Being a mother is the best thing that ever happened to me. Before you have your first baby you are a girl and then you become a mother. There is no transition into being a woman you literally become a mum and being a mum means you always love someone else more than yourself and it is an unexplainable situation.

There are people and nations Mother that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you in silence I entrust them to you in the way that you know best.

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother the ecology or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.

My mother is a beauty.

If I weren't performing I'd be a beauty editor or a therapist. I love creativity but I also love to help others. My mother was a hairstylist and they listen to everyone's problems - like a beauty therapist!

Wigs have always been a part of my life and have become a staple accessory in my closet. I can remember being a little girl and hearing all the commotion in my house from my mom aunts and grandmother when picking out their wigs for the day. It was such a good time for them and part of their everyday beauty routine.

My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset I hear my mother's voice and smile.

My mother never put an emphasis on looks. She let us grow up on our own time line. She never forced any beauty regimen into my world.

My mother always called me an ugly weed so I never was aware of anything until I was older. Plain girls should have someone telling them they are beautiful. Sometimes this works miracles.

My grandmother is this amazingly theatrical woman. She acted like a movie star as far as looks and attitude kind of like Susan Hayward.

My mother she had a very good attitude toward money. I'm very grateful for the fact that we had to learn to save. I used to get like 50 pence a week and I'd save it for like five months. And then I'd spend it on Christmas presents. I'd save up like eight pounds. It's nothing but we did that.

Art is the child of Nature yes her darling child in whom we trace the features of the mother's face her aspect and her attitude.

I have always detested any departure from reality an attitude which I relate to my mother's poor mental health.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert's understanding but also approached art emotionally.

In fact in many ways my mother was quite hippy-dippy serving macrobiotic food and reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'

My culture-deprived aspirational mother dragged me once a month from our northern suburb - where the word art never came up - to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hated it.

There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing.

The art of motherhood involves much silent unobtrusive self-denial an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.

The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.

My mother and stepfather were married 43 years so I have watched a long marriage. I feel like I had a very good role model for that. And you know it's just a number.

I'm not sure I make old bones in parliament. It's an amazing experience to have had but I can't see myself being Mother of the House.

My sister Jennifer is an Emmy winning journalist and mother of three amazing girls. She brings an exceptional dedication to her job her family and her community and has been a role model of mine for many many years. I'm extremely proud of her.

We start 'The Butler' in June and that's incredibly exciting for me because I get to work with the amazing Forest Whitaker again. It's a phenomenal script and a great great role - I play his son. Oprah Winfrey is his wife and my mother. My character is a radical civil rights activist.