Carrie Preston

I think that in order for anything to work on television, you have to have conflict. Nothing can be too happy or it's boring. People don't want to watch that - they want to watch things that are exciting and dangerous and sexy and have tension.

'Emeril' came on the air right when a new president of NBC was taking over, and there was just a big shift going on. And then 9/11 happened, and that really pretty much killed it, because the show was already having a hard time finding an audience. I don't regret it. I had a really good time.

I'm a character actor and I get lost in these characters, so I think it's only recently that people have begun to connect dots and go, 'Oh, that's the same person that did this, this, this, this and this!' which I take as a compliment. One time somebody called me an illusionist, and that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said.

Though builders may build, in the main they follow the plans of architects. Teachers teach, but they must have a text. Politicians govern, but only upon the flow of commentary that raises them up or casts them down.

India's prosperity is sectioned by geography, such as in Bangalore, where the information technology industry is prominent. Because they have a conduit out of India, competing in the world by the Internet, it's not regulated in corrupt ways, and it is very prosperous.