My mother killed herself when I was 12. I won't complete that relationship. But I can try to understand her.

A mother who is obsessing about being thin and dieting and exercising is not going to be a very good mother.

We're still living with the old paradigm of age as an arch. That's the old metaphor: You're born, you peak at midlife and decline into decrepitude.

Instead of drifting along like a leaf in a river, understand who you are and how you come across to people and what kind of an impact you have on the people around you and the community around you and the world, so that when you go out, you can feel you have made a positive difference.

You don't learn from successes; you don't learn from awards; you don't learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that's the truth.

In my mind it takes a special kind of courage to risk your life in another country, for your own country. The men and women who came back and spoke out were a special kind of hero.