But while mum and dad were incredibly caring it was also a very chaotic household where everyone fought about everything. So I know what it's like to internalize all that chaos.

I've never tried to find my real parents. I'm very grateful to my mum and dad for adopting me - they're completely incredible people. It was my dad who encouraged me to question everything to forge my own path to think to read. I always felt it was my right to question everything.

I was always okay with the fact that I was taller and bigger than everybody else growing up. My mom my dad and my friends always told me I was beautiful.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews you have to give value to the criticism.

My dad was a labourer and my mum had exactly the same job as Noel Gallagher's mum - she was a dinner lady at our local school. Everyone comes over from Ireland and they get the same jobs.

My dad had a commercial film company so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.

When I was little we had a Golden Book that had all these Disney characters in one portrait on the first page. My dad used to read from it every night. We'd play this game of find Pluto or find Donald Duck. He'd read us stories and do all the voices. Those are great memories.

Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation I can let go of everything. I'm not Hugh Jackman. I'm not a dad. I'm not a husband. I'm just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it.

I mean I look at my dad. He was twenty when he started having a family and he was always the coolest dad. He did everything for his kids and he never made us feel like he was pressured. I know that it must be a great feeling to be a guy like that.

I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night.

I get that same queasy nervous thrilling feeling every time I go to work. That's never worn off since I was 12 years-old with my dad's 8-millimeter movie camera.

My dad is still Christian Scientist. My mom's not and I'm not. But I believe in God and that there's a higher power and an intelligence that's bigger than us and that we can rely on. It's not just us thinking we are the ones in control of everything. That idea gives me support.

Dad taught me everything I know. Unfortunately he didn't teach me everything he knows.

When my mom ran for the Senate my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice 'Why should women have any less say than men about the great decisions facing our nation?'

I didn't try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

My dad taught me true words you have to use in every relationship. Yes baby.

I grew up not liking my father very much. I never saw him cry. But he must have. Everybody cries.

My father was the guy on the block who said hi to everyone.

My father he was like the rock the guy you went to with every problem.

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

I know this president. And I can tell you that he cares deeply about the next generation of young women in this country - his daughters and everyone's daughters. President Obama had the courage to stand with Sandra Fluke. Without hesitation he defended her right to tell her story.

It takes far less courage to kill yourself than it takes to make yourself wake up one more time. It's harder to stay where you are than to get out. For everyone but you that is.

I like so much wearing heels legs look so much better everything looks better. But it's only recently I've had the courage to do that.

With Pearl Jam everybody is so good at what they do it's hard to get up the courage to say Can I sing this part or I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.