What I do is I always try to educate myself about my neighbors, about the people I meet.

Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer.'

Always try to reinvent myself; never try to stay the same person, because that's how people figure you out.

I've always been around people who are older than myself, I've always played on basketball teams with older guys.

I always was flattered when people would say I would do whatever it took for the team. I always thought of myself as that kind of guy.

People find it hard to understand how I can risk ruining my career as a musician by injuring myself on the slopes, but I've always been a tomboy.

I always wrote for myself. I figured I'm not that different from other people. If there's a story I like a lot, there's got to be others with similar tastes.

Ultimately, I've learned to pride myself on being quirky. I very much adore people who are outcasts, and I've always loved to be around interesting, circus-type people.

I have a very interesting story to tell, and people always want to hear about it. They know I'm a 9/11 widow, and I always get comments on that and being an actor and raising my daughters by myself.

When you write for kids, people always ask you what lesson you mean to impart. I don't think adult writers get that question. I never mean to teach anybody a lesson, because I don't know anything myself.

I've always said that with kids' TV that people get stuck in it from drama school but that's not fair because I know myself that when you go in creatively, kids are so much more open to ideas. You're so much freer to mess about and try things.

Everybody always asked why I wanted to be an offensive lineman. I told them that I had 11 different people I can hit on every single play, while everyone else is chasing one person. I prided myself on being an extremely physical and dominant player.

We do all, myself included, we tend to hold ourselves to pretty low standards. But when it comes to judging public figures or politicians or people we've never met, we tend to hold people to very high standards, and, if we held ourselves to those standards, we'd always fall short.

There are some people who are naturally talented, who just have it coming out of their ears; they just sparkle with talent. Some people - and I put myself in this category - don't fit a mould. I always looked a lot older. I was as tall as a giraffe, even at ten, but I found my place, and I really worked at it.

When you've grown up always knowing that there's something that seemed to be different about you from most people - and not being able to understand until my mid-forties that what we were talking about here was autism - I've had to learn an awful let about myself and what I can and can't do and what I can or can't cope with.

The only thing I really recommend, if you're starting out in stand-up is to not try to copy anybody else. You can be influenced by people. I was influenced by Steve Martin and Bob Newhart and Woody Allen, but I never tried to be someone else. I always tried to be myself. And the reason people are successful is they're unique.

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