Both Plockton and the Isle of Muck in north-west Scotland are incredibly beautiful. Sadly, Plockton has been discovered by tourists because it's where they shot Hamish Macbeth.

The crushing, pitiful, and frequently just plain risible pathos of an unsuccessful actor/performer's life is well charted.

If one's honest about it, spending time in a car with children is pretty ghastly.

Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.

My theory is that one needs to be loved completely, unconditionally, and unfettered by parental disapproval, if one is to get happily through life which, after all, presents its own hurdles.

My mother, father, stepmother and surrogate mother have all died of cancer; my best friend has got terminal cancer and at least five of my other friends have had cancer but survived it.

If there's one thing I know, it's this - everybody thinks somebody else is having a better life.

If you have any power at all from being popular, then you have a duty to help people out.

Does everyone turn into a truculent thirteen-year-old when they go home, or is it just me?

Statistically, if you have ever dieted you are extremely likely not only to regain any weight you lose, but to go on to gain even more. Dieting makes you fat.

Sticking to a diet required me to have a permanently low self-esteem. But happily, I developed other skills beyond a fluctuating weight, eventually building up a different source of self-worth.

Reality is seeing that the peace in a picture is a dream.

Childhood only comes around once. Make your child's memories special. Take them on a new adventure each day. It is as simple as opening a book.

I want to see my friends who I have not seen about a year since I've started to do the whole recording thing. I love to sit down with them and have a coffee. I also want to go see movies.

A large family and Democrats have a lot in common: teenagers and Democrats are always happy spending other people's money.

Star Wars has always struck a chord with people. There are issues of loyalty, of friendship, of good and evil... The theme came from stories and ideas that have been around for thousands of years.

After Ive enjoyed a floral bouquet to its fullest, I drop a few petals in a bottle with distilled water to create my own soothing toner.

My views on birth control are somewhat distorted by the fact that I was seventh of nine children.

I'm very comfortable with my sexuality, my body, my face - well, sometimes I'm not comfortable with my face, but it's stuck there and there's nothing I can do about it.

To be very honest with you, there were two big factors: One was that we were initially coming out in that week before Thanksgiving where both Twilight 3D and Happy Feet 2 are coming out.

No government can make me wear a veil, no government can force me not to wear it either