The first thing I learned was the 'St Louis Blues' when I was eight. Both my grandmothers, my mother and uncle played the piano. This was post-war Britain, and they played boogie woogie and blues, which was the underground music of the time.
I have been tied up with music for about as long as I can remember. By the time I was four I was picking out little tunes my mother played on the reed organ in the living-room.
My mother told me when I was a toddler and in the crib that they would have music playing, and the thing when I lit up was boogie-woogie or something out of the Louie Jordan period of sometimes big bands, and then all kinds of things.
I wanted to be an actor ever since I got on stage for the first time, aged 13. Before that, I thought I might follow in the medical footsteps of my parents: my father was a doctor, my mother a pharmacist.
When I was 15, I came downstairs one morning, picked up mother's newspaper and, oh, what a shock! The Titanic had gone. The 'unsinkable' ship - but it had gone down so simple.
When my brother called to inform me, on the morning of May 22, 2003, that our mother Caroline Oates had died suddenly of a stroke, it was a shock from which, in a way, I have yet to recover.
Every morning when I woke up, my mother was already in the kitchen making breakfast. It was always the same: steamed rice, pickled vegetables, grilled fish and miso soup. Each day there was something different in the soup such as tofu or potatoes.
He had written my mother once that he wanted her to be the first thing he saw every morning and the last thing he ever saw. And that's how it turned out.
How many straight men maintain inappropriately intimate relationships with their mothers? How many shop with them? I want a gay son. People laugh, but they assume I'm kidding. I'm not.
Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another's.
When the baby dies, On every side Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud. The baby was not wrapped in any shroud. The mother made no sound. Her head was bowed That men's eyes might not see Her misery.
That's what my mother did. And my father was the first person she'd met who treated her kindly. She was terrified of men, and she married a very meek, kind, dear man. And she had the upper hand. She ruled the roost.
The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
Oh I had crushes on all my leading men, I think. Oh, you know who I really had fun with? In this movie 'Mother, Jugs & Speed,' I really liked working with Harvey Keitel.
We all seek approval, and our mother's seal is usually the most important. The nitty gritty is that we have to accept ourselves, even if it is just to be ready for the next cut-down. Mom's blessing or not.
My mother is the most incredible woman on this entire Earth, and she's so giving and loving and sweet and she always raised me how to forgive and forget and move on. She's the catalyst behind it all, my mom is. And I'm 100% a momma's boy!
I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up. I wish my grandmother had done the same. I wanted my girls to know me.
I'm a better mother if I'm also doing my work. Some women find a lot more satisfaction from doing the hardest job, which is being a mom. But I like my day job, so I juggle a lot.
He was doing - Ray was designing the clothes for my mom's show from California. And one of the first appearances I ever made on television was on my mother's show and Ray and Bob did the clothes for that. It has been a long time.
There's a book called 'The Shack' - it had a lot to do with me coming full circle, meeting my birth mother. Awhile back, my birth mom and my adopted mom came to my show together, and it was pretty surreal.
I've been an atheist since I was nine years old. And my mom is really religious, so we have a strange relationship. But if my mother was right, what would be the reason that the gods could let anything bad happen in the world?
