I have never lost my faith in God.

God has a most wicked sense of humor.

My father was a shaman. He told me that time doesn't exist. He didn't use a clock. He didn't know when my birthday was.

There is something special about the beauty in the unclear, the ambiguity, the in-between that you can't totally recognise.

I have something inside of me that every day tells me that nature and beauty is the soul, the meaning, of our life. And I also love Hollywood and cinema.

I had two different kind of parents. My mother was obsessive with movie stars and cinema and Hollywood because she worked in movies. And my father was obsessed with beauty everywhere - in art, in nature, animals.

I think that there is not really a difference between a 'Peanuts' and a beautiful Renaissance painting. There is something very romantic in the 'Peanuts' - it's at the same level of a novel or a Jane Austen story or a beautiful embroidered rose fabric. It is a piece of romanticism.

I think a lot of people feel that they want something softer. Things are changing. It's about individuality, and in a way, it's romantic.

I never want to go out wearing something sad.

For me, fashion is something that makes you feel alive, that expresses something of you: if you are sad, if you are happy.

I love taking prints, embroidery, appliques - precious things that seem to be from another time - and using them to create a contemporary, new story.

This is the power of fashion: the capability of allowing people to express themselves.

The only dream I have in my life is to be a little piece of my dad, because he was really happy.

I'm a Virgo and I'm more - I don't want to say 'negative' - but I'm the girl who thinks no one's coming to my birthday party, no one's buying my clothes, no one's reading my book, no one's watching my show - that's just how I think.

Fall 2013 was inspired by the 1970s equestrian lifestyle. I wanted to incorporate the moody and romantic - intricate baroque detailing and classic menswear elements - with something tougher and edgier in a nod to London's rock n' roll underground.

I just fell into the job as a fashion editor at a teen magazine. I was there for two years, and I left there as a senior fashion editor at the age of 25.

It's really unfair to working women in America who read celebrity news and think, 'Why can't I lose weight when I've had a baby?' Well, everyone you're reading about has money for a trainer and a chef. That doesn't make it realistic.

I don't think that people should wear dresses two sizes too small. I just think that sexiness is better left to the imagination. It's just more tasteful.

My dad is an unbelievable entrepreneur who balanced his life as a father and a president of two very successful companies.

We kind of look at music as something very natural in people's lives. I mean, most of us can relate to music in some sort of shape and form, and if you think about it, most of us remember the first time we kissed someone, what kind of music was playing or the song that was playing on our friend's birthday.

I had always wanted to belong, and I had been thinking that this was going to get solved when I had money, and instead, I had no idea how I wanted to live my life. And no one teaches you what to do after you achieve financial independence. So I had to confront that.

I had two passions growing up - one was music, one was technology. I tried to play in a band for a while, but I was never talented enough to make it. And I started companies. One day came along and I decided to combine the two - and there was Spotify.

There are half a billion people that listen to music online and the vast majority are doing so illegally. But if we bring those people over to the legal side and Spotify, what is going to happen is we are going to double the music industry and that will lead to more artists creating great new music.

There are millions of people who consume music illegally every month. Just getting them into a legal service will make the music industry way bigger than it's ever been before.

For me, as someone growing up in a working-class suburb in Stockholm, I couldn't afford all the music. So back in '98, '99, I was really thinking about how I could get all the music and do it in a legal way while at the same time compensating the artist.

My wife's brother has a little house on a small island in the Baltic Sea, and we go there at Christmas. The 30-minute crossing from the mainland to this island is the most terrifying cruise you'll ever take. They give you a barf bag when you walk on board.

I did a cake for the 60th birthday of Elton John, for Britney Spears' 27th birthday and for the 'Circus' album she put out - the cake had circus themes. I prepared a cake for a surprise 82nd birthday event for the architect Frank Gehry; the cake was comprised of mini-replicas of his buildings.

Pastry is different from cooking because you have to consider the chemistry, beauty and flavor. It's not just sugar and eggs thrown together. I tell my pastry chefs to be in tune for all of this. You have to be challenged by using secret or unusual ingredients.

I don't follow trends. I make each cake for a particular wedding, or event.

When I celebrated my bar mitzvah, there was no cake. Today, there is no such thing as a bar mitzvah in the United States without a special cake. It can be even more complicated and expensive than a wedding cake, because bar-mitzvah cakes are often based on a particular theme.

I have a crusade against fondant, also shortening. There's no reason why wedding cakes can't taste good if you know what you're doing.

I became hugely overweight and then hated myself because it was a form of self-abuse, something over which I had no control. I think the thing compulsive over-eaters want to achieve is that stuffed-full Christmas afternoon feeling.

I rarely fly, for environmental reasons more than anything else.

We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can't remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn't include books.

The young people I know judge leaders by their deeds and abhor hypocrisy. Inconsistency and point-scoring do not win respect. It's not easy to be engaged in political debate when it is reduced to performers trying to outdo each other. Actions from leaders must mirror the values they claim to espouse.

Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems, Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system.

Imagination and invention go hand in hand. Remember how lack of resources was never a problem in childhood games? Shift a few pieces of furniture around the living room, and you have yourself a fort.

I know kids who say they have nothing to do and then go plop themselves down in front of the television to watch a movie or play Nintendo or Xbox. I think there is nothing better for killing creativity and imagination.

Although technology has enhanced our lives in many ways, it has also ensured the erosion of imagination.

Having a birthday around the holidays was never easy and, with every successive year, it felt more and more as if celebrating my birthday got thrown into the December holiday mix as an afterthought.

In the years preceding my imprisonment, I worked as a software programmer, designing and developing web interfaces, secure databases, and communication software; later, I was employed as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army. Throughout each of these jobs, we used different kinds of encryption to keep prying eyes out of information we handled.

In 2010, the iPhone was only three years old, and many people still didn't see smartphones as the indispensable digital appendages they are today. Seven years later, virtually everything we do causes us to bleed digital information, putting us at the mercy of invisible algorithms that threaten to consume our freedom.

Transgender folks have been part of the push for LGBT equality from the beginning, and we've spoken with loud and intelligent voices and have found political and personal success and advancement all over the world.

Many queer and trans people live - and lived - in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn't help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.

No one knows my gender more than I do. You do not know my gender better than I do. A doctor doesn't know it better than I do. My parents don't know it better than I do. No one experiences my gender in the way that I experience it.

You start to forget about the world outside - it's not relevant or relatable anymore. The darkest part of solitary confinement is that you start to forget about cars and jobs and families and weather and politicians - and all the things that make up a society.

The U.S. needs legislation to protect the public's right to free speech and a free press, to protect it from the actions of the executive branch, and to promote the integrity and transparency of the U.S. government.

In my experience, working as an intelligence analyst with my own pool of sources numbering close to 100, by far the most effective forms of human intelligence collection are rapport-building and direct questioning.

The U.S. intelligence community is in a very poor position to be trusted with protecting civil liberties while engaging in intelligence work.

When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you're a skilled intelligence professional, everything looks like a vital source for collection.