There was kind of a pivotal moment in my life in junior high school when my English teacher told me I should be a part of the public speaking competition.

As I got older, I gave myself the space to be human and to have a minute and be disappointed and feel whatever I'm feeling.

I like Canadians. Who doesn't like Canadians? It's amazing! They're the friendliest people on earth.

I still have some synchronized swimming moves in my back pocket from camp when I was 8. I can really wow people at a pool party.

I wanted to share my doubts and my culinary, amorous, and cosmic experiences. So I wrote 'Like Water for Chocolate,' which is merely the reflection of who I am as a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter.

We were all miners in our family. My father was a miner. My mother is a miner. These are miner's hands, but we were all artists, I suppose, really. But I was the first one who had the urge to express myself on paper rather than at the coalface.

I was a product of the relationships with my family, the environment I grew up in; all those things I kind of put on the back burner when I got into music, and my life all changed dramatically.

One thing that I notice that is changing, you don't see kids on Sunday. Most of them are home. The kids are having much more virtual childhoods instead of childhoods. They don't play ball or hang out with the wrong people or get in fistfights, all the things that once made childhood. I don't know how it's going to turn out.