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Robert Strauss
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Jimmy Carter and I didn't have that close a relationship until I guess in New York, we had the convention, and people wondered why I went to New York. I knew exactly why I took the party there. It was a place we had to win, and Madison Square Garden, even though it was too small, was the right place to be. So I called those shots right, and at the Convention, the Carter people -- the President and Mrs. Carter and their people, of course, he wasn't president then -- found out that they didn't know how to run a national convention and that I did, and we didn't make any mistakes, fortunately, like the Democrats usually do. I didn't let them fall apart in the middle of the damned convention and tear each other up. I controlled the floor, where the leftists or the rightists, depending, couldn't get their hands on the mikes, and we kept it moderate, and we elected a president. Then Jimmy Carter and I became, as I went into his administration, closer and closer, and I guess by the end of it, he called on me for everything. And I again -- part of the story I told today about how I grew in stature in his administration -- went in with no particular stature and came out as probably the fellow he turned to more than any other for tough jobs.
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Hilary Swank
Two Oscars for Best Actress
I trained for five hours a day, two-and-a-half hours in boxing, and then -- it was between four and five hours a day -- two-and-a-half hours of boxing every day, six days a week, and an hour and a half of weight training, to two hours. I needed to eat 210 grams of protein a day, and your body can't assimilate a lot of protein, so I had to eat every hour and a half, and I was a vegetarian. I ate fish at that time, but I didn't eat red meat or anything that could help me. So a lot of my diet was egg whites. I had to eat 60 egg whites in a day. I don't know if you've ever even tried to eat five egg whites. It's fine and everything, but I just couldn't eat that many. So I would just drink them. I would drink flax oil. I would drink protein shakes, but I also needed a lot of sleep at night because my body was going through this change, but I couldn't go to sleep without waking up and eating. So I would wake up, and I would drink my protein shakes, too.
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Hilary Swank
Two Oscars for Best Actress
I didn't have an Ivy League education. I didn't have a head shot. I didn't have training, formal acting training. I just had my mom who believed in me and who instilled a wonderful work ethic and belief. So I'm really grateful for that. In the years between now and then, I have recognized the importance of learning my craft and wanting to go deeper and never wanting to rest on my laurels and what I've achieved, and I believe that learning is one of the most important things in life. I take classes when I can, not only in acting, but any other thing that I can. I'm learning Italian. I read. Anything that has to do with life is only going to help me as an actor. So, any way that I can travel and learn more, I take that when I can.
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Amy Tan
Best-Selling Novelist
Amy Tan: I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic. It's very gothic to have a little boy killing a giant, somebody's head being served on a platter, dead people being raised out of the grave, things like that. Also, because the rhythms, the prose style of the Bible is, of course, very influential, has been very influential on many writers. So as stories, I loved fairy tales. Anything that had a degree of the fantastic. I suppose what some people would call today "magical realism."
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Amy Tan
Best-Selling Novelist
There was a lot of storytelling going on in our house: family stories, gossip, what happened to the people left behind in China. The gossip about people's character that went around as my aunt and my mother shelled peas on the dining table covered with newspaper. Overhearing things being said in Chinese that I wasn't supposed to understand -- which is the only reason I understand some Shanghainese and Mandarin. And being told there were certain books I couldn't read, which made me go out deliberately and find those books.
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