In Asian languages, the word for 'mind' and the word for 'heart' are same. So if you're not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you're not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.

My father was a world-class scientist and my mother was a prolific painter. I could see that my parents had completely different ways of knowing and understanding the world, and relating to it. My father approached things through scientific inquiry and exploration, while my mother experienced things through her emotions and senses.

You don't need the iPhone: you have the most exquisite apparatus in the known universe sitting right in your head - the most complex organization of matter in the entire universe. And here are we, feeling a little depressed, feeling like we're not getting where we need to be, when really you might be exactly where you need to be.

I was very much a tough New York street kid. I went to a school where you had to learn how to get along with everybody or fight with everybody, and I did my fair share of both. But you have to learn how to get along. I did an awful lot of fighting. I was tough, but I'm also relatively small, so I learned very early on to use my mind.

I love what I do, I can't imagine doing anything else, but ultimately, my goal is to be happy and have a family. That's my life.

When you have a big family, certainly with strong personalities, you feel like you have to fall into a role, and I didn't want to be the little sister or the daughter, because that's who you become as an adult.

I see girls who are so skinny on the catwalks, and I know so many of them destroy their lives and their family's lives.

I'm not trying to be a role model to kids, because I don't have any children, but I do think everyone should have a free spirit.