My parents have always supported me, and they still come to my events and support me each day.
I started off when I was seven years old doing musicals. I was in 'Les Miserables' and 'The Sound of Music,' and my mum's an actress. My parents divorced when I was young, and when she couldn't find a babysitter, I was in the wings, sleeping.
By the time I was 10 or 12, I had discovered the lure of the romance genre - and the dusty copy of 'The Thorn Birds' on my parents' bookshelf.
I started when I was three, and on some courses they wouldn't let me play because they said I was too little. They wouldn't accept that a child could play. So my parents had to argue at times with some people at golf courses so I could.
We've got too many young girls, who don't know how to parent, turning themselves into parents.
There are a lot of things that you don't realize that your parents are going through when you're a kid.
My family was very musical. My brother is an opera singer; my parents both sang.
My parents have mellowed quite a bit, but, growing up, there was a sense that the only real professions were doctor, engineer, lawyer. Those were your choices.
I learned about being positive from my parents. They're the most positive people I've ever known.
With the Lincoln assassination, the South didn't feel it could mourn along with the North. But Garfield was beloved by all the American people. He was trusted and respected by North and South, by freed slaves and former slave owners. Also by pioneers, which his parents had been, and by immigrants.
I always stay with my parents. When you come home, you gotta do that. It's weird to be like, 'Hey, I'm at a hotel. Drive 20 minutes to see me, and we'll have dinner.'
Our parents deserve our honor and respect for giving us life itself. Beyond this they almost always made countless sacrifices as they cared for and nurtured us through our infancy and childhood, provided us with the necessities of life, and nursed us through physical illnesses and the emotional stresses of growing up.
My parents divorced about the same time the movie 'The Parent Trap' came out, about two twins at camp who scheme to get their parents back together. I had that same fantasy.
I drew a lot. I always had sketchbooks. My parents were really great about any gift-giving holiday - birthdays, Hanukkah, Christmas - it was always art supplies for my brother and I.
I do well with peoples' parents, but I've certainly had friends who were not. One of my best friends is pretty consistently reviled by his girlfriends' parents!
I think my parents had in mind that I would settle down at quite a young age, but I decided that being a housewife in a big country house wasn't for me. I wanted to leave the country, head for London and see what the world had to offer.
I think I have always been a hard worker in school and in sports and everything. Growing up, my parents encouraged me to do that from day one.
My parents always told me I'm beautiful the way that I am, and I never thought to myself that I needed to be skinny because there's a magazine out there that said, 'Oh, size two,' or, 'Oh, this girl's beautiful because she's skinny.'
Mainly it's the parents who remember me. But the kids today, what they do is go and Google you. A lot of them turn up and they know everything about me. They say: 'You scored 346 goals' or 'You wore the No9 shirt for Liverpool.'
I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had won the prize for best all-around student. Afterwards my father said to me, 'Never, ever disgrace me like that again.' When I tell my Western friends, they are aghast. But I adore my father. It didn't knock my self-esteem at all.
If you are close to your parents or a grandparent, you watch as they get old and you learn so much from that, and it makes you want to learn more while you have time.
When 'Animals' released, I still had one year left in school, so it was, like, super weird. I had number one in the U.K., and I would still go to school five days a week. They made, like, a schedule when I could tour and when I had to be home for tests. But my team made it happen. My parents, they helped as well.
When I was a teenager, my parents made me take a part-time job at the local Black Eyed Pea, which was a home-cooked-food family restaurant.
I can't ignore what I grew up listening to. My parents used to listen to Michael Jackson non-stop. They used to listen to Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder.
I grew up on the South Island of New Zealand, in a city chosen and beloved by my parents for its proximity to the mountains - Christchurch is two hours distant from the worn saddle of Arthur's Pass, the mountain village that was and is my father's spiritual touchstone, his chapel and cathedral in the wild.
My best friend Jerry started a boat-washing business, and it was one of the most critical experiences of my life. I got to meet a lot of people who were entrepreneurs. My parents were schoolteachers, and I was now meeting people who owned companies. I realized that if this guy can do it, why can't I?
My parents never condescended to me. As a child, I always sat at the head of our dinner table. I was always given a lot of responsibility.
Modern parents want to nurture so skillfully that Mother Nature will gasp in admiration at the marvels their parenting produces from the soft clay of children.
When I talk to teachers, parents, superintendents, my colleagues, everyone wants to fix No Child Left behind. There is great dissatisfaction with No Child Left Behind.
I always managed to get in trouble, like every kid. But I had to learn a lot of hard lessons on my own, without parents who would nurture me and guard me through that part of life, at a very young age.
I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.
My parents, once I made it clear to them that I wanted to do science, they were totally sympathetic.
The love and passion I had for the game was my key. I never had that taken out of me by my parents or a silly coach.
As a college student, you're depending on your scholarship money, money your parents send you. So I guess when people start talking about big figures, it doesn't hit me.
One of the things that was a blessing for me is my parents were music lovers. Neither of my parents played an instrument, but they were avid record buyers. And I grew up at every age listening to all kinds of music.
Parents spend a lot of time talking over kids. My son went through a vocabulary burst as I was writing 'The Bear.' I thought, 'What if I just stopped and listened?'
