myself

I took anatomy classes. I went to medical libraries and talked to doctors and nutritionists. I did the whole thing before using myself as a human guinea pig.

I think of myself as a fairly logical, scientific and somewhat reserved person. Maura Isles, the Boston medical examiner who appears in five of my books, is me. Almost everything I use in describing her, from her taste in wine to her biographical data, is taken from my own family. Except I don't have a serial killer as a mother!

At one point, I had over 800 employees, and I always paid all health care for my people - including a man who was my assistant who got HIV. I wound up paying his medical bills, which went into the hundreds of thousands. I'm not making myself out to be a saint. I did the right thing.

I had parents who believed I could do anything - and I know how that made me feel. I think both my parents, having careers in the medical profession, feel they are helping people on a daily basis, and that was inculcated in me as a value. I had to struggle with giving up the idea of becoming a doctor myself.

I decided, as a medical student, to devote myself to a study of the brain.

Over the years my mother's steadfast faith in God has inspired me, particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

I've always supported myself. I like the sense of knowing exactly where I stand financially, but there is a side of me that longs for a knight in shining armor.

I was fortunate enough to model, but it was always work for me. It was a way to support myself and finance acting classes.

I grew up reading '2000 AD' and the occasional Transformers and GI Joe comic, but when I could finance comics myself, I lasted only a little reading superheroes.

I don't really consider myself to be a personal finance expert compared with some others. There are quite a few that know a lot more than I do.

I get unhappy doing things that I'm not passionate about. Because I feel like I'm squandering this incredible gift I've been given to finance films. As soon as my name alone was enough to make this happen, I vowed to myself that I was going to work with directors who were changing cinema, doing something important, you know?

I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.

Like everyone, there are times when I just don't feel like exercising. When that happens, I'm a bit more careful with my diet. But on days I really want a treat, like chocolate, I work out a little harder. I don't believe in beating myself up for not being 'good.'

I've realized that I'm more important than food is. I love a big slice of pizza, but I love myself more. Being thin is about changing the way you think about yourself. It's about saying that you deserve to be healthy.

At my heaviest, I was 5'8" and 175 pounds. I ate well, but in too large quantities, and I rarely made a concerted effort to burn off the extra calories. I'd beat myself up about being overweight, even though I had the tools to be in shape. Then I'd resort to an unhealthy diet to lose the weight that was making me self-conscious.

I actually went on a vegan diet. So I was nagging myself there. I don't nag other people about it. It was sort of an interesting experiment, and I found it wasn't that hard at all.

I was 17 when my body started changing, and I worried about what I did wrong. I went through a period where I didn't eat at all. I also had someone who was encouraging me to take diet pills. I pushed myself to the extreme because I woke up one day and had hips - and a butt - and thought, 'Oh my gosh, I'm getting fat!'

One of the key things I did to stay on my diet is I never allowed myself to get hungry. As soon as I got hungry, I'd eat healthy foods.