Quotes About Family

Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother.

I watched Leicester City lose in the 1969 FA Cup final with my dad and granddad when I was eight and cried all the way home. I have seen them get promoted and relegated. I played for them for eight years. I even got a group of like-minded fans and friends to stump up a few quid to salvage the club when they went into liquidation.

Having a baby on my own is a dream come true, but in my world, there's no sheepish spouse on his way home from a work trip to offer me a stretch of alone time.

The truth is, he almost wasn't a senator at all. In 1972, shortly after his improbable victory, but before he took the oath of office, my father went to Washington to look at his new office space. My mom took us to go buy a Christmas tree. On the way home, we were in an automobile accident. My mom, Neilia, and my sister, Naomi, were killed.

My parents were Democrats, and I was a Democrat. And John Wayne was a Republican.

Lil Wayne, that's my brother. Birdman, that's family.

It was okay for Wayne Gretzky's dad, for instance, to give him a hockey stick, or Joe Montana's dad to give him a football, or Larry Bird's dad to give him a basketball, but it wasn't okay for Gloria Connors to give her son a tennis racquet.

I didn't have drama in high school. So when I graduated high school and started at Wayne State in Detroit, I told my parents I was going to major in theater. And they were like, 'OK. Why? You've never done it.' But, it was just what I wanted, and they came to see my very first show and, from then, completely supported me.

My dad and uncles listened to a lot of rap. My dad is a big fan of LL Cool J. Driving in the car with him, we'd listen to Jay-Z and Nas. My sister listened to a lot of No Limit, so I listened to Master P. and Cash Money - Lil Wayne and Juvenile. They had jewelry and nice cars. I was drawn to them.

I am always going to struggle. Nine times out of 10 I am fine, but then I have days when I want to stay in bed. They are shorter periods, and not as bad as they used to be. If I can spend a day in bed and I can get Wayne to take the kids, I let myself do it. I only allow myself a day and then the next day I feel so much better.

If my parents or Wayne's parents are around and can watch the kids and give us a bit of spare time, then on a Friday night I like to pamper myself and relax.

Just as my search for my mother had in some ways shaped my life, her faith that I was alive had shaped hers. She couldn't search, but she did the next best thing: She stayed still.

I tell people I live in Atlanta. Georgia's outside of Atlanta, absolutely. But my family's from the very rural south. My family's from Tuskegee, Alabama. And they're from Eatonton, Georgia. Places like Greenwood, Georgia, my family is from... so I've seen it both ways.

My childhood was bittersweet in many ways. We moved around a lot. By the time I was 10, I had travelled thousands of miles, often on my own. My parents were like my friends, so it felt like I didn't really have parents at all. But in a crazy way that was very liberating. It forced me to be independent, maybe a leader, and certainly a survivor.

As a caregiver, I always thought I had empathy for Chris's situation, and certainly one family member's disability affects the whole family dynamic in myriad ways. But as I go through various tests and discomforts and uncertainty about the future that cancer can bring, I feel a strong, visceral connection to what Chris went through.

Travel has always been one of the best ways to make new memories and reconnect with your loved ones.

The deepest change begins with men raising children as much as women do and women being equal actors in the world outside the home. There are many ways of supporting that, from something as simple as paid sick leave and flexible work hours to attributing an economic value to all caregiving and making that amount tax deductible.

The people I admire unreservedly are my parents. They are the real pioneers of Africa in many ways. They were born and raised in rural Africa during the colonial period. They are the ones who came to the U.S. long before I did.

The earliest music I remember hearing is Al Green's 'Let's Stay Together.' That was when my momma and my daddy were together, before they went their separate ways.

In some ways, siblings, and especially sisters, are more influential in your childhood than your parents.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

My entire adult life has been devoted to family and career, each adding to the other in many rewarding ways. I have never felt that I had to set a pattern for my writing and teaching.

My mom's Brazilian, so she and I definitely grew up with different perspectives. I was born in America, and she's from Brazil, so we have different ways of doing things. There's a bit of culture clash there.

When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.