I think most of us are raised with preconceived notions of the choices we're supposed to make. We waste so much time making decisions based on someone else's idea of our happiness - what will make you a good citizen or a good wife or daughter or actress. Nobody says, 'Just be happy - go be a cobbler or go live with goats.'

I am exactly where I want to be now. You can't go backward. I'm not going backward. I'm grateful that I'm here, blessed to have what I have. Nobody can be prepared for anything. If you end up in a place where you can look back and go, 'It happened, but I'm so lucky to be sitting where I am sitting...'

You don't have to give birth to someone to have a family. We're all family - an extended family.

I'm not saying, "I don't condone plastic surgery." But if you do it, then do it well, make sure you come out looking like yourself. You're comfortable being put under a knife and being disemboweled? Great!

I've done all my tricks. I'm tired of myself.

Don't be someone else's slogan because you are poetry.

People came to my parents' parties because they were going to have fun and, if lucky, our mother would belly dance. What they didn't know was that the hostess made sure every morsel placed in front of them was pure and without anything artificial, no matter what the cost.