One of the best lessons I learned early is that not everything in life is about you. It is about service. If you want trips and excessive gifts, then don't get into public service.

Is the president purposefully using propaganda and hyperbole to garner the American public for support?

I think anybody that gives their opinion in a confident way everyday is going to be criticized.

So the mayor of New Orleans would have used his own buses had the people had been white?

I write every day, including weekends. For writers, there are no weekends. It's just that your family is around, looking mournful, wondering when you're going to pay attention to them.

I'm often asked if I regret not going to Hollywood. I'm glad I didn't go, because if I had I wouldn't have my extended family, which is the fabric of my life. Only recently have I realised how special and unusual it is.

Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.

When my twin grandchildren, Linda and Lyeke, were born two years ago, it changed me. I felt it was the essence of what life is about, and I cried all day. When my son Pierre, their father, was born I didn't cry like that.