All my life I knew that there was all the money you could want out there. All you have to do is go after it.

I was a manual labourer. I figured out really early on that the value of my life could be determined by my hourly rate as a manual labourer digging holes.

After graduating in the summer of 1980, I knew I wanted my life to count.

I've reinvented myself many times in my life. I thought I'd become a concert violinist but burned out at 17. I thought I'd go to law school but became Miss America.

I don't live in books, but, boy, have books amplified my life.

I knew I didn't want to be stuck in Stoke Newington for the rest of my life, hanging about with idiots. That wasn't for me. I wanted to go out and have a look around.