Growing up, others girls wanted to dance and help their mums with the cooking. I liked to play soccer with the boys. Or I'd be off on my own, tilting mirrors towards the sun in order to burn armies of ants. That was my idea of fun.

But to sustain a marriage for 50 years, you have to get real a little bit and find someone who is understanding and who you can grow with. My mom always says, 'Marry the man who loves you a millimeter more.'

I'm in a stage where I feel like I need to retrain my mind, because since the beginning of my career, I've been such a fighter and a little hustler and someone who just tried to stay afloat in this business.

My heart got broken so many times because I put so much pressure on it. And then... I got blindsided.

My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, 'Mum, he has more books than me!' So, books are at the very heart of my life.

Particularly black Americans, many of them, from quotes that I have seen and conversations I've had, are sort of insulted that the civil rights movement is being hijacked - the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is being hijacked for something like same sex marriage. Black Americans tend to have a higher degree of religiosity.

We do know the welfare system, starting in the '60s, basically encouraged the dissolution of marriage, encouraged families to separate in order to get the benefits.

I think I have a romantic idea of life; I certainly have a romantic outlook. I think. I hope.