Family And Kids Quotes & Sayings

When we lived in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, my sister and I did a local play. My whole family got involved. My mom did the makeup. My sister and I were being homeschooled, and my parents wanted us to be socialized. We had a lot of fun with the other kids hanging out backstage. — Danielle Panabaker

Though I work in New York City, in an office about a mile from the World Trade Center, I was not in New York City when the planes struck. I was on a plane above the Atlantic Ocean, heading back to New York from a family reunion and celebration in Europe. I had said good-bye to my husband in London; he was staying for a wedding of a business friend. I couldn't wait to see my kids and my parents, who would be waiting for me at a Little League game in our town, about thirty-five miles from New York City. An hour and a half into the flight, I suddenly had the feeling that the plane was making a slow turn. Nobody else seemed to notice. I sat nervously, hoping I was imagining it. But then a stewardess made an announcement. "There has been a catastrophic event affecting all of North American airspace," she said. "We are returning — Lauren Tarshis

I'd tell my mother to, you know, go you-know-what herself and I would go help those children. They're in an orphanage and they've got family! That's sickening. What does John do? Nothing. His kids are in an orphanage... and he does nothing.
~ Michelle Jarvis — Gregg Olsen

Fuck hope and all the tiny little towns, one-horse towns, the one-stoplight towns, three-bars country-music jukebox-magic parquet-towns, pressure-cooker pot-roast frozen-peas bad-coffee married-heterosexual towns, crying-kids-in-the-Oldsmobile-beat-your-kid-in the-Thriftway-aisles towns, one-bank one-service-station Greyhound-Bus-stop-at-the-Pepsi-Cafe towns, two-television towns, Miracle Mile towns, Viv's Double Wide Beauty Salon towns, schizophrenic-mother towns, buy-yourself-a-handgun towns, sister-suicide towns, only-Injun's-a-dead-Injun towns, Catholic-Protestant-Mormon-Baptist religious-right five-churches Republican-trickle-down-to-poverty family-values sexual-abuse pro-life creation-theory NRA towns, nervous-mother rodeo-clown-father those little-town-blues towns. — Tom Spanbauer

To me, my parents are my mom and dad, and we were able as kids to do a lot of cool things. Just being part of that family definitely brought out and cultivated the creative arts in us. — Brooklyn Sudano

My parents got carried away with the letter P when they were naming the kids in our family. There's me, Paula, my sisters Peggy and Patty, and my brother Pjimmy, spelled with a silent P. — Paula Poundstone

There's a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of divorced families. I come from a divorced family. And you have parents meet someone and they have kids and you're with that whole having to meet new people and be your family. That's always a hard thing to do. — Selena Gomez

Bob and Maria's kids, now grown and in high school and college, each have a quiet dignity and confidence. They also have an informal charm. [...] It is obvious they'd played the roles in the story their family was living, the roles of foreign dignitaries, traveling with their parents on the important assignment of asking world leaders what they hope in. Their STORY had given them their CHARACTER.

I only say this about the children because I used to believe charming people were charming because they were charming, or confident people were confident because they were confident. But all of this is, of course, circular. The truth is, we are all living out the character of the roles we have played in our stories. — Donald Miller

Conservatives highlight the primacy of family and argue that family breakdown exacerbates poverty, and they're right. Children raised by single parents are three times as likely to live in poverty as kids in two-parent homes. — Nicholas Kristof

Men justify the women taking care of the kids and the house and holding down a job because, after all, men are the primary breadwinners in the family. But that's because we fucking pay women less! Men claiming superiority over women because men make more money than they do is like claiming you're stronger than a lion that you tranquilized and put in a cage. Sure, you're in a better spot now - but how 'bout you unchain the beast and see what happens? — Trae Crowder

If you wanted to incorporate the Sticks system with an allowance plan in your family, you can. I would suggest $0.50 per Golden Stick for little ones and $1.00 for older kids. — Nadia Swearingen-Friesen

were her kids. But the drugs and the late-night fighting revealed troubles that too many hillbilly transplants knew too well. Confronted with such a realization of her own family's struggle, Mamaw — J.D. Vance

