My book 'Things Get Better' has normalised the idea that it’s OK to fail and it’s OK to seek professional help from psychologists.

I don’t think many people stare at people in wheelchairs because we see it regularly. I suppose if you see more in the media it will take away the curiosity.

There’s nothing worse than saying the past is in the past, then dragging it into your kid’s life."

I have learnt from Simon Cowell that anything is possible if you work hard enough and also that acts of kindness or giving somebody a few minutes of your time can have a massive impact on their life and their future.

My whole family is involved in the arts - my sister is a professional Bharatnatyam dancer, and my dad helps me out on the music business end.

What we must not do - what we must never do - is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human.

I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.

When we were 15, my girlfriend Ruth Kaplan and I applied to the Universidad Ibero-Americana in Mexico City. We were accepted into a program that placed us with a lovely Mexican family. We lived with them for six weeks while studying Spanish poetry and Mexican anthropology.