Quotes from Sean Hepburn Ferrer

Once the war started, my grandfather went to England, where he was under house arrest on the Isle of Man, and then to Ireland, but not to Germany. In no way did he, or my grandmother for that matter, ever support either the war or the Holocaust.

Once in a while, people would say, 'Look, your mom's on TV.' But as a young kid, you don't really worry about those things so much.

A child deserves love, affection, the chance to just play and do nothing, to sit under a tree, read a book, dream and not have a care in the world.

We all came from a culture of you got to keep moving, you got to keep doing.

I don't know if my mum and President Kennedy ever dated, but they were friends and there are some letters from him that she kept - sweet and innocent letters saying, 'Saw you in the play the other night and you were fantastic.'

She trained as a ballet dancer yet she was an iron fist in a velvet glove. My younger brother Luca and I had a wonderful childhood since she would try to guide us gently down the right path.

During her illness we received bags and bags of anything you can imagine, from get well cards to origami from Japan to medications. The mail lady used to come on a little moped - and she had to rent the mail truck from the town next door because she had to lug these bags to our door with thousands of cards we couldn't even open.

One of the reasons that fascism ascended to power so quickly was that it was considered socially elegant to support this new way of government.

She performed for the Dutch Resistance, not just to raise money but also to entertain people and to take their minds off the horrors they were living through. They would do plays and little musicals, trying to be discreet and not bring the attention of the soldiers.

I remember being mesmerized by 'Love in the Afternoon,' with Gary Cooper.

Because I fell in love with the idea of films early on, not because I was in the milieu, but moreso because of the potential of having a couple of hundred people in a dark room, looking at a screen.

We learned to separate, and accept the fact that my mother is gone, yet there she is on TV, on a billboard, sooner or later in a conversation, in a magazine on a regular basis.

She didn't want the typical Hollywood lifestyle of juggling a career and leaving the kids at home with nannies, so she'd take me to buy socks and books and help me with my homework.

If she looks natural on screen, that's just the way she was in life - very unassuming and full of life.

You know, we weren't a Hollywood family. I didn't grow up in a home with screening rooms and my mother didn't behave like a movie star.

I read an article some years back in which Emma Thompson demeaned my mother's acting ability. My mother would be the first person to say that she wasn't the best actress in the world. But she was a movie star.

I can see how movie stars lose touch with reality. I can understand that, because you're told a million times a day in so many little gestures that you're somehow special and unique.

My mother was a biographer's dream and a nightmare. She was a dream because she was a classic to write about and everybody loves her. She was a nightmare because there are no scandals, quasi-cruelties, no really juicy stuff.

My mother believed strongly that every life matters. She demonstrated on a daily basis, particularly through her humanitarian work as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, her strong belief in the value of every life.

My stepfather was a brilliant and funny psychiatrist but he was a hound dog. He just didn't know how to be faithful.

The love of a parent is as much nutrition as a chocolate bar.

I think that's the greatest gift she gave us, this normal upbringing without her fame hanging over our heads. It actually prepared us for the world.

We're fortunate to have this extraordinary foundation of, I guess, not growing up in Hollywood and growing up in this farmhouse in Switzerland. She wanted a normal life for herself and for us. And it's a valuable and beautiful memory that she left us.

When I had to go to school and could no longer travel to be with her on the set, she gave up her career. She felt the most valuable thing was family.