My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book about them. Then, they become so real to me I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.
I'm a family-based person, even though we didn't exactly have a very happy family. I was never in any doubt that this was a centre of writing.
Am I calm all the time? That is a question to ask my mother. I am very happy in my home. I have a good family, that gives me something extra.
A bridge shouldn't just fall down in the middle of America. Not a bridge that's a few blocks from my house. Not an eight-lane highway. Not a bridge that I drive over with my family every day, along with tens of thousands of Minnesotans. But that's what happened.
We believe in funding family planning because it helps to prevent unintended pregnancy. We believe that a woman considering an abortion should not be forced to have an ultrasound against her will.
I came from a wealthy family. I made over my share of the estate to various charities.
My family doesn't understand trying to chase your dreams because they were all about survival.
If you're graduating from high school, and you come from a lower income family, you're effectively given two options. One is get a four-year college degree; two is work at a low-wage job, potentially for the rest of your life. We've got to do better on that front. We have to provide more options.
The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises.
My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.
When I defend our right to hunt and fish on public lands, rivers and streams. Or work for better schools. And more good paying jobs that can support a family. Those aren't political issues to me. They're personal.
The world of 'Terra Nova' as we joined it... there is a certain amount of prosperity there, and in fact I would say that I was a bit surprised when I first got there to see how it had all developed and how sophisticated the colony was - I had envisioned it being a bit more Swiss Family Robinson, but that wasn't my call.
The Wilmington, Delaware, television station that bills itself as The Family Minded Station is Channel 69.
I was born in Patterson, New Jersey, and raised pretty much all around the country. My family tended to move from place to place following economic prospects and jobs and looking for new opportunities, so we changed schools, colleges, grade schools, high schools every 6 months to a year - depending on the breaks.
So I delegate a lot and I make my family come first, my husband and our kids.
When my husband Charles passed away in 2000, I took over as chair of our family's foundation. As I was mourning his loss, I also had to keep the foundation moving forward and to chart a course into what was then a very male-dominated philanthropic world.
I've been blackmailed a billion times. I've been sued for ridiculous things. At one point in my life, I was an ATM machine. But I'm used to that. You don't get used to it, but I'm used to the fact that people will do this, even your own family members, and I don't hate none of them.
I love decompressing with friends. Sometimes when a tour is long, I'll fly friends over for the last part of the tour. I love to bring family with me, and spending time with them and my family is really the way to decompress.
The institution of marriage should be re-examined because of its overwhelming claustrophobia. The odds are stacked against spontaneity and effervescence. It's an institution that was brought about for the sake of family and children, but biologically, it's very unnatural. It's masochism and torture the way it's been organized.
Social media websites are no longer performing an envisaged function of creating a positive communication link among friends, family and professionals. It is a veritable battleground, where insults fly from the human quiver, damaging lives, destroying self-esteem and a person's sense of self-worth.
I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful.
My family and I are so close, it's important to have a close knit relationship and to make time to spend with each other, especially at the holidays.
But I also want to have a family with children one day, which is very important to me.
I would love to live in the wilds of nowhere, and when writing 'Chronicles,' I would occasionally rent a cottage in the middle of nowhere that had no mobile reception, but I'm not about to move away from my family.
I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats.
My parents taught me service - not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.
A perfect dinner for me is being with people I really want to be with. It starts and stops with my company and my family.
My family and I moved at least six times before I graduated high school. I was fortunate to have a large family network that combined their resources to help me accomplish my goals - but not everyone may be as lucky.
I do spend a lot of weekends on the road. I have to pace myself. It can be pretty busy, but I'm not out in the Afghan desert with 70 pounds on my back, away from my family for a year at a time. I keep a good perspective on it.
The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.
My mother is a tall woman - as is everyone in my family. At her prime, she stood 5 feet 9 inches, which is quite unusual for a woman born in 1922.
My family lives in Miami, and I always envision myself, if something happens, it'd be like 'The Day After Tomorrow' where I walk across country to find my family. That would be the kind of person I would be. I feel like I wouldn't be as scared. If it happens, it happens. You face it.
When I was growing up, we didn't have much money. What was important in my house was to have food on the table, be happy, and have our family.
For the naysayers that claimed 'American Family' revealed us to be vacant, unloving, uncaring morons of the materialistic '70s, this image will be proven wrong when Mom and Dad remarry... Make no mistake. This is not to emphasize the sadness of my demise but rather emphasize the love of my family and friends.
The old joke in my family is that the last person who isn't from New York was coming from Russia.
When I'm on my own, I can be negative. I need my friends and family around to help pick me up if I've had a bad qualifying session. I think insecurity plagues a lot of sportspeople.
