My mother was a children's librarian. I remember when traditional stories were revised for modern audiences until they bore only a nodding acquaintance with the originals, but were released as 'authentic Indian stories' when they were, in fact, nothing of the kind.
My mother brought me magicians and witches, because I was very ugly, really revolting. So she thought somebody had put a spell on me - this is the truth - so she made me drink some horrible terrifying potions, for year.
Jigging veins of rhyming mother wits.
When I was little, I got to pick my hair ribbon from my mother's collection that hung over her dressing-table mirror. I have an entire room of ribbons in my New York apartment.
I wanted to have no ribs. I wore what was called a waist-nipper in those days. My mother made it. It's a piece of rubber band I wore around to hold my rib cage in. I don't know why I always loved that. I guess I was a glutton for punishment. I think I was born one of those people who loved swords and fought in armor.
My mother was against me being an artist. She just wanted me to marry a rich man.
Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, but I am still opposed to Mother's Day. It perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents.
I have had my share of choices and temptations, too; I would not lie about that. And I would also like to confess that had it not been for my mother, I would probably have never been able to make the right decisions during those formative years of my life.
I try to do the right things. I was always raised that if you do the right thing and obey the law, you won't have problems. I really believe that. But that's just me; that's what I've tried to do because that's how my mother raised me.
My mother has an incredible rigidity, which is very Catholic.
You know how my mother and father met? In a train robbery!
This is the man my mother lived for. My career means something now because I've worked with Robert Redford.
I wanted to be a snowplow driver when I was a kid. Growing up in the Rocky Mountains, that's the most glorious job you can imagine. But then my mother took me to a lecture about the solar system when I was 8, and I got hooked.
My father was a soldier, which meant that he was a warrior, which meant that he was important. My mother rode a horse and sang in the Governor-General's band, so that made her important as well.
My mother never watched me train in Romania. She wasn't allowed, it just wasn't done back then. My training was paid for by the government. My parents were not at the Olympics with me, either. I never expected them to be.
There's nothing in the world more silent than the telephone the morning after everybody pans your play. It won't ring from room service; your mother won't be calling you. If the phone has not rung by 8 in the morning, you're dead.
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.
Building a robot that has legs and walks around is a very expensive proposition. Mother Nature has created many wonderful things, but one thing we do have that nature doesn't is the wheel, a continuous rotating joint, and tracks, so we need to make use of inventions to make things simpler.
Asher Roth lived on my couch for six months to build up a following. With Justin Bieber, I moved him and his mother to a town house a block away from me.
'The Girls' tells the story of Rose and Ruby Darlen, who are not only literally but spiritually attached for eternity. Born joined at the head in 1974 to a feckless teenage mother who abandons them, and reared by a delightfully open-minded adoptive couple, the Darlen girls are darling girls, indeed.