This was my world: a world of truly irrational behavior. We spend our way into the poorhouse. We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don't need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy, often leaving them full of garbage in our wake. Thrift is inimical to our being. We spend to pretend that we're upper class. And when the dust clears - when bankruptcy hits or a family member bails us out of our stupidity - there's nothing left over. Nothing for the kids' college tuition, no investment to grow our wealth, no rainy-day fund if someone loses her job. We know we shouldn't spend like this. Sometimes we beat ourselves up over it, but we do it anyway. — J.D. Vance

Fatherhood means a great deal to me. I love it. To me, there aint nothing better, because your kids keep it real with you. When you think things are bad, you look at them and they show you how things could be all right, and it's all worth it. — Martin Lawrence

This is for the kids who know that the worst kind of fear isn't the thing that makes you scream, but the one that steals your voice and keeps you silent. — Abby Norman

Playtime and toys are good for kids, or they wouldn't buy them. McDonald's can provide that experience. And having dinner with the family is good for kids. — Jim Cantalupo

I have three young kids and a great family. I love hanging out with them more than anything. — Pat Metheny

If a school makes an effort to provide kids the right foods and help them to be more active, this benefits the student and the family's health. If you embark on a program to improve your health with a church or community group, you are more likely to stick with it over time. — Tom Rath

I doubt I'll ever do another book collaboration; I've been spoiled. Roger and I both happened to move to New Mexico at about the same time, when we each had a family of young kids to raise. Socializing seemed to lead naturally to working together. — Fred Saberhagen

I believe in God and that everything I do is because of Him. If I don't have a relationship with God, I can't love my wife and kids the way I'm supposed to love them. — Donald Driver

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

Because ... most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.'
'Too stupid.'
'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?'
'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.'
'Exactly.'
'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought.
'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food. — Nick Hornby

And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent. — Sydney J. Harris

The table is the number one place we pass on family stories and it's the knowledge of where your family came from that helps build self-esteem and resiliency in kids. When we stop having dinners, we stop passing on those stories. And, of course, when you make food at home you actually know what's in the food you are eating. It is the healthiest, greenest thing you can do! — Laurie David

I spent nearly two decades as a social worker and an educator with kids. So, my whole life has been about helping middle-class families. So it's just kind of a hollow argument to say I'm not a family person. — Kyrsten Sinema

THE SENTIMENTALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD has produced a great many paradoxes. The most curious, however, may be that children have acquired more and more stuff the more useless they have become. Until the late nineteenth century, when kids were still making vital contributions to the family economy, they didn't have toys as we know them. They played with found and household objects (sticks, pots, brooms). In his book Children at Play, the scholar Howard Chudacoff writes, Some historians even maintain that before the modern era, the most common form of children's play occurred not with toys but with other children - siblings, cousins, and peers. — Jennifer Senior

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in! — Colin Quinn

We wanted to take Polaroids of her and all the kids, about eight of them, of all ages, several photos, so we could give some to the family. She grabbed her youngest and asked us to wait. And then like any mother, anywhere in the world - do not let anyone tell you that people are fundamentally different - she combed the child's hair and changed his shirt before letting him pose for the pictures. The second shirt was slightly less dirty than the first. She wanted him to look his best. That mother could have been in Greenwich, Connecticut, as easily as on the steppes of Mongolia. — Jim Rogers

My maternal grandma was a tough, tough lady and a stern woman, who lost her husband young and raised six kids by herself. She lived in a mining community in Upstate New York and ran a boarding house for miners. She took care of an entire family and miners who lived in the house as well. — Steve Carell

You know, when you're poor and you have a bunch of kids in your family, you don't know that everybody's not poor. — Kenny Rogers

I've chosen not to live in Hollywood, and instead I live in Brooklyn, New York. It's how I like to live. I'd rather hang out with my kids and family when I'm not working. Going to premieres is not my idea of a fun night out. — Jennifer Connelly

