I KNOW how LUCKY I am, and I am aware that I have to fight the perception that I am ALSO a spoiled brat.

I always SAY: 'If I'm LUCKY ENOUGH to be given the OPPORTUNITY to work again, that's it, I'm being wheeled on, sitting on a sofa, and SOMEONE's going to feed me grapes, and I'm not getting up.'

The RIGHT TIME is any time that one is STILL so LUCKY as to have.

I THINK of myself as an enormously LUCKY PERSON.

In EVERY kid's life, there's about three or four years when you're at liberty, and after that, you have to GET a JOB because you're getting MARRIED or you have to support your parents or WHATEVER it is. I was lucky: I didn't get married, so I didn't have to have that responsibility.

I was really LUCKY because from a very young age, I wanted to be a doctor. So I KINDA knew I had that GOAL for my WHOLE life.

One thing I have learned in my painful career as a GAMBLER is that bragging when you get lucky and WIN a few GAMES will plunge you into gloom and UNACCEPTABLE beatings very SOON. It happens every time.

If you are lucky ENOUGH to have a PARENT or two alive on this PLANET, call them. Don't text; don't e-mail. Call them on the phone.

Those of us referred to food BANKS are the lucky ones with a good DOCTOR or HEALTH visitor who KNOWS us well ENOUGH to recognise that something has gone seriously wrong.

I've been LUCKY. The CRITICS never went out of their WAY to SINGLE me out for doing BAD work.

I was LUCKY that I MET the right MENTORS and teachers at the right MOMENT.

It's WEIRD for me to say I'm LUCKY when I can't GO into a bookstore and have more than five CHOICES if I want to read SOMETHING about Asian-American characters.

Don't push away that chance if you're one of the lucky ONES who find that partner. And REMEMBER, you can always change a JOB. I hear it's much harder to SWITCH out a husband.

My life has been a FORTUNATE one; I was born under a lucky star. It seems as if both wind and tide had favoured me. I have SUFFERED no great losses, or defeats, or illness, or ACCIDENTS, and have undergone no great struggles or privations; I have had no grouch. I have not wanted the EARTH.