HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help or need it. And that reputation is earned.

I remember Michael saying 'Rich and famous? It's much better to be just rich'. I didn't quite get it to begin with. But he's right. You lose anonymity. I say to my family that you've no idea until you lose it how precious anonymity is.

You aren't famous until my mother has heard of you.

You're not famous until my mother has heard of you.

Until he lost all his money my father was a successful north London Jewish businessman. He was unusual among his immediate family in that he was enormously cultured and had an incredible library.

I'm still very connected to my family to the world I grew up in. I understand what it means to be afraid that you can't pay a doctor's bill. Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time. That will never leave me. It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.

Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture.

I was angry and frustrated until I started my own family and my first child was born. Until then I didn't really appreciate life the way I should have but fortunately I woke up.

It just took all of that to come to a screeching halt to get to the point of having nothing for me to finally realize Hey what are you fighting with this for? Until then I hadn't claimed my faith as my own I had just grown up with it.

I have faith the men and women of the Coast Guard will immediately rise to the challenge and see the people hit by Katrina through until the storm has truly calmed.