I have a job that requires me to get dressed up more often than if I were in another line of work, but I don't have a lot of indulgences. I like nice wine, and I like sushi, and those things aren't cheap. Well, they can be, but I don't think I'd go for the cheap fish!

Academics were important to my parents, as immigrants. Education is where it all begins.

I won't talk about who I'm dating. Because it's dumb. It leads to nowhere good. I let everybody else in the media do that for me. It takes the responsibility off my shoulders!

I'm glad folks think I look different, I'm living a different, happy, more fulfilling life, and I'm thrilled that perhaps it shows.

I've never been the sort of person who takes things for granted, and I'm not an acquisitions girl. So I didn't feel entitled to a car when I was 16. Of course, I was bummed I didn't get one, because I was an American Texas teenager! But I understood it. I've never gotten my self-esteem from having the newest, most spectacular thing.

Exercise is my outlet, the one thing I do during the day that's mine and mine alone. I don't want to work with a trainer, and I don't want to go with friends to the gym. It's my solitude, and I need it.

I wanted to be self-sufficient, I wanted to take care of myself, and I wanted to learn. I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the world and have my eyes opened. I wanted to be consistently challenged, and I knew I needed to be creative in some way. When I got my job in a bar and I could pay for my tuition and go on auditions and sometimes get jobs that I loved and pay my rent, I knew that I would be all right. That's when my dreams came true, long before the telephone rang and someone said, 'Come and meet Tom Cruise'".