I tell the kids that, even in a childhood marked by despair and deprivation, I knew that no matter what happened, I still had my family, or at least the remnants of a family ripped apart by divorce and then glued back together in various odd arrangements through a series of ill- advised remarriages. It was good to know I had a solid foundation. — Bill Bryson

My accomplishment has helped millions of kids see that they can come from a poor family and go somewhere, make something out of themselves. Ive been doing it for seven years professionally. — Wyclef Jean

Tune in to Kids and Family Week is perfect for me. — Melissa Joan Hart

The only time I mind autographs is when I'm out with my family. You're trying to enjoy kids and grandkids and here comes a swarm, and there go your wife and kids. That happens to every celebrity. It's the price you pay. — Billy Williams

When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run ... — Russell D. Moore

Sometimes it was difficult to make friends and be social in school because I was always practicing while other kids were getting together and doing things. But it just made me closer to my family, and I realized that they would always be there no matter what. — Nancy Kerrigan

When moms stayed home, it was easier just to let the kids play around the house. But as women entered the workplace and the extended family dissolved, someone else had to pick up the slack on the child-care front. Extracurricular activities fit the bill perfectly, promising not only supervision but also enrichment. — Carl Honore

In the United States, the average is two children per family, while in Africa it is five children per family. On the surface, the statistic seems to indicate that Africans are having way too many kids and are taxing the Earth's resources, while American kids are born into families who are able to take care of them. However, the average American child consumes roughly the same resources as fifteen African children. So when an American family says they only have two children, they are actually consuming the resources of an African family of thirty children! — Sharon Gannon

Mornings and afternoons are my family time and I'm lucky that I can drop the kids off at school, I don't have to be at the office or anything. — Gwyneth Paltrow

The only guy that speaks at any sort of depth is, in my mind, Eminem. He's a guy that does music that talks about the struggles of addiction and before that violence, with growing up in a broken family, not being a good enough father. So, you know that's what I enjoy about it. It's harder to listen to than ever before because I have a bunch of kids and you just can't put it on. — Marco Rubio

Right, so, quick, I mentioned Hawk. He's a scary-ass, motherfucking commando. When I say that, I do not lie. So I'll repeat, he's a scary-ass, motherfucking commando. So, when your mind conjures up a vision of a commando, that's Hawk. And Hawk likes kids. But he don't like kids bein' scared and bein' used for bullshit family dramas. I tell him this, which, by the way, I'm totally tellin' him this, even though he don't know those kids, like, at all, he's gonna go psycho badass, motherfucking commando. And the Trailer Trash Twins won't know what hit 'em. — Kristen Ashley

I do see myself settling down, getting married and having kids. But when I think about a family life in the future there's rarely a man involved which is kind of weird. — Amy Winehouse

Later in life, when I'm retired and have a family of my own and will be able to send my kids to college, that's when I'll start spending. Way too many athletes go broke these days, and I like saving my money so that I can ensure my family and friends currently and after me will never have to endure some of the things I did when I was a kid. — Victor Ortiz

First, I hope you see them. This is harder than it sounds; you have to learn to see hurt people, because they figure out how to act invisible. Kindness needs recipients. The whole world is filled with lonely and left-out and humiliated and sad kids, and seeing them is the first step. Because they are just as precious as you. If you can learn this during the Family Years, it will change your life, because you'll develop eyes for pain, which is exactly how Jesus walked around on this earth. If your mercy radar is strong now, God can do anything with you later. — Jen Hatmaker

I was 10th of 11 kids in an alcoholic, abusive, poor family. We all want things that we can't have. And I found comedy. — Louie Anderson

When I met white kids' parents, they always asked me bullshit questions about race, where our family was "from," and used words like Oriental. I was like a toy in their house, but Joey's parents were Asian so it felt like family. I never felt like I had to carry the burden of the whole Chinese diaspora, or that everything I did was a statement about my people and where we're from. (84) — Eddie Huang

