Early on, when I first started acting professionally, it was really important for me to get my parents on board, because they were so against it.

A lot of what I do around Houston is to find ways to lift people through literacy. It's become part of our family culture. Everyone in our family has found some way and capacity to serve. You don't...

My mum, who died in 2011, was the most loving mother you could ask for. She was very compassionate, always a good listener, and her love was a constant throughout my life. She was very sympathetic,...

I've loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother's a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from...

My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a...

I wake up around seven, and I give my daughter breakfast. I spend the first hour or two of her day with her.

For years now, I have had a great time and so has every single member of the Kapoor clan.

Looking back, I realize my favorite stories weren't in books, they were in comics. On top of being a history enthusiast, my father was also a comics fan, and he kept his stash in the top drawer of his...

A princely mind will undo a private family.

There's nobody in the arts in my family. It was kind of embarrassing to even say that I wanted to be an actor.

My father instilled in me to take care of my family. Show up even when you don't want to show up.

My grandad used to work in the mines, he's retired now, but he's been a big part of my career.

What I miss is being close to nature - collecting your own water and generating your own electricity, catching your own food. I still dream of doing that with my own family, even if it's just for a...

Songwriting really kicked in with the guitar. I was going through a lot as a kid. There had been a lot of transitions in my family. So it just became a total therapy, like most artists.

When you have brothers, you learn to be fiercely competitive with someone you love so they won't kill you and you won't kill them.

It was really important for me to understand that I needed to provide for myself, and I needed to become a provider for my own family, too.

My dad's a very shrewd, clever guy.

My mom, she's the greatest.

Raising myself and caring for my brothers and sisters allowed me the benefit of a lot of information that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten. I had to be frugal, thoughtful, resourceful. I didn't have...

I wasn't born to a wealthy or powerful family - mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx.

I know who my dad is, I've met him a few times, but I don't even call him dad. I know it sounds horrible, but I don't even see him as part of my family, to be honest. If you want the truth, it doesn't...

My dad used to draw these great cartoon figures. His dream was being a cartoonist, but he never achieved it, and it kind of broke my heart. I think part of my interest in art had to do with his...

Ah, my dad's whistle. On holidays when I was a kid, we would all be off in the rock pools along the beach. When it came time to go, we'd hear the whistle and we'd all come running. Like dogs!

You do stand alone sometimes. But my mother stood by me through all this.

To me, one of the big silver linings of the Simpson trial is the advances we've made in understanding domestic violence as a lethal problem. Before that trial, I think there was a widespread sense...

My sister's journal was the romantic one with boys, and mine was talking about my rock tumbler. We were so different and so similar.

I am very lucky. I have known wonderful romantic love in my life but to actually see this little creature and find him to be the most beautiful creature in the world. I know all mothers and fathers...

With my father and sister being very depressed for most of their lives, it was incumbent on me to try to make them laugh, in this ridiculous way. They were the wittiest people I knew, but to get a...

I came from a broken home, so my mom was a major influence in my life.

My mom's one of 13 siblings, and they all got six kids, and till I was 13 everybody was in Compton.