Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There was no place at all for me in my father's military world.
One of the important things for me is that my father is from Sri Lanka. But even more importantly, he was a consultant for the World Bank.
What will the U.S. senators have to say if there is, as many over here and in the rest of the world suspect, no substance to the allegations against my father and me?
My father passed me the concept that vicuna was something very special, very expensive. So it was a question of pride. I didn't want anybody else in the world to be touching vicuna before us.
I first became aware of the delights of the natural world when my father, an entomologist, presented me with what looked like a twig. When it got up and walked, my delight was such that I wrote a poem, 'To a Walking Stick.'
In 2007, I discovered I was a father to a little boy who I did not know about. After being on MTV's 'The Real World' and traveling the world, I was greeted by a stack of papers on my doorstep informing me that I had a child.
Passing on a full scholarship to MIT would be irrational for me, but to my father and his parents, what would have been the point of spending five years at one of the world's most prestigious universities if he just ended up back on the farm?
It was a mistake. I was wrong, but I discovered this many years later. I was acting on the basis of this mandate given me by the most important leaders of the world: President Bush's father, prime minister of France, President Mitterand, the Chinese, everybody.
My father's encouragement is what has brought me this far, because when I grew up I wanted to be like him, and I knew I had that ability to become an athlete. Being an Olympian is one of the greatest things, and being an Olympic gold medallist is one of the most prestigious titles in the world.
When I was a little girl, my father, who was a high-ranking officer, pilot, and an avionics specialist in the United States military, would hoist me up onto the elevator - the flight control surface located at the tail of his airplane. From up there I could get a glimpse of the world as he saw it.
My mother died of cystic fibrosis before I knew her. I was two years old, and I don't remember her. I do remember, though, when it was just my father and me, before he met the woman who would become the mother who raised me, before my younger sister, Gillian. It was just the two of us, and he was my whole world.