I was always into fashion because my mom has always been interested in fashion. She majored in fashion merchandising in college, and it's always been something we have in common.
I would not drink bottles of water at my mom's house because I never knew how long she'd been refilling them from the sink and putting them back in the refrigerator.
When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
Morality and its victim, the mother - what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood?
What I will not do is continue to perpetuate stereotypes. I'm the daughter of a maid; why do I have to also play a maid? My mom was a maid so I didn't have to be a maid.
I was thinking that when I have children, that I should always dress as a character for them, so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella. It would be totally messed up!
As a mom, you worry about protecting your kid. But there are extra added layers of fears when you're talking about a kid with autism or who has some special needs issue.
My mom has always been very open, very liberal. So I grew up with that, and I can appreciate everything that she did and went through and was exposed to.
I wasn't always a writer. When I went to college and majored in fine arts, I was a painter. Then I was a stay-at-home mom.
My mom allowed me to take an old burlap bag and fill it with moss, corn stalks and rocks, then hang it from a tree and spend an hour a day punching my heavy bag.
When I was little, I asked my mom to move us to Los Angeles and get me an agent. She would say, 'Stop it. Go play in the dirt.'
Many of my books come from what if questions that I can't answer, things that I'm worried about as either a woman, a wife, a mom, an American.
In Australia, I can just say to my mom, 'I'm going down the street.' And I can walk around pretty much all the places I know.
My mom started smoking when she was 11. She went to the hill next door to try her first cigarette. She set the entire hill on fire, but it didn't deter her.
First, I started taking dance classes, and then I started taking singing lessons. Then my mom put me into a year-round theatre program where I did seven shows.
Nobody sang better than my mom. That's why I've never even thought of singing for singing sake. I've always thought of a song as an acting piece, as a way to say something.
But the fact is, I'm not work-identified. I'm not a lawyer or a writer. I'm a mom, and I'm a woman, and that's the kind of people I want to see in books in the starring role.
My mom doesn't post on Facebook, but she'll tell anyone within about the first five minutes of meeting them about my sister and I, in whatever way she can.
Even when I was modelling, I never had a mom sitting on my head and a bunch of people waiting on me. I've always been independent. I'll do my thing and go.
My mom has always been my support system. She taught me to never give up and to keep pursuing my passions no matter what.
I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was 8. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew.
