I think about my parents all the time especially on Sunday when I'm at Mass. My mother always said 'We do not pray to win elections. We pray for people's health we pray that God's will be done we pray that we do our best. But we do not pray to win elections.'

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it's one that's easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

My grandmother had six kids - one died as an infant - and she was dirt-poor and all her kids got an education. And my mom grew up poor. And they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness. I wanted to have that like an amulet. Not like armor but like a magic feather. Like Dumbo's magic feather.

My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia and we didn't have any money we just survived on happiness on being a happy family.

You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead so that she can't see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well that's me.

Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me particularly given my medical history.

By and large mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.

As the mother of two daughters I have great respect for women. And I don't ever want to lose that.

As a child I was a great liar. Fortunately my mother liked my lies. I promised her marvelous things.

Out of Ireland have we come great hatred little room maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.

Motherhood is a great honor and privilege yet it is also synonymous with servanthood. Every day women are called upon to selflessly meet the needs of their families. Whether they are awake at night nursing a baby spending their time and money on less-than-grateful teenagers or preparing meals moms continuously put others before themselves.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me but I think she enjoyed it.

My father was on the faculty in the Chemistry Department of Harvard University my mother had one year of graduate work in physics before her marriage.

I have no problems with private schools. I graduated from one and so did my mother. Private schools are useful and we often use public funds to pay for their infrastructures and other common needs.

My father who was from a wealthy family and highly educated a lawyer Yale and Columbia walked out with the benefit of a healthy push from my mother a seventh grade graduate who took a typing course and got a secretarial job as fast as she could.

And some of what we're doing in Government even now some of the welfare reform programs that are helping lone mothers come into work are based on things that were very new under the Labour Government in the eighties.

My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union. She knew that war was bound to come but so confident was she in the strength of the Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could not last longer than six months at the utmost.

My mother gave lots of good advice and had a lot to say. As you get older you realize everything she said was true.

My mother was a good recreational cook but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered someone else would do it for you.

I learnt a whole lot from my mother. About music relationships being a good person loving people the whole of life. I learnt about everything from her. Every single day I think about her. All through the day.

The word 'good' has many meanings. For example if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards I should call him a good shot but not necessarily a good man.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.