I rode a shark once. I wouldn't recommend it. It was fun, but I thought I was going to get eaten the entire time! Nothing against sharks. I love sharks. I just don't think we are meant to ride them.
The first two days that I rode a horse, I had someone controlling it with a rope around its neck.
Archaeologists have been digging up thousands of graves of people called Scythians by the Greeks. They turn out to be people whose women fought, hunted, rode horses, used bows and arrows, just like the men.
Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.
I grew up in New Jersey and played sports and rode my bike around. It was a really nice time - kids didn't have cellphones then - and you knew everyone in the town.
My friend Harry Nilsson used to say the definition of an artist was someone who rode way ahead of the herd and was sort of the lookout. Now you don't have to be that, to be an artist. You can be right smack-dab in the middle of the herd. If you are, you'll be the richest.
Childhood is just this amazing place, and in my books, I was trying to express my concern about childhood being eroded. You have kids' TV programs being interrupted by terrorist attacks, and kids are exposed to so much these days.
I grew up in the middle of everything. I walked the streets alone, I rode the trains alone, I came home at three in the morning alone; that was what I did.
Mostly it would be those who rode in a particular even would hang out with those who rode in the same event.
I can remember sittin' in a cafe when I first started in rodeo, and waitin' until somebody got done so I could finish what they left.
