Being a mother must be the saddest yet the most hopeful thing in the world, falling into a love that, once started, would never end.
I was named after Yul Brynner because my mother had an infatuation with him. Who the hell names a Cuban kid Yul? Talk about a torturous childhood.
I acted when I was a real little kid. My mother was an actress in a Miami theater company comprised of actors from Cuba like her and I was the default kid.
My mother says I didn't open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.
To have gone through so much work to heal myself and have my mother not acknowledge in any way that she was sorry for what had happened to me, broke my heart.
I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?
I like being a mother, and I want to be involved in my work, so I have to make choices. If you're a film actress, your career is from 20 to 45, but you can still dream.
If you want something you can have it, but you have to do some work. It's the ethic my mother brought me up with.
I'm just honoring my mother's words. She always told me, 'The smaller your work, the bigger your name will become.'
I believe strongly in the rights of women... my mother is a woman, my sister is a woman, my daughter is a woman, my wife is a woman.
My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.
I think older women's voices are the most hated voices in the world - whether it's because people are reminded of their mothers or what, I don't know.
I learned to draw everything except glamorous women. No matter how much I tried to make them look sexy, they always ended up looking silly... or like somebody's mother.
Being a mother is complicated because it's not just a paternal culture making demands on you; it's those internal demands and expectations that women have and are self-generated.
My mother lived in Holland, and during World War II was incarcerated in a Japanese camp for three years.
A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers.
For too many families, the aftershock of the war in Afghanistan will be felt every day, most probably for the rest of their lives. I know because I've looked into the eyes and the faces of grieving mothers.
To be sure, those who are actually engaged in combat - those who actually see the maimed bodies and mourning mothers - struggle more than the rest of us to make sense of the reality of war.
This land, which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and gospel is free.
Being famous is wicked, but being normal is better.
The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.
