When I was growing up in New York City, my father was a taxi driver for a time.

Sometimes I think opposable thumbs were invented so teenage girls could use text messaging.

I believe that the female perspective is a very healing and circumspect one, and we have a right to equal voice.

Are we asking terribly much of people to be curious and interested in the female experience from the female perspective?

I am an enthusiastic European, and my first-hand experience of war and hatred has strengthened that conviction. I have seen how misguided unilateral nationalistic identities have brought destruction and death. I am, however, a world citizen, too.

Perhaps we don't need these religious concoctions to pillow the fear of death. Just the fact that there is an unknown, and something greater, can bring a feeling of peace. That's enough for me.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.

I believe that the day one stops being spiritual, one ends up being religious. I live by the adage that the only certainty in life is death. We should, therefore, learn to live for the day and be content.