My life comes down to three moments: the death of my father, meeting my husband, and the birth of my daughter. Everything I did previous to that just doesn't seem to add up to very much.
I don't mean to sound like a touchy-feely California type here, but I knew that I could finally get over the death of my father only by having kids of my own.
I began writing 'The Cold Song' in the months following my father's death, when I felt this sense of loss, disappearance, of being right in the middle of life and wondering: 'What now? How to proceed?'
My father was a Japanese prisoner of war, a survivor of the Thai-Burma Death Railway, built by a quarter of a million slave labourers in 1943. Between 100,000 and 200,000 died.
My father's death from prostate cancer in 1993 was tragic. He never complained about pain. He was a fighter. By the time he was ready to die he wasn't able to die in the way that he wanted to, which seemed an outrage to me.
My father is a very successful man in the corporate world, and I am his only son. He had certain dreams for me. I was scared to tell him that I wanted to be an actor.
I'd had a French education for three years, my father being in the army. From 9 to 12, I went to French school. I've been sort of part of the culture, part of the geography, since I was quite young - the imprint was there.
I am what I am thanks to my mother, my father, my brother, my sister... because they have given me everything. The education I have is thanks to them.
I was sent to a school because my father was already aware that his days were numbered, and he was anxious for me to acquire a good education and follow in his footsteps.
Past conference topics have included strengthening the role of fathers in children's lives, the impact of the media culture on children, the delicate balance between work and family, and family involvement in education.
Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
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.
God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ, with Their perfect foreknowledge, already recommended every one of you to fill your mortal probation during the most decisive period in the history of the world.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.
He learned through the way that my father and I felt about his songs, his country songs, that they were great songs. And then he went out and sang them for the audiences that we found, and he found a tremendous reaction to that.
The great thing that I appreciate - the fact that my godfather, William 'Sticky' Jackson, was a Tuskegee Airman because my father was first born in Ozark, Alabama. The sacrifices and the commitment of those men made it possible for myself and many ot...
My father has a great love of science, and he indoctrinated me into it early. I think I was 12 or so when we designed a moon base.
My father started out as a riveter, but he had the soul of an artist. He worshiped Shakespeare and had aspirations to be an actor. He claimed that from the first day he laid eyes on me, I was going to be this great dramatic actress.
My father is an intellectual and physical man, which is a rather unusual combination. He's great. As he brought up me and my brothers and sisters, he ingrained in us that your appearance is not your responsibility, other than that you should not be a...
I did not give my daughter the kind of childhood anybody would want. The vision of the divided loyalty between a mother and father who don't live together and don't share in decisions is a great depravation for children.
