As a mother, I work hard every day and I expect that work to be recognized and appreciated. Because I work for and with human beings, sometimes they're grateful and sometimes they aren't.
The only honourable work my parents knew was blue-collar. But while my father Robert ran a pawnbroker's shop, and my mother was a waitress, I moved into a middle-class world with a level of security they never knew.
I had a lot of guilt as a single mother trying to raise a child. I had to go to work and Jeffrey was screaming that he didn't want me to. You have to give yourself permission to let go of the guilt.
I'm very much in work mode, and that can be very difficult for someone to deal with. I dedicate so much of myself to my work that I even take a back seat to that sometimes. My mother says that Tremaine takes a back seat to Trey Songz.
The more we refuse to buy into our inner critics - and our external ones too - the easier it will get to have confidence in our choices, and to feel comfortable with who we are - as women and as mothers.
Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can't. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women.
When I started to sing, my mother would have me engaged to perform at the Women's Christian Temperance Union national or annual meetings. I would hate doing this because I wanted to play baseball or go off skiing.
In Colombia, where I was born and raised, women like my mother considered their appearance and personal grooming a matter of principle. There was never an occasion where she didn't show up looking picture-perfect.
A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.
For any of us in this room today, let's start out by admitting we're lucky. We don't live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited.
My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.
I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I.
Valka: [to Hiccup; proudly] All this time, you took after me. [guilty] Valka: And... where was I? I'm so sorry, Hiccup. Can we start over? Will you give me another chance? [Hiccup gently smiles as if to forgive her] Valka: I... I can teach all that I...
And death is better because death is the end of fear, isnt it? -Dekka
Lord, please do this ... or do something better!
Today is tomorrow of yesterday.. a better day.. to start with.
So is darkness better than a heartfelt lie?
Listen, whatever makes the movie better. That's the attitude you have to have.
Pianos tend to get better as they age, the more you play them. They grow into their sound.
I've watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.
Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
