I was into opera as a kid - I'd play 'Carmen' and sing and dance. My mom signed me up for a theater group before preschool, and I never looked back.

I begged my mom to let me start skating.

I would make my mom buy me the toy doctor kit.

I was born and raised in the high desert of Nevada in a tiny town called Searchlight. My dad was a hard rock miner. My mom took in wash. I grew up around people of strong values - even if they rarely talked about them.

I remember my mom saying to me that what your friends do is one thing, but what you do could be on the front page of the paper.

I've looked at pictures that my mom has of me, from when I was four years old at the turntable. I'm there, reaching up to play the records. I feel like I was bred to do what I do. I've been into music, and listening to music and critiquing it, my whole life.

My mom has this great skiing event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, every year for a local charity.

I suddenly had this really mad desire to have an affair with a woman. I was divorced. I was childless. I figured there's got to be one more way to really tick off my mom.

My mom is in her mid-60s and has more energy and is more youthful than any human being I know. It's pretty incredible.

I don't think I would have been able to stick with it and been proud of who I am and be feminine out on the court. I think I would have folded to the peer pressure if I didn't have my mom to encourage me to be me and be proud of how tall I am.