Growing up in Vancouver in the 1950s, I was often capricious and temperamental, quick to laugh, even quicker to feel despair, prone to flailing my arms, pouting and crying when things didn't go my way, or I thought something was unfair, or I was bullied by my sisters.

The problem with mental illness, as opposed to physical illness, is that it involves wrong thinking or impaired insight. You're not thinking correctly.

I was a late bloomer on the career front.

Our youth-oriented society does not have a clearly defined place for the older woman.

I realised that if you connect with the youth, you are home. Children love Varun Dhawan for the kind of films he is doing. If you can successfully connect with kids and the youth - you have cracked it.

I wanted to live in the suburbs and have a white picket fence and my own bedroom. And a staircase - I thought having a staircase meant that you were a normal family. I thought somehow if you could transplant us to the suburbs, we would become a normal family. But in retrospect, I'm so grateful I grew up in the Chelsea.

I come from a musical family as well as a culinary family.

I'm from California, but my father, who passed away when I was young, was from Newark. When I was kid, we would go back east and catch Yankees games. His side of the family are big Yankees fans. But, the real connection came in '97 when I moved to New York and became friends with the team.