Nobody is going to take my kids away from me and I will fight to the death for that.
I really just don't think that teenagers and adults are maybe as different as people think, and so the best roles, to me, are treated like real people and not like these 'crazy kids we don't know what to do with.'
I have a great sensitivity to kids. I have a great sensitivity to the people that fall between the cracks.
I'm the seventh child of George and Leona Douglas, and I don't ever remember a time when my father didn't work two jobs. When my mother was going to the grocery, or going to Mass, or trying to take care of seven kids in a run-down farmhouse.
I just want to tell you what it's like not to have Planned Parenthood... you have to give your kids Ramen noodles at the end of the month to fill up their little bellies so they won't cry. You have to give them mayonnaise sandwiches. They get very few fruits and vegetables because they're expensive.
I've got three little kids at home, and I'm trying to save this country from itself. I'm not here to play political power games, and I've had enough of people playing political power games, and this has just gone on too long.
When you're around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you're supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.
The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way, but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work.
In the years when teenagers really need to be connected to somebody, they aren't; especially in small towns where kids are bored and look for something to get them going.
When I was in school I read a lot of comic books and pretend I was in them and kids would tease me and call me names. But now I do the same things and people say that I'm artistic and cool and I'm doing the exact same thing I did in high school.
The majority of the cocoa that we eat, it is actually produced by young kids which are being enslaved in the plantations of the Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast is the largest producer of cocoa.
Turing was always a legend among computer/geeky kids. He was such an outsider in his own time, and because of that, he was able to see things differently. It was a story that had been well told in books, onstage and on TV, but never on film.
My grandmother raised five children during the Depression by herself. At 50, she threw her sewing machine into the back of a pickup truck and drove from North Dakota to California. She was a real survivor, so that's my stock. That's how I want my kids to be too.
It's amazing to me that some kids are surprised to find out Indians are still alive.
We always make a hot breakfast for the kids: oatmeal, pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, the whole deal. We like to have that time in the morning together as a family.
An ideal day for me is a combination of a fun-exciting creative moment with work partners, some laughs and games with my kids, a good surf session, and great conversation with friends around a meal.
It's important for parents to put kids in positions where they can succeed and to teach competition because competition exists not only in sports.
When I'm not working, I'm having fun with my son. We do lots of kids' stuff.
You can instill fear in your kids and get them to mind, but they won't function better in the world and your relationship will suffer greatly.
Kids, adults, men, women, everybody has a relationship with Mickey Mouse.
You know, it's kind of hard because I really - I see kids on their Rollerblades and their bikes, and just running around, climbing trees, and I used to do that. And I loved doing that.
I think the idea of participation trophies has gotta be a really, really great thing. Kids are under enough pressure as it is without encouraging them to be the best too early.
The reason I'm an American is for all the people in this country and recognizing that if business is thriving and growing, it will create more jobs, raise wages of our people, allow us to care for our seniors, get a better education for our kids, and allow us to have the kind of military that can defend American interests around the world.
The older generations are too wedded to political parties, too wedded to romantic memories of what education was like when they were kids, and too wedded to the status quo group that clings to power.
There's a lot of American kids think their food comes from the grocery store and the concept of seasonality has no meaning to them whatsoever.
Kids are naturally curious about what they don't know, or don't understand, or what is foreign to them. They only learn to be frightened of those differences when an adult influences them to behave that way and censors that natural curiosity.
I've been on 'Criminal Minds' twice! On the first show, a boy brought kids out to the woods and was beating them with a baseball bat, but I got away. Then they brought Tracy, my character, back - as a kidnapped girl. They saved me two times! Tracy lived!
When you come into our house, you get a flavor for our life, our travels, our kids, our 18-year-old poodle who is like, blind, deaf and incontinent but so happy.
I've worked with homeless kids, kids in foster care, and I've never met a kid who couldn't be reached.
The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.
I love America, but I've now got two young kids and America has changed so much since 9/11 and Bush. It's beyond Orwellian. The idea in '1984' that if you keep saying you're being attacked then you can get away with anything has come true.
I tried to be like the richer kids as much as I could because I wanted to live on their streets, at least hang out on their streets and eat their amazing food and walk barefoot on their shag carpets. I became something of a pest in that way, and in general, other people's parents didn't like me.
As a mentor and an advocate, I've seen no end to the ways that childless people can contribute to the lives and well-being of kids - and adults, for that matter.
If you're struggling to make your mortgage payment, and you've got three kids between the ages of 12 and 18, and you and your spouse works, and someone says, 'Oh, by the way, the world's ending,' it's like, 'Please. You don't need to tell me that.'
To come out and meet kids who have my books in their hands is kind of amazing.
It's 2010. I'm forty-three years old. I've just turned in the final draft of what will be my third novel when I decide I want a tattoo. Maybe it's a middle-age thing. Or maybe now that my kids are nearly grown and I have a career in place, I'm finally coming into my own.
