The same way that mid century modern architecture was in the 50s, I want to be as a human being. New. Different. Challenging the old. Function over frivolity. Clean living. Clean lines.

We sit at our consoles and play "Gears of War", but we don't see images from war. We don't turn on the news and see the evidence of war, the result of war. Maybe twice a year, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, we'll go out, we'll hang our flags, we'll try to inculcate in our children some sense of national honor for the fallen. But really, we don't see it. We just don't see the pictures. There's no drive-by on the freeway of death up close. So we don't really see bravery.

Without my women friends, I wouldn't know anything. They've been my teachers and my mothers. My mother was a wonderful person, but she didn't give me a lot of the stuff I needed to advance myself as an adult woman. I have a really strong group of girlfriends, and we share a lot with one another - the complications of raising children, marriages, personal and physical struggles.

I have a rule: Pretend you're going on a trip for two weeks, and pull what you'd wear on that two-week trip, and get rid of everything else.

My husband once said he'd never met anybody who walked so fast and ran so slowly. As I said, it's a little hard for me to try new things, and this was me facing a fear that I'd had my whole life. Since I had no experience running, I felt like a failure before I'd even begun.

I'm a performer. I've just been one since I was a little girl. I used to pretend all the time.

My favorite time of the holidays is when the children have torn open their loot and delivered their verdicts and are looking to you for something else ... memories that have nothing to do with things bought.