As a kid, I used to come to our offices and play under the desks of people I now work with, or who work for me. I would come in and play with fabrics and make little clothes for my Snoopy. People here feel like family. But if I couldn't make a difference, I wouldn't be here. My father wouldn't want me to be here. — David Lauren

I am so excited to let fans in on how important my relationship with my family is to me. I hope to motivate mothers and daughters to build lifetimes of memories together and inspire kids around the world to live their dreams. — Miley Cyrus

Actors become actors because they loved entertaining their family by putting on the lampshade and dancing around as a kid, ... That's not my personality. For me, the fun part of making movies is seeing it as a director sees it. I like the architecture of movies. I like knowing what's coming and working to set that up. — Jodie Foster

And me having kids, with my family history? My mom: mentally ill, shot and killed her last husband. My father: six ex-wives, four heart attacks. Both of my parents think alcohol is a food group. — Christopher Titus

I personally have my own idea of an efficient house. It would be totally concrete with a big drain in the middle, a large fiberglass tree for my kids to swing from and a hose hanging in the corner. — Colleen Down

The other kids might hate Eleanor for being big and weird, but they weren't going to hate on her for having a broken family and a broke-down house. That was kind of the rule around here. — Rainbow Rowell

Everything with me is normal except when I pitch (in Fenway Park). When I pitch here it's a little different. There is a little more anxiety to go along with the nostalgia because this is the park I grew up with as a kid. This is the park I dreamed of playing Major League Baseball in and no other ballpark has that feeling for me. There are a lot more family and friends here than in my normal starts and I want to pitch well here. — Tom Glavine

I am really committed to my faith journey, and I am committed to my family. My husband and I have been married for almost 30 years, and we homeschool our kids. We have a different working-out-of the-box family, but we do make it work, obviously with God's grace, and we are very grateful for that. — Jodi Benson

I was the youngest in my family. When the other kids went to school, my mother would make them breakfast and then she would go back to bed for an hour, so I was sort of babysat by television. — Paula Poundstone

Prepper Tip #5: Make a list. Research what types of storms and problems you tend to have in your area. Do some reading with your kids and then make a list of items your family should have on hand to survive each storm. Letting your kids be involved in something like this empowers them and helps them to feel important and included as you prepare your family. — Penelope Hoyt

I know that not every family is a clean-cut nuclear Mom and Dad at home situation - but I think every father needs to do whatever he can to be present in the lives of his kids. If you are in a situation where you have not been - fight for it. Don't give up till you get it. Don't be a jerk about it - don't "fight" mom - but "fight" whatever things tell you to just give up. Send cards, make phone calls, pay your support, and do whatever you can to be present in the lives of your children. — Josh Hatcher

Yeah, I could go rock on the back porch and do crossword puzzles - but I've got six kids, ages 9 to 16, and someone in the family should work. That's me. — David Duffield

Sending our kids in my family to private school was a big, big, big deal. And it was a giant family discussion. But it was a circular conversation, really, because ultimately we don't have a choice. I mean, I pay for a private education and I'm trying to get the one that most matches the public education that I had, but that kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system. It's unfair. — Matt Damon

That is what happens when you put your soul in charge of your life. You dare to claim the sky. That sky is different for everyone. For one person, maybe the sky is having a baby, being a parent, growing a family. But for another it's never having kids; it's traveling the globe; it's saving the world... You know your sky. And if you don't, it's because you haven't listened closely enough. — Elizabeth Lesser

You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of a family. Just do your job right and your kids will love you. — Ethel Waters

In our family, at this point,[Sunday School] its not a choice for my kids. It's a duty for us as parents to give them faith as a foundation and hope that when they bemuse older teens and young adults they will choose the same thing for themselves. — Gretchen Carlson

We've never had nannies. We've had great grandparents, great support from family, and the kids have been on every set: they've seen me play Gollum, King Kong, Captain Haddock, the lot. They totally get it, and they want to go into the business. Ruby, my daughter, is very keen to become an actress. — Andy Serkis

I have everything that I would possibly imagine. I have a family that loves me and that's ... more than most kids have. And it's really awesome for me to experience this life ... because most kids don't have this life, and I'm trying to reach out to them and help them. — Willow Smith

