I was opening in a play in my 20s, and my agent came on opening night, brought flowers, took me out to dinner and then told me she was no longer going to be representing me.

"You can't see your children for two weeks." (When I was going through my divorce.)

I get a lot of abuse online because of my opposition to the assault on Gaza. The abuse is horrific, but I’ve learned to ignore it. The integrity of how you live your life is more important than what strangers think.

“You’re getting old.” My son Harris was factually correct, but I didn’t need to hear it.

The exact median middle-aged black woman in the US. If hard work guaranteed success, she’d be the most successful person on the planet. But she isn’t, yet she keeps on going.

A painting by Renoir, paid for by demanding a huge fee for a screenwriting deal with a producer I didn’t want to work for. The movie was never made.

First loved, then laid, then paid.

Appearing on US breakfast radio. I heard the DJ say that after the news we would hear from the author Lincoln Child. I had to choose between making a guy with a mixed-up PR release look like an idiot or pretending to be Lincoln. I pretended.

Do the secret thing you know you were born to do.

More than I can, sadly. I led the softest of lives in the softest of times, and my daughter will face sterner challenges.