It was so much fun to have the freedom to wander America with no assignments. For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself.

The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress.

I got into shape because I took kick-boxing lessons every day to prepare for a fight scene with Taylor Lautner. I really wanted to lie down and eat Chinese food but I kick-boxed every morning and ran. If someone was filming you with your kit off you'd do the same thing.

I did skit comedy online for many years beginning around 2001. Around 2006 I started watching a lot of food television and got re-interested in food. I come from a very food-obsessed family. But I also wanted to do my own thing which was the comedy.

After failing four times and after working for other people and realizing that nobody paid attention to the food like they should have we wanted to just pay attention to the food and service.

Especially for me growing up in such a small town in the middle of nowhere the desire to be away was incredible. I wanted to see new lands meet new people from the city and meet people that were in much less fortunate situations than I was so that I could be more appreciative of my present. At least I had food on the table.

When I came to the Food Network I didn't want to do a cooking show. I told Kathleen Finch for nine months I didn't want to do a cooking show I wanted to do a home-and-garden show.

Creole is New Orleans city food. Communities were created by the people who wanted to stay and not go back to Spain or France.

All I ever wanted to do was to make food accessible to everyone to show that you can make mistakes - I do all the time - but it doesn't matter.

I wanted to be a great white hunter a prospector for gold or a slave trader. But then when I was eight my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books.

I wasn't passionate about food until I'd been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook period.

'The Food Network' was just starting in New York and I was getting lots of attention from Mesa Grill. They had no money so if you couldn't get there by subway you couldn't be on. It wasn't like TV was something I really wanted to do - but I knew it would be great publicity for my restaurants.

I went in saying I wanted to be the food guy.

At one point I had to shove as much food in my body as possible to pack on calories. My trainer wanted me to do six meals a day and not go two hours without eating. If I would cheat on eating one day I could tell - I'd drop a few pounds.

I don't like food that's too carefully arranged it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.

My Daddy liked physical fitness and wanted me to be a prizefighter.

We wanted Nike to be the world's best sports and fitness company. Once you say that you have a focus. You don't end up making wing tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.

I wanted to make Jerusalem as feature film. But we couldn't finance it only through theatrical release we couldn't get all the money we needed. We had to get some money from television. So we said ok let's do it both ways. So we did it in four parts.

I don't plan on going back to legal work. I wanted an international career and finance seemed to be where some interesting career opportunities were.

I got IRS records to finance what I wanted to do.

I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways it was everything I ever wanted but when it happened all I felt was total paralysing fear.

More than anything else my mother wanted to be an actress - a famous actress - which in the 1950s was all about being young sexy and available. She was all that and more. She had big blue eyes alabaster skin a heart-shaped face a beautiful figure. She was just a knockout.

The first syndicating I tried was when two partners and I created a production company in 1952. We wanted to syndicate famous Bible stories and sell them for $25 a show.

I wanted to be a rich famous rock-and-roll star in that order.