After college, I went to San Francisco and worked as a secretary in a reinsurance company. That was a pretty dismal job. It was a real small place. Guys would come in, and they'd sort of stick out their arms like wings so I could take their coats off. They'd tell me, 'Two,' and I'd put two lumps of sugar in their coffee.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.

The case of Afghanistan vs. the Soviet Union is the clearest case of good against evil that I've seen in my lifetime. I thought it was terrific the way they got their country back.

My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.

I learned how to eat right and learned portion control and how to exercise. Staying persistent over the years, I have been able to change the way I'm perceived on the outside.

I had throat cancer, and I had to have radiation treatments, and I couldn't sing for a long time; and this was in '97. I had 28 radiation treatments. I didn't die, thank God.

If we don't know life, how can we know death?

What I do is I'm trying to bridge the gap between yoga and fitness.