I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep nightmares...

Before playing football, I didn't fit in anywhere. My parents didn't have a lot of money, which they spent on our education to send us to Catholic private school in Oakland, mostly black. The other...

I was born in revolution.

I suppose if I wanted to be the girl next door, I could have been. I think America is confused by someone who appears to be sexual and spiritual at the same time.

In your own country, it's easy to make assumptions about people based on accents, about areas based on architecture.

I was born in Korea and left before my first birthday.

For years I was a rock climber and nothing else. I went to school, yes, and university, yes, but in my heart I was a rock climber.

I left the Midwest when I was twelve years old, and I haven't lived in a small town since.

If I leave this sport, I think life will stop.

I like actors - I used to be one.

I have such freedom when I'm living through a mask, and by contrast, can feel very exposed when a camera is capturing my real face. Kind of like the difference between walking out your front door in a...

The only thing urban about me is the parties. I have almost always been a suburbanite. I got a car for my graduation. I want to have a manicured lawn and have my son go to a good college.

When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young...

I'm not an actress, you know. I don't know what's going on. And I'm supposed to be the villain.

I'm just being normal. A normal woman. Well, I don't know what a normal woman is, but I'm a woman and I'm Yoko and I've never changed that.

I always knew I was going to do something with music, but with my whole family being in the business, acting was something that was just mine. But when I was 20 or 21, I started writing songs and felt...

America is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of people who never emigrate. Notably, Americans living outside the United States are not called emigrants, but 'expats.'

To me, I'm just normal.

We called ourselves Mumford & Sons because we liked the idea of an old-fashioned, family-owned store.

I'm black, so I should be able to play a 'thug?' No. Hello. Open your mind. I'm a person that believes in breaking barriers.

I have a good relationship with Mandela. But I am not Mandela's product. I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy.

A tattoo doesn't make you look like an individual.

People are inclined to say that I am Ramona. I'm not sure that's true, but I did share some experiences with her.

A lot of people have said I look Bengali!

If you just looked up where we were from and you looked at what we looked like, it'd be very easy to assume a lot of things about us. Some of those things might even be true. But I don't think we...

But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem.

I've got a lot of traits from my dad's side.

I think people always thought I was more of a Guido than I am.

It's not like I've ever been the popular pretty girl at school or anything. I was always such a weirdo.

It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.