Shiri Appleby

I don't size up their grades or their board scores. Because in America today, that's just an advantage certain people have. I size up the give and take, the speed of thinking, what I perceive as ambition. I say, 'Tell me about your high school jobs.' And I love people who worked in coffee shops who were waiters and waitresses.

As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by 'survival of the fittest.'