference of our student organization and that is the only reason why I escaped arrest.

I remember being at school during morning meeting and looking around at everybody 350 kids saying a prayer. We're all very young and no one knows what it means and I remember feeling strange that people were just repeating words that they didn't understand. I refused to participate. For some reason I always rejected it but respectfully.

Well when I was a kid and I watched 'Speed Racer ' I used to always watch it in the morning with my cereal. And when I ate the cereal I would pour soda into the cereal because we never really had milk for some reason I don't know.

Throughout my 20s I spent a lot of time just playing and not really working but fortunately for me I continued to get just enough work and have a reason to wake up in the morning. I really empathize with some of my peers who had success in the early years then it dries up and so there's no reason to get up in the morning.

My principal motivation is supporting my family which is not a bad reason for getting up in the morning. That's always been my motivation - to take care of the people who rely on me.

'Good Morning America' exploited Joan Lunden's pregnancy but you won't see me bringing my babies on the air. The only reason I'm talking about the babies at all is that they've been with me on the show since I became pregnant. After a while I had to acknowledge this pumpkin tummy.

'Not again!' I thought to myself this morning as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons and then blamed when things don't go right.

As far as I'm concerned the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

Like a morning dream life becomes more and more bright the longer we live and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.