I think my background, coming from Iran, which is a great country but is going through its share of troubles, really allows me to appreciate what we have here.

Desperation sometimes drives innovation.

I think I wanted to be a doctor. In Iran, the engineering and medical professions are worshipped. My father very much wanted me to be a doctor. I was certainly eager to please as a young man - as a kid, I should say.

One of the early lessons that I learned in leadership is that it's the leader's job to always go against the flow.

Red certainly is the family color. From my mother and my grandmother, I've learned a lot of little tricks - the significance of color and lipstick being one of them. I started skating when I was eight years old, and my mom did my makeup for me back then.

Ultimately, very few people parent their kids in ways that strike anybody else as reasoned, appropriate or sane.

I grew up singing in church. My family owned funeral homes so I would sing for the occasional funeral, as well.

My father's mother was a secular Jew who died in Auschwitz. I only found out as an adult because my father never talked about it. He was a secularist and never defined himself in ethnic terms - partly, I think, because he was scared; partly out of the habit of not talking of such things; partly because he didn't like being defined by other people.