I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

People come up to me as I leave the stage after a performance and tell me tey saw my mother onstage with me every time I sing. I keep a sense of humor about it.

I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction and then yes you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you and it's all caught on film or onstage.

When I was a kid my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer he didn't think I would amount to anything. My mother also.

I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you but about what you do with what happens to you.'

People see I am a mother and head of a household. Today in Chile one-third of households are run by women. They wake up take the children to school go to work. To them I am hope.

In between films I like to travel and hope to visit every continent before I become a mother.

Hope... is the companion of power and the mother of success for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.

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 hope my tongue in prune juice smothers If I belittle dogs and mothers.

My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn't. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?

All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother.

To the former child migrants who came to Australia from a home far away led to believe this land would be a new beginning when only to find it was not a beginning but an end an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise and we are sorry.

I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack come home and earn a living. So I went back to England and the only thing I knew to earn any cash was through hairdressing.

My sisters both are working mothers. I understand that my being an actress as well as being at home isn't some heroic thing. That doesn't mean it isn't confusing or difficult - especially that question of how you find a balance.

When I came home for the summer after my first year of college I told my mother that my best friend and I were driving to California. She laughed out loud - 2 000 miles in a what? Well my best friend had an old Chevy. What could go wrong?

Power doesn't have to be on such a big scale for powerful things to occur. Within your own home you can be a powerful woman as a mother influencing your children's lives.

Most of us in the baby-boom generation were raised by full-time mothers. Even as recently as 14 years ago 6 out of 10 mothers with babies were staying at home. Today that is totally reversed. Does that mean we love our children less than our mothers loved us? No but it certainly causes a lot of guilt trips.

I think my children know that Mother's priority is to be with them first. But I don't think it has to be an either/or situation. Work is very important to me and it wouldn't be in the best interest of my children for me to stay home seven days a week.

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly everything feels easier.

My mother is a special story. She went through so much to bring us up four men at home especially when our country was going through really difficult times.

My grandmother always taught me 'If you don't have a home family and church you don't have anything.'

Many working mothers feel guilty about not being at home. And when they are there they wish it could be perfect. This pressure to make every minute happy puts working parents in a bind when it comes to setting limits and modifying behavior.