Growing up in Ireland, when my family received important news, good or bad, we would boil water and make tea. It was the first thing I did when my father died in 1984. This ritual allowed me a moment to take in the enormity of what had happened.

Jessica Simpson is the youth ambassador for Operation Smile, and an episode of The Apprentice featured a team managing a charity concert she put on. Donald Trump came on stage and pledged a donation.

I came up through the theater. I came out of drama college and started working in the professional theater.

I tell about some of the female characters from the Bible so girls can be inspired and empowered and uplifted.

My personal life is in the spotlight, but people say what they want to say. The truth isn't in the spotlight, I should say. I'm in the spotlight, but not the truth.

When I was young my Father used to tell me that the two most worthwhile pursuits in life were the pursuit of truth and of beauty and I believe that Alfred Nobel must have felt much the same when he gave these prizes for literature and the sciences.

The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words 'All Men' exclude a vast number of citizens.

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.