I was adopted by two amazing people: a Salvadoran mother and a white father who were incredibly supportive of me and my work. I am eternally grateful for them.
My father, Tommy, who was a trained draughtsman, played for Preston North End in the Finney era. He liked football but did not love it as I do.
We had a very normal, sort of ghetto, urban upbringing. My father was a bus driver and my mother was a seamstress and a substitute schoolteacher, off and on. So, that all adds up to no money.
There were times when gangs would approach me, but my father was way stronger than them. They would come make threats and stuff, and I was like, 'You don't know the opposition I've got upstairs. I'm not scared of you.'
My father and his eight siblings grew up in the kind of poverty that Americans don't like to talk about unless a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina strikes, and then the conversation only lasts as long as the news cycle. His family squatted in shacks. The children scavenged for food.
Mubarak would meet with me when I was at Central Command. He would lean and put his hand on my knee, as if a father figure, and say, 'General, don't ever forget the Arab Street. Listen to the Arab Street.' I'd like to go to him now and say, 'Mr. President, what about that Arab Street, what's that all about?'
Five of my father's seven siblings made their bones as engineers or technologists, and some of his best buddies - David Woods, Elijah Kent, Weldon Staton - carved out successful engineering careers at Langley.
At the point when I lost my father, it really made me want to be like a father and be like my father. It was a real turning point for me because it helped me mature - it made me think about being responsible because I wasn't the only one I had to think about.
When I read the 'Dick and Jane' stories, I thought they were afraid they might forget each other's names because they always said each other's names - a lot. So if Jane didn't see the dog, Dick would say, 'Look Jane, look. There is the dog next to Sally, Jane. The dog is also next to mother, Jane. The dog is next to father, Jane.'
Hinde Esther Singer was born in Poland on March 31, 1881, the daughter of Bathsheva and Pinchos Mendel Singer. Bathsheva was an intellectual, but both Bathsheva's father and her husband disapproved of erudite women.
I want to be able to be a father to my kids, where I've never seen my father, but my kids can see me whenever they want, so that was broken.
My father had slowed down playing a little... I was 'round 10 or 12 years old. Every time he put his guitar down, I pick it up.
I remember that at the beginning of the month, the kind of menus my mom and father would prepare for us would have fish, chicken. But at the end of the month - because my father would be waiting for paycheck - the refrigerator would get empty. I remember that without a lot of food left, some of the best meals happened right there.
I've been the type of father who tries desperately to be perfect but doesn't succeed all the time.
Father's ideals became part of me and still are today. His reserve, deeply rooted liberal views, his provocative humour, his passion for work and love of risk are also mine.
I'd seen all the great entertainers by the time I was 14 or 15. My mother was artistic. My father was a bookmaker, so he had access to all those nightclubs, and he was smitten by certain artists, and we would go see them. We'd see comics like Sid Caesar and Milton Berle - those kind of artists - many of whom I worked with later in my life.
My music is about where I am at the time. In 'Raymond vs. Raymond,' I was going through a lot of things, and it came out in my music. My marriage fell apart, and I was suddenly a single father.
My father contracted polio on a troop train in Korea.
I was the adoring son of a Welsh-Irish father, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a Catholic Knight of Columbus who was a blue-collar, trade union organizer and, not surprisingly, a fervid Nixon-hater.
Unfortunately, I never knew my father and when I did, it was very briefly.
I lost my father and went into a process of grief with it that was all about how to replace that grief, how to fill it, and I think there was something very desperate in the way that I was replacing it.
Thank God that at least in one place, all men are equal: in the church of God. I do not consider it any degradation to kneel side by side with a Negro in the house of our Heavenly Father.
I had a job lined up as an assistant brand manager at Playtex, at age 23, all lined up. But my father had an offer to be acquired by DDB in 1978. He said, 'I'd really like you to come into the business for a year.'
When my father bid $5,000 for the 1962 Championship Game, that was a huge amount. It was double the bid the year before. Pete Rozelle was flabbergasted. Who was this guy who was willing to spend so much money on what seemed like relatively worthless rights to the NFL Championship Game?
I have to say I have an incredible musical education because of my father.
When I was born, the economy wasn't in a great state; it was the Depression, and my father had to be quick to try and find work.
My original interest in the Nazi holocaust was personal. Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis.
In my day, when you called on a girl, her mother was always hollering down to see if she was still unraped, the maid would look in, her father would shuffle his feet in another room. Today the boy calls up, says, 'Meet you at the back door of Stern's.'
My mother has always kept the entire family together - my dad, due to his business, has always been travelling, and hence, she at times had to play the role of a father and a mother as well.
My family is extremely supportive of me. My mother has been accompanying me to the shoots, and my father used to drive me around for auditions.
My second husband, Eric Villency, is the father of my beautiful boy Ronan Anthony. Even though we're divorced, I'm still very close with his family.
I remember my father taking us to meeting with lawyers, interviews with immigration officers, doing everything he could to get us that treasured Green Card - and the happiness, the sense of relief, when he finally did - we knew that we were welcome now, and we would be welcome tomorrow.
I can't stop watching 'Pan Am.' When I was growing up, my father worked as an engineer in Turkey, and we always flew Pan Am. The stewardesses were so glamorous! When they gave me a set of those golden wings, I felt very grown-up. Not only is the show's plot full of mystery and infidelity, they get the period details just right.
My father spent all those years building his brand. I happen to be his namesake, and I also happen to be the president of the largest Christian university. I think I have a responsibility to be a good citizen. The least I can do is to lend my name and whatever influence I have to make a difference politically.
Everyone's unique; no one's ever alike. But my son has the same good cheer as my father. He's capable of making a room happy with a few words.
My very first recollection of life on earth was waking up in bed with my mother, and she was showing me a picture of my father, Charles Jackson, with a group of soldiers.
