Well, the whole story is in the book, but the short answer is that I was the first information architect in an organization that was traditionally design-oriented, and I felt I needed a tool to help me gain the trust and support of my colleagues.

I would say I was always very ambitious and goal-oriented, but rather than being just a go-getter hustler, now I surrender a lot more and I trust my path a lot more.

I've come to the conclusion that beautiful women in the West aren't comfortable finding strength in their femininity. They want to do masculine-oriented things to establish their femininity. It's a contradiction.

Our whole family had been sports oriented. My dad had played a lot of semipro but never had any opportunity to do anything with it. Back then, he had to make a living.

Wrap parties can be really sad, actually, disorienting.

Romantic Orientalism was fascinated by the color and excitement of a powerful culture, and nearly always approached its subject with love.

With female-oriented movies, unless it's something like 'Bridesmaids' or a romantic comedy, you've got to really worry about your opening weekend. And I'm always telling stories about women, not younger women, and it's just a much tougher audience to get to the movie theater.

Demonization of people on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria leads to dehumanization. The notion that some are 'other' is a dangerous and slippery slope.

No white group has founded a major religion on this planet. The major religious were started in the Orient and the Middle East, not in Greece and Rome. I always knew you racists didn't have a prayer.

Regardless of the sexual orientation behind a relationship, it is still a relationship and still love.

Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.

Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.

I'm a straight white man - I have options, and I'm not blocked on a consistent basis when I wake up in the morning because of my race, sex, and orientation.

The most common things I would go out for would be, like, 'the Lab Technician' on a crime procedural, usually an expert in either a medical or a computer-oriented field.

The Internet ethos of diversity and competition runs exactly counter to uniform, gatekeeper-oriented medical culture - the technocratic philosophy of the 'one best way' embodied in our pharmaceutical regulations. On the Net, medical information is abundant, and pharmacies, domestic and foreign, operate on many different models.

I feel very deeply about the need to respect and tolerate people of different social - or sexual orientation. But at the same time, I believe marriage should be preserved as an institution for one man and one woman.

I want to focus on the importance of supporting marriage. I always speak about the need to respect everyone's human dignity - regardless of their sexual orientation. I think strengthening marriage is something that benefits everyone.

I believe all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be guaranteed the full rights to the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage under the Constitution.

I say the law should be blind to race, gender and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power. There should be no specially protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose physical frailty demands society's care.

Being involved in sports and having a very sport orientated family just helped the transition extremely well. I guess, in a way, your school colleagues saw you out and about, and you were part of the team you were getting into the Australian way, learning the language. The transition was extremely smooth.

Solutions-oriented campaigning with a little passion and a little humor; I think that will go a long way. I think people are desperate for it.

And the American people are the greatest people in the world. What makes America the greatest nation in the world is the heart of the American people: hardworking, innovative, risk-taking, God- loving, family-oriented American people.

Future orientation is combined with a notion and expectation of progress, and nothing is impossible.

I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.