Growing up, one of the shows that the entire family ate dinner at the table was 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' That was one of the greatest television shows ever, and then I'm a fan of 'Firefly.'

I was in a band when I was in high school, and I was bitten by the performance bug, if anything else.

I live in a craftsman house, but I'm a big fan of modernist and mid-century furniture and architecture, too. But my dream is to do a truly original chair design, something that is all these different things but is my own, too.

The thing about watching a show about the Iraq war, especially for an American audience, is that it reminds them they're responsible in some way.

Between 1950 and 1951, I worked as a temporary employee in the Cologne Bureau of Statistics. From summer 1951 on, I have lived as a freelance writer with a fixed postal address in Cologne but with a continually shifting place of work.

Everyone is different, and so I don't want to repeat anyone else's career. I want to do mine.

People don't value strongly enough how much time they spend in the office. Imagine you could work with people you love - wouldn't work be great and staff turnover be lower? And your productivity higher?

I love my family very much. I wish I could see them a little more often than I do. But we understand because we're a show business family and we all work.