To be scrupulously honest, I only met Noel Coward twice in my life, and then briefly, but I heard so much about him at home when I was growing up that I always felt I knew him well.

Success was always critical to me. What it meant was winning enough praise and external admiration that I could feel myself to be a logical extension of my Uncle Alex, Uncle Zoli, and my father, in that order.

The first thing to be said about 'Prague Winter,' former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's new book, is that she very wisely chooses to confront early on in it her apparent surprise at learning late in life that she was born Jewish.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

Sendak's 1963 classic 'Where The Wild Things Are' has long been a favorite of mine because of the creative imagery, fantastic adventures and, most of all, because of how this timeless story shows us that children need to be free to roam, explore and invent in order to understand their place in the world that surrounds them.

When I had money in the past, I would always travel rather than spend it on big apartments or cars. And I still feel exactly the same way.

As I travel around the world, I'm realizing that every place I go influences me in some kind of way.

My sisters and I were fortunate to travel through Asia and Europe at very young ages. We confronted extraordinary beauty in Athens and unspeakable poverty in India.