On top of my to-do list in preparing for Beijing is 'On China' by Henry Kissinger, who has had firsthand experience with every top Chinese leader since Mao, so his insights are valuable and his access is perhaps unrivaled.

When I first came to L.A., I was plotting out my career choices as if I actually had a choice. Unless you're Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, impossibly good-looking, or look like a freak, you have to be malleable and open to everything that comes your way because that's what makes it possible to pay your mortgage and eat.

I had a dresser who literally squeezed me in like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.

I didn't get a Bachelor's degree - I got a Bachelor's of Fine Arts, which means I didn't have to take humanities, math, and stuff like that. I think I had to take Art History, which I failed a few times.

My sense of loneliness was not particularly great until I reached sixty. From that time on, I would have given an ex-king's ransom if I had been able, in my youth to seduce a lady into thinking of me as a handyman and provider around the house.