Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The sad events that occur in my life are the sad events that happen to everybody, with losing friends and family, but that is a natural occurrence, as natural as being born.
In many ways 'Emmerdale' is a huge part of my life but in many ways it's not. I've always had so many interests elsewhere - family and friends and other interests away from that.
I knew I was Yoruba and Nigerian for the first 9 years of my life. I did not become conscious of my color and all that came with it until I moved to the United States with my family.
I've just been competitive all my life. That draws from a competitive family. We're all athletes, and we're all trying to win no matter what it is, whether it's Scrabble or basketball.
I've had a family my entire adult life; I started raising kids when I was 21. I suspect that being part of a family has probably informed my life as a writer as much as anything else has.
What I have found to be so interesting in my life and with my friends and family who have 'normal jobs' where they don't play pretend for a living is that... Hollywood is absurd but very open about its absurdity.
I grew up very poor in a fractured family that was dysfunctional on both sides, but I sort of put up these reflectors to most of the negative things that have occurred in my life. I don't carry around much baggage.
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.
I thought it'd be different. Kind of like, a lot of weight lifted off of my shoulders, as I don't have to worry about finances for the rest of my life, or my family's. But it wasn't like that. It was more - there's things I need to get done.
I have been a foreigner all my life, first as a daughter of diplomats, then as a political refugee and now as an immigrant in the U.S. I have had to leave everything behind and start anew several times, and I have lost most of my extended family.
When I did 'E.T.,' it sort of solidified the only family I know are these film crews. These gypsies. These filmmakers. That was the solidification and the clicking revelations of 'This is what I want to do with my life and this is where I'm going to survive.'
I've had moments in my life when I've thought if I wasn't acting, if I wasn't doing what I do and I had a career in the private sector and I didn't have a family, that I do have some tendencies where I could really kind of have a monastic existence and be okay with it.
I got introduced to yoga in drama school. It's now a mainstay in my life, ever since I got instructor certification at a teacher-training intensive. I even occasionally guide an intimate class of friends and family, but mostly the training was to serve and deepen my own practice.
I've been blackmailed a billion times. I've been sued for ridiculous things. At one point in my life, I was an ATM machine. But I'm used to that. You don't get used to it, but I'm used to the fact that people will do this, even your own family members, and I don't hate none of them.
Writing was a way to get away from my life as a programmer, so I wanted to write about other things, but of course nobody wanted to publish another story about a family, unless it was extraordinary. When I began writing about my life as a programmer, however, people were interested.
I'm a fairly ordinary person - a lifelong reader, a former software engineer, and former math teacher. I come from a wonderful family of teachers, musicians, librarians, and engineers. I think I surprised them as well as my friends and coworkers when I took up writing as a hobby and let it take over my life!
In our family, we've always been owned by border collies, or dogs of one kind or another, and have rescued many dogs. We've lived in the woods and sometimes have had as many as 70 sled dogs. Or had six or seven dogs living in the house. Dogs have saved my life on more than one occasion - and I mean that literally.
I'm very focused on what I do professionally, and I'm very focused on my family, and I don't really get too stressed out about what people say or what other people think. In fact, it's not on my radar at all. If there's anything negative, I don't want to know about it. I just do my own thing and get on with my life.
I've always been an entertainer all my life; I come from a family of entertainers. I always made, very pretentiously, a comparison with Agatha Christie. Her inspiration was crime, and I'm sure she must have taken courses or read about crime, because it was the basis of her stories. But ultimately, it was her own fantasy.
I felt lost in endless spools of social media. All the while, emails by the thousands were piling up, phone calls were getting lost in the mix, and messages from the most important people in my life were getting drowned out in the din. I was more responsive to comments on Instagram than to my own closest friends and family.