I always say about my daughters, they save me from my miserable self. They take me out, you know, a comedian, you could live in your head a lot. And you're writing and you're doubting. But when I'm with my kids and my family, it's all about them. — Chris Rock

My family, you know, are all still, you know, very close. We're all still very close. Mom and Daddy are still alive. So, what more can you ask for? Your kids are healthy. — Reba McEntire

I was always a person on my mother's hip in the kitchen. My mom really wanted her kids at her side as much as possible, and she worked in restaurants for over fifty years. And my grandfather had ten children, and he grew and prepared most of the food. My grandmother, on my mother's side, was the family seamstress and the baker. So my mom, the eldest child, was always in the kitchen with my grandpa and I was always in the production and restaurant kitchens and our own kitchen with my mom. And it's just something that has always spoken to me. — Rachael Ray

What I did find out because I grew up with a lot of chaos early on: sometimes, you're born into a family, and their norm is already in your red zone of dangerous feeling or feeling too chaotic. You don't get to really do anything about that when you're a kid. — Patricia Arquette

I wouldn't rule out L.A. life, but I love England. I have a lovely house and nice garden, I walk my kids to school - family is most important to me. — Stephen Graham

I've always loved black culture; I don't know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone. — Robert Greene

I was one those kids who had books on them. Before weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals and anything else where you're actually meant to not be reading, my family would frisk me and take the book away. If they didn't find it by this point in the procedure, I would be sitting over in that corner completely unnoticed just reading my book. — Neil Gaiman

I'm a very traditional person. The tattoos are about my grandmother dying and they tell the story about my mother and father, my brothers and my sister, my kids. It's pretty much a family tree on my arm with my life in football too. — Timothy F. Cahill

Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work. — Tim Dorsey

All of us face hard choices in our lives. Some face more than their share. We have to decide how to balance the demands of work and family. Caring for a sick child or an aging parent. Figuring out how to pay for college. Finding a good job, and what to do if you lose it. Whether to get married - or stay married. How to give our kids the opportunities they dream about and deserve. Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become. For leaders and nations, they can mean the difference between war and peace, poverty and prosperity. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

There's no word in the language I revere more than 'teacher.' My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I've honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher. — Pat Conroy

I look forward to a time when lawyers aren't in the top three calls every day, and all you care about is how your kids are doing in school or what the weather's like and the great day you had with your family. — Lance Armstrong

There is a core value I wanted to illuminate: No matter what kind of family you have - straight, gay, married, single parent, separated, no kids, two kids, 20 kids, whatever - we all go through the human comedy. But if the bonds are strong enough, and the desire is there, you can get to the other side, still together and still a family. — Lisa Cholodenko

I'm living the dream. I've got a big tour bus, an incredible band, a big house, and a family that are all taken care of through my music. I've got a beautiful wife and three beautiful kids. — Aaron Watson

You can have terrible things happen in your family. A husband and wife can be having a knock-down, drag-out fight and the minute one of the kids gets hurt, the fight is over and it's about the family. — Sophia Bush

Call waiting was, for me, that was like the best invention ever, because there was four kids in my family, and to get on the phone was impossible. — Maggie Carey

I'd love to win a Grammy! Not ambitious or anything. And just having a really lovely bunch of kids and a happy family life, would be good for me. — Bat For Lashes

We tiptoe around like we're the Frank family and the Gestapo is downstairs. The baby monitor is in our room, and the unspoken rule is that when the kids go down, so do we. So at seven P.M., I'm in bed waiting for the sandman to come. I can't watch TV, because the noise may wake up the kids; I can't listen to music with my iPod earbuds, because then I can't hear the monitor; and I can't have sex, because that could wake up Janice. — Billy Crystal

Do all kids have to worry about their parents' mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it's the other way around. — Ruth Ozeki

If I want to work, I can. If I want to play golf, or ride my motorcycle, I can. But the rest of it is family. Sometimes you're not really needed by your family, but you're there. And my kids like to know I'm there. — Bob Seger

