The person that was closest to me growing up was my sister, who died at 19. She was an incredibly powerful girl, deeply committed to art and literature.

We are delightfully trapped by our memories. I can't drink a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Vieux Telegraphe without revisiting a hotel bistro in Luzerne, Switzerland, where I ate a large bowl of a peppery Basque baby goat stew. A sip and a bite. A bite and sip. Goose bumps come with the divine conjunction of food and wine.

The only durable sense of success is if you've followed your calling.

I became aesthetically obsessed with language. And 'literary artist' - poet and novelist - is a calling. You are called to it the way preachers are called to preaching the gospel.

Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than the average family's bungalow! David Suzuki rides on a bus that uses more fuel than a Smart car to get across Canada! Oh my God! And this is just the tip of the vanishing iceberg!

I was 27, an unemployed actress living in a really crappy studio apartment. I had just moved to Los Angeles alone, away from my family. I had cervical and uterine cancer and I was told that I would never be able to carry a baby.

My life is one that I've aimed for - I've always wanted to be an actor who worked in film and television and was able to provide for himself and his family.

My mother was a doctor, and I grew up with her in a little apartment belonging to my grandmother, because the Soviet Union never saw fit to let our family have its own apartment.