I know career motivation and encouragement up the ladder of success have their place in the world. But I don't want them anywhere near my spirituality.

There was a verse that said if you are lukewarm rather than hot or cold, God will spit you out of his mouth on Judgment Day. And I felt like, I mean, I don't know. I'm lukewarm.

Using phrases or mantras to encourage and comfort myself has been a powerful practice for me. For years, I would say to myself 'Remember the purple sky' when I was feeling anxious, which to me meant remember a sense of internal spaciousness and kindness toward myself.

How is Maggie Rowe compensating for her decision to not have a child? Is what she is doing instead enough to justify that decision? What is she doing instead, and why can't she be better at it? What's keeping her from getting a better overall existence score in comparison to an arbitrary sampling of other human beings?

I'm not sure what my material would have been if I'd have started earlier. I probably would have started with 'Damsels in Distress' kinds of films because that's the kind of comedy I was writing in college. So I didn't really have any life experience to work off of.

I want to do everything. That's my problem. Life is short, and I hate the idea of turning down anything. You never know what interesting experience might happen.

I think people must wonder how a white girl like me became a blues guitarist. The truth is, I never intended to do this for a living.

No planet is more earth-like than Earth itself, so if life really does pop up readily in earth-like conditions, then surely it should have arisen many times right here on our home planet? And how do we know it didn't? The truth is, nobody has looked.