The line changed my life 'cause I thought of some poor woman I hadn't even met walking around the United States or the world not knowing she's going to be beaten up by me and these kids, unborn, not knowing they were going to be born into the family of a child-beater just because I was. So it really did have a great effect on me. — Terry Gross

Something about family and trying to relate it to the movie with, 'Oh, if I was to have a child how many kids do I want?' And 'do I want a boy or a girl?' I didn't realize you could place orders, I honestly didn't realize it was like a drive-through, that you could talk to a little electronic voice. — Jennifer Aniston

My mom's chicken, with rice and gravy was my favorite dish as a kid, and it still is now. That's my favorite meal from her or from anybody. It's a family favorite. — Serena Williams

If books were food, I'd weigh thirty thousand pounds. I devour the things. I'm addicted to reading, and when I'm in the middle of a great book, I'm tempted to tell my kids to eat dog food for dinner. Before you call the Department of Family and Children's Services, I said tempted. I've never actually done that. — Sandi Hutcheson

I was very fortunate. I had a great group of friends in my life, and family, and so I felt a sense of safety and belonging that ... as you grow older, you realize that not everybody does feel that. And there's particular certain groups of kids who always feel like outsiders. But I was very fortunate. — Rib Hillis

I think a lot of high-profile artists like to make people think that. 'Oh, I'm trying to choose my next project.' This is a job. Sometimes your next job is so you can provide for your family; your kids are 16 and getting ready to go to college. — Michael Cudlitz

I wish I hadn't stopped. Maybe by now we'd be married with six or seven kids." "Six or seven?" "I always wanted a big family." "And exactly who do you think will be popping out all those babies?" "You've got the hips for it. — Quanie Miller

Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is Isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others. — Chetan Bhagat

The challenges that I face today are the same challenges we all face. Trying to balance your life between work, family, loved ones, your husband, your wife - boyfriend or girlfriend. If you have kids - balancing that, balancing your work with the time you spend with your kids. The idea of wanting to be a good parent and then the motivation to be a great parent. Whether you're black, white, any color. Rich, poor, regardless of religion, cousins of culture, we go through those. We have the same challenges. — Dwayne Johnson

There's an honesty in our family - my kids and I are able to talk about things without me putting the fear of God into them. — Billie Joe Armstrong

I know when people think of New York, they think of theater, restaurants, cultural landmarks and shopping," I told him. "But beyond the iconic skyline and the news from Wall Street, New York is a collection of villages. In our neighborhoods, we attend school, play Kick the Can, handball and ride our bikes. I grew up knowing the names and faces of the baker, the shoe repair family, the Knish man and the Good Humor man who sold me and the other kids in my neighborhood half a popsicle for a nickel. My father took me to the playground where he pushed me on the swing, helped balance me on the seesaw and watched as I hung upside down by my feet on the monkey bars. Yes," I told the interviewer, "people actually grow up in New York. — Gina Greenlee

There are five kids in my family and I'm the only one who didn't get a diploma. All the kids got their diplomas hanging in my father's room and I got my gold records. I'd say he was more proud of the diplomas. — Ronnie Van Zant

Still putting out the O'Reilly fires of me being a traitor and using Casey's name dishonorably, my in-laws sent out a press statement disagreeing with me in strong terms; which is totally okay with me, because they barely knew Casey. We have always been on separate sides of the fence politically and I have not spoken to them since the election when they supported the man who is responsible for Casey's death. The thing that matters to me is that our family - Casey's dad and my other 3 kids are on the same side of the fence that I am. — Cindy Sheehan

My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater. — Ellen Pompeo

The Wikks are regular kids given a Galactic size challenge. Readers will follow Oliver, Tiffany, and twins, Mason and Austin as they trek through eerie catacombs, mysterious ruins, and creepy castles that defy imagination. One part Indiana Jones, a handful of Swiss Family Robinson, and some Intergalactic excitement, the Quest for Truth is a riveting tale of just how far mankind will go for the ultimate prize. — Wayne Thomas Batson