Most of the things we decide are not what we know to be the best. We say yes merely because we are driven into a corner and must say something.

When I first thought of the idea for 'Sweet Valley High ' I loved the idea of high school as microcosm of the real world. And what I really liked was how it moved things on from 'Sleeping Beauty'-esque romance novels where the girl had to wait for the hero. This would be girl-driven very different I decided - and indeed it is.

Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal... I've decided that I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale you could not ignore its beauty.

I was very much into buying contemporary art but I've just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it's not great art but all of a sudden my mood has changed and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.

Once I got out of architecture school I decided not to be an architect I just started my own little design studio.

The British political system and the whole clapped out Westminster architecture and the language that we use about politics it's completely unsustainable. You either decide to be part of that transition to do something different. Or you cling to old certainties.

I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s and into my 30s I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.

At a certain point I just put the building and the art impulse together. I decided that building was a legitimate way to make sculpture.

I had this really great amazing thing happen where I almost finished the book and I really needed to come up with an ending and I decided to go back and re-read the book and see if I could come up with an ending.

She's 32 and she has three children. She loves to be pregnant but she doesn't want anymore children in her life. So she decided to help another couple. And she's just been amazing.

The lips on my upper right bicep are my girlfriend's lips. She has the most amazing lips and I wanted to carry them around with me everywhere I go considering I can't carry her lips physically with me. So I decided to place them in a discreet location such as the inside part of my bicep.

It's amazing what we can get away with and what we can't. But it's not for me to decide.

I'd said to my sweetheart a couple of days before that the SAG and Spirit Award nomination was amazing and I had no attachment to the Academy Award. I knew I was an underdog so I just decided to sleep through the announcement.

I decided to give acting a serious committed try and soon after I read the script for 'Lovely and Amazing.' The story was beautiful and honest and the characters struggled with the same insecurities many women - including me - face. I didn't think I had a chance in hell of being in the film but I knew I had to go for it.

My wife a schoolteacher very disciplined. If you think I'm tough trust me and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It's hilarious. So we decided that I'm going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.

What has made America amazing has been the fact that throughout our history throughout the more than 200 years of our history there have been men and women of courage who stood up and decided it was more important to look out for the future of their children and their grandchildren than their own political futures.