I think I'm going to give my baby her first food on Thanksgiving make her some organic sweet potato. I'm very excited! It's going to be a big day and my husband is in charge of the turkey - he's the chef of the family!

I like to go to parties where I know everyone. How are you going to have fun with people you don't know?

I am going to take something I learned over in Israel. Their Independence Day is preceded the 24 hours before with Memorial Day so it gives them a chance to serve and reflect and then celebrate. I am going to try to start that tradition here in America.

No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.

I'm not going to put out a Christmas CD until it's coming out of me naturally.

When I was eight years old I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going there was no reason to quit.

I'm going to take the kids away over Christmas but I don't I've written 14 musicals now I don't want to rush into doing something just for the sake of doing it. I want to do it when I find a story.

One Christmas build-up tradition however has totally bypassed me - that of going up to town and 'doing a show.'

The people that make this country work the people who pay on their mortgages the people getting up and going to work striving in this recession to not participate in it they're not the enemy. They're the people that hire you. They're the people that are going to give you a job.

I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you're a musician a writer an athlete or a businessman there is no getting around it. If you do you'll win - if you don't you won't.

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing or play it too much for laughs that can work for a sketch it will sell some gags but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it but it's not going to touch you in any way.

I don't try to focus on anything that doesn't affect me personally and how I go out there every single day. I'm just going to continue to work hard and focus on what I can control.

You should never have to say hello or goodbye. Even at work sometimes and I know this is very unpopular is that if I'm going to work every single day I don't think you should have to hug people hello every single day when you come to work. I saw you Monday!

And I'm going to work as hard as I can... for cancer research and hopefully maybe we'll have some cures and some breakthroughs. I'd like to think I'm going to fight my brains out to be back here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year!

The biggest risk I've ever taken is going on American Idol and trying to be myself. I wasn't going to try too hard to conform and I knew that it could possibly not work out.

I'm very happy. I like my work and the various aspects of it - going around the world teaching the gospel according to St. Albert.

You can work really hard but if you're not training in the right way you're not going to improve and get to the level that you want to.

At 35 I'm definitely starting to feel more like a grown-up than I ever have. There's nothing in my life that is childish or whimsical. Having fun is fantastic and I never want to lose a sense of that - and also I think you have to have that to put into your work or else it's going to feel stiff.

We spend billions of pounds on welfare yet millions are trapped on welfare. It's not worth their while going into work.

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

Don't ever ever believe anyone who tells you that you can just get by by doing the easiest thing possible. Because there's always somebody behind you who really wants to do what you're doing. And they're going to work harder than you if you're not working hard.

One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America like America love America and then work.

What are people going to do? Fire me? I've been fired before. Not book me? I've been out of work before. I don't care.