What I got which was unusual, especially as a child actress, was parents who believed that Hollywood was not that important. They told us education, family, health, all come first and they meant it.
— Danica McKellar
When I was 15, I had a crush on this guy who was really good at magic, and so I learned to juggle, thinking it would impress him. I spent hours and hours practicing, planning to show him. And then I never even saw him again. But at least I learned how to juggle.
I've done a lot of surveys and interacted with a lot of students, and I was shocked to see that at 12 years old, girls are already talking about dumbing themselves down.
I exercise at home - light cardio and yoga.
There's nothing unclassy about being naked, if it's appropriate.
People talk about 'getting rid of the old image', and I guess there's some merit in that. But the truth is that people loved 'The Wonder Years' - I can't turn my back on it.
Look at Jessica Simpson. She's famous for being dumb. I guess it started with Marylyn Monroe, and she actually wasn't that dumb, but that's how she was perceived - and that's what got popular.
By the end of an intense four years at UCLA, I had co-authored a new math proof, which the media, in fact, loved. As it turned out, math itself blazed my entry back into the spotlight and consequently into wonderful acting jobs like 'The West Wing' and others. You just never know, do you?
When girls are asking themselves 'Who am I?' for the first time and they hear all this bad PR about math, they think, 'Well, whoever I am, I'm not somebody who likes math.'
There is an epidemic right now of girls dumbing themselves down... in middle school because they think it makes them attractive.
The camera fails to capture the 'business' in show business! We typically will give 10 percent of our salary to the agent, 10 percent to the manager, and 5 percent to the lawyer, plus the publicist gets a flat fee, which needs to be budgeted for.
In high school, a teacher once suggested that I be a math major in college. I thought, 'Me? You've got to be joking!' I mean, in junior high, I used to come home and cry because I was so afraid of my math homework. Seriously, I was terrified of math.
I am definitely a serial monogamist. I can count on one hand the number of guys I've been with.
I recognize that I have a unique position to be a role model to young girls because I am doing something that they consider glamorous, which is acting, and yet I took a time to really get my education and study mathematics, and I think math is the cat's meow.
So somebody told me that if I wasn't a coffee drinker yet, by the end of college I'd have to be, because a math major is so tough I would have to stay up very late. I was going to need coffee to do that. Well, merely because they said that, I never drank coffee in college, never got addicted to it, never needed it.
When I was little, we had a Golden Book that had all these Disney characters in one portrait on the first page. My dad used to read from it every night. We'd play this game of find Pluto or find Donald Duck. He'd read us stories and do all the voices. Those are great memories.
I just love math and most people don't.
It delights me that I don't fit the stereotype of an actress.
I was born in San Diego, and we moved to Los Angeles when I was seven. A couple of years later, I started acting!
If you're beautiful, you're led to believe that you can't also be smart.
Keep an eye on what your kids are seeing online. Parents need to stay involved in what their children are being exposed to. It's so important.
I love surprises - champagne and strawberries, all that pampering, romantic stuff. Guys ought to know how to pamper their women properly.
Look at Michelle Pfeiffer: My God, she's 50 years old, but she is still so sexy. If I were into women, I would be totally into her.
I want to help middle-school girls stay interested in math and be good at it, and see it as friendly and accessible and not this scary thing. Everyone else in society tells them it's not for them. It's for nerdy white guys with pocket protectors.
At the risk of being forgotten completely by the media, I went to college and pursued a passion that had nothing to do with acting: mathematics.
I didn't think that college math was for me. I didn't think I'd be able to hack it. And that perception of math not being for girls, not being for girls who see themselves as socially well adjusted has got to change.
When you do take the home pregnancy test, it doesn't quite seem real. But when you see the baby and the heartbeat on the ultrasound, it's so incredible.
If anyone tells you it's impossible to be fabulous and smart and make a ton of money using math, well, they can just get in line behind you - and kiss your math.
I've been just eating very healthy, all organic, no sugar, white flour, nothing artificial. I'm being so incredibly strict... not a lot of meat!
Let's face it; by and large math is not easy, but that's what makes it so rewarding when you conquer a problem, and reach new heights of understanding.
I noticed there were so many people, especially women, who would come up to me having recognized me from TV and say, 'I heard you were a math person, why math? Oh my gosh, I could never do math!' I could just see their self-esteem crumbling; I thought that was silly, so I wanted to make math more friendly and accessible.
I've always been really cautious about guys who have a Winnie Cooper fantasy, and I'm so glad about that. I mean, I can count on one hand the guys I've been with. It was really challenging, but I never gave it up too soon, if you know what I mean.
My husband is a composer, so he plays piano all the time and I sit there and clap telling my unborn child, 'Hear me clap, hear the music.' I know music, in general, is supposed to be good for babies to hear.
This much I'm sure of. Chances for winning = 1 - (# of math students playing)/ (# of math students cheering). That's a fraction.
I used to love to go to the movies - I'd see two in a row. A few times I even snuck into the second movie after it started... now that I think about it, that's kind of like shoplifting! Needless to say, I still love going to the movies, but I don't sneak in anymore.
Math is like going to the gym for your brain. It sharpens your mind.
There are stereotypes that have been out there for a long time that tell girls that their main asset, the main thing that they are valued for, is their appearance and also that it's to the exclusion of anything else.
I just did a spread in 'Maxim', I'm 35 years old. I've had women and parents email me asking if I should really be doing that, since I'm still considered a role model.
I never had little brothers, so I was totally not used to hearing a lot of cussing at a young age! I learned what 'pull my finger' meant the hard way.
When I got to college, I was intending to study film. But I found that my brain was feeling mushy, so I took a few math classes. I started doing really well at them, and solving equations was this, like, drug rush.
I had done quite a bit of research about math education when I spoke before Congress in 2000 about the importance of women in mathematics. The session of Congress was all about raising more scholarships for girls in college. I told them I felt that it's too late by college.
If a guy is skilled at anything, that's attractive. There's something very primal about that and, sure, it can be as simple as figuring out the tip quickly. It's really cool when a guy tips 20 percent quickly and effortlessly so that when the check comes, he opens it and signs his name and done.
Girls think that being glamorous means making mistakes and being irresponsible. And that's just not true. The smarter you are, the better prepared you are to make decisions in your life, the more likely you are to lead a satisfying life and be glamorous and fun and anything you want to be.
Confidence is one of the sexiest things in guys and girls.
Believe it or not, lots of people change their majors and abandon their dreams just to avoid a couple of math classes in college.
I feel blessed to be having a really easy pregnancy.
It's such a diversion to be constantly thinking of better ways I can teach people math that my hunger is for that really, for new ways of translating the beauty of it.
I'll admit that I do quite like drinks that come in coconut shells. So there's always that.
It's really cool when a guy tips 20 per cent quickly and effortlessly so that when the check comes, he opens it and signs his name and done.
My message is: You don't have to give up being popular, fun, or fashionable in order to be smart; they can go hand and hand. Doing math is a great way to exercise your brain; being smart is going to make you more powerful in life.
