Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg “horse”, “ran”, “said”.

Oh, I have a lot of pleasures. I love the being outdoors. I love fly-fishing, particularly for salmon. I love to ski.

One thing that I did was race against the British men a lot and they used to push me round the road; they used to make my life really hard but then when I was racing against the best women in the world, I'd been through just about every experience you could imagine. I remember this one race – a half marathon – where my husband literally pushed me into every kerb he could find, he pushed me into every corner, you know, messed around and tried to drop me out the back of the pack. Then when you're in a race that really matters, if that happens, you've got the skills to deal with it… you need to have practised everything you possibly could in the lead up to it.

I would end every night reading these ten letters. It made the numbers and the policies very concrete and very specific. And I was reminded that the choices we were making were affecting millions of people. I found that to be very useful.

Champagne.

The deception and exploitation of the naïve and defenseless.

Nelson Mandela.

The loss of physical, financial, and psychological independence.

In their company, each of us doing his/her own thing in perfect harmony.

Thrust into my profession without any training whatsoever, I had to just flounder and just find my way. It was an agonizing experience. It’s like jumping off a diving board in the Olympic contest without knowing how to swim or dive, and I just had to find my way. So one day, I said to Jimmy Cagney, “Jimmy, what is acting?” and he said, “I don’t know.” He said, “All I can tell you is whatever you say, mean it,” and I thought that marvelous counsel.