I never had any ambition to do anything commercial, anything journalistic. I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to be an artist whose work was done in the medium of photography. It may be debatable to this day whether I ever succeeded in achieving that ambition, but the point is, I never had any uncertainty about that.
I've been singing properly every day since I was about fifteen or sixteen, and I have never had any problems with my voice, ever. I've had a sore throat here and there, had a cold and sung through it, but that day it just went while I was onstage in Paris during a radio show. It was literally like someone had pulled a curtain over it.
We face a dilemma because although everybody is better off than they've ever been at any time in our history, we've also got the biggest gap between the rich and the poor that we've ever had, and we've potentially got a planet which is going to go bust any day.
Each leaf that brushed his face deepened his sadness and dread. Each leaf he passed he'd never pass again. They rode over his face like veils, already some yellow, their veins like slender bones where the sun shone through them. He had resolved himself to ride on for he could not turn back and the world that day was as lovely as any day that ever was and he was riding to his death.
I hear it each day. If I'm not smiling, if I don't have the biggest grin on my face, then it's like I'm always down.
Then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.
Bad day?" "Every day is a bad day here." "Eh, this place isnt't so terrible." "How are you always cheerful?" "Alcohol," he says with a sideways grin.
Any scene that involves stripping off is hell. You just know it's going to take a day or more to get it right. It never gets any better and it's always uncomfortable, and all you can do is grin and bare it. I just pray it's never gratuitous and that it doesn't look so fake that all you hear in the audience is, 'Well, that's not really her, is it?'
On a day when you're not feeling so good, you put on a happy face, it's infectious - these things sound kind of corny and stupid, but this is our life.
I would say that life at 84, I am having as much fun as I've ever had in my life. I mean I get to do what I love every day with the people I love-and it just doesn't get any better than that.
If my life had to be a song I would name it, 'Live every day like its your best day ever', because it pretty much is.
Life is hard enough, so when you can get any joy out of it, whether it's something you do on a day-to-day basis, or the people in your life, or going to see a funny movie, there's just nothing better. That's what life is about.
You know how on Christmas day, the day feels different, even if you're just sitting in your chair waiting for your girlfriend to put her face on and you haven't even started any of the festivities yet, the day still feels different. The electrons are fatter and pushier.
If I ask anybody who learned to ski after the age of five, they can remember their first day of skiing-what the weather was like, who they went with, what they had for lunch. I believe that's because that first day on skis was the first day of total freedom in their life.
Winning the gold medal should have been the happiest day of my entire life, and it just wasn't. It felt like the saddest day of my life. Everyone was so angry with us, that Scott and I had fallen in love, because it was so unprofessional, and we were a disgrace and had betrayed everybody.
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.