I've never worried about what audiences would accept or had a game plan regarding the career. I never had an idea of how I should look to my fans or anybody else.
My school reports always used to point out that my concentration levels were appalling. I never listened in class because I was always daydreaming about racing. I never thought for a moment about doing anything else. There was no guarantee that I'd make a career in it but I never had any plan B.
I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'
I had no reason to want to copy anybody else. What I wanted to give audiences for the few minutes that I thought my career would last was something unique.
It's probably simply a matter of temperament that I never stopped to wonder if I could "match" what I had done, never choked off my writing by competing with myself, or with anybody else for that matter. My ambition was absolutely centered on the work itself, never on what it would bring me, or "who" it would make me. I never cared about that at all.
Japan suffered terribly from the atomic bomb but never adopted a pose of moral superiority, implying: 'We would never have done it!' The Japanese know perfectly well they would have used it had they had it. They accept the idea that war is war; they give no quarter and accept none. Total war, they recognize, knows no Queensberry Rules. If you develop a devastating new weapon during a total war, you use it; you do not put it into the War Museum.
I think because of my background - I went through university and did an academic career and fell into acting - I've never had a game plan for my career because I got into it quite ad hoc.
Since puberty I've always had this strange awareness that all the keener experiences I would have in my life would happen later than it would to my contemporaries. When it came to the career thing, I never worried about it. It's better if you're still peaking when you're 60, which I feel I am.
That's the advice I would give to women: Don't look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. Look at how the guy treats his mother and what he says about women. How he acts with children he doesn't know. And, more important, how does he treat you? When you're dating a man, you should always feel good. You should never feel less than. You should never doubt yourself.
I never had any idea that I would have a career quite honestly. You never really have any idea what is going to happen. You have an idea of what you would like to happen.
When I was younger, I had no idea that I would be an actor. I had an interest in it, but I never actually did it. I didn't really expect it to be a career path.
My idea of that[idea of career] is constantly changing. I mostly just throw it out to the universe and I can't really do much after that. I've never taken the steps to be "successful": I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house. I've talked to people about it but I've never followed through because it gives me the creeps.
I was a first time bride at 44. I had never even lived with anybody. And after running my own business for many years, I knew how to be the boss - but I had no idea how to be a good partner.
I've never had a five-year plan or a three-year plan, or whatever, ... We had an idea philosophically of what we were going to do and how we were going to do it.
Meditation had never been tried before in a medical center, so we had no idea whether mainstream Americans would accept a clinic whose foundation was intensive training in meditative discipline.
Something that would probably surprise my fans is that I wear contact lenses, and nobody really knows that because I guess I've never really had to tell anybody about that.
I never really had a career, to be honest with you. I never in my life sat down and planned it. I have thought, 'Oh, I'd like to do this,' like anybody would. But I'm not the type that says, 'If I do this, it will lead to that.'