I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought 'No I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young and my father didn't approve of it so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress my mother was very supportive. She always said to me 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'

Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me.

I had this wonderful career and thought I would retire as a teacher.

I was 20 years old working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class and the teacher thought that I had potential so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.

In my teens I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar.

I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought 'Well if acting doesn't work for him he can always become a history teacher or something.' Fortunately the acting worked out.

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'

I love kids so two things that I have thought about are being a pediatrician or a kindergarten teacher.

I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music if thought of as a language would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.

In the fourth grade my history teacher gave us a project: Why was the auto industry located in Detroit Michigan? I didn't know I was going to be an economist but I knew I was going to do something that was involved in answering questions like that one because I thought that was a fascinating question.

I thought well of course Kinsey absolutely adored teaching. He was a wonderful teacher. So these kids really inspired me. So that was a clue I hung onto. He loved young people he absolutely loved them. And he loved teaching them and trying to help them.

I never had to learn English French and German because I was brought up as all three languages. I had a private French teacher before I even went to school. That helped a lot.

The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven which was the main teaching of Jesus is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought.

Women ought to feel a peculiar sympathy in the colored man's wrong for like him she has been accused of mental inferiority and denied the privileges of a liberal education.

In externals we advance with lightening express speed in modes of thought and sympathy we lumber on in stage-coach fashion.

I've always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy which is not to be confused with sympathy. You're trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that's about so you can represent it.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy who are as ignorant of each other's habits thoughts and feelings as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.

It's nice being brought up with no money at all. It's just not how I measure success so that makes it a bunch easier.

Well I believe that the depth of your struggle can determine the height of your success. I was inspired to come out of everything I've been through and end up in a place where I never thought that I would be.

I thought doing reality TV would be the greatest success of my life or the biggest mistake.

Thought is the original source of all wealth all success all material gain all great discoveries and inventions and of all achievement.

The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of music as something commercial it was something very personal to me.