The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn't want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is you got to give em something. Either your money your land your woman or your ass.

Find something in life that you love doing. If you make a lot of money that's a bonus and if you don't you still won't hate going to work.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money and that is sincerity and integrity.

Whether it's a 16-year old girl or a mom or a guy or anybody as long as they come up and they're excited to meet me 'cause they've had some sort of relationship with something I've created it's the coolest thing ever. It never gets old. It's awesome.

When you have lost people like I lost my birth mom at a young age and you remember the whole process of losing her you want to grab on to something that makes you whole.

I had really great parents who always gave me lots of opportunity for choice but I didn't always realize how rare that was for a girl for them to say 'You can be a mom or have a career or do both or do something we haven't thought of yet.'

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 13 and it was something we weren't really aware of as a family.

I am very proud of my mom and consider her the most courageous woman I know. With perseverance sacrifice and hard work she raised a family of Olympic athletes and gave us the tools and the spirit to succeed. That is something that my brothers and I will always be thankful for.

In third grade I was taking tap-dance lessons and about six weeks before the recital I wanted to quit. My mom said 'No you're going to stay with it.' Well I did it and I was bad too! But my parents never let their kids walk away from something because it was too hard.

Just recently I was in Target with my mom shopping and out of the blue I see this father and his two daughters and he says 'Can they get a picture with you?' And I'm thinking to myself 'Am I the one millionth customer or something?'

My mom thought I might be good for voiceover. She thought I had a cute voice so maybe I could do a cartoon or something. And while we were looking into that we also thought I should get into theater acting so I tried it and the first audition I went on I booked it. And it kind of just snowballed from there.

At 3 years old I was imitating and doing fun little commercials for the family. Then at 5 I knew 'OK this is something I really like.' At 8 I was crying in front of the mirror and my mom was like 'Oh boy here we go. We know what she's going to do.'

I had so many offers after 'True Blood' for things that were someone in the same vein but nowhere near Alan Ball's vision. Or something that was over-the-top and fantastical. And I've always wanted to play the regular working-class mom and I've never really had the chance to do that.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do and then I got this call from a casting director in Los Angeles. She remembered me from something years before and she called my mom wanting me to audition for this thing.

My mom didn't ever think I would take to acting because I was a very shy very reserved kind of child. But obviously something changed!

My mother smokes me out. We'll get these long periods of me thinking I'm too busy to call her up or e-mail her and she'll send me something. My mom's a real whiner. I love her to death but she always sends me these 'woe is me' things. I think she might be Jewish. I'm not sure. She's Baptist-Jewish which is a double whammy.

I was looking to do something non-fiction because I had done a strip 'My Mom Was a Schizophrenic.' I really enjoyed the process of doing that strip despite its subject matter. To do it I'd had to do a lot of research and reading and I figured I'd like to do that again.

The fact that I'm very close with my past relationships is something I pride myself on. My mom is still close to her first husband. It's nice to be able to enjoy someone in a different form.

I was a hyper kid in school and the teacher suggested to my mom she needed to do something with me.

I'm somebody who doesn't work with a stylist. I'll be honest with you I'm a mom and it's just not something I want to put money toward because it's expensive to have somebody who helps dress you and I feel like I have to pay for preschool and so many things... so I don't have a stylist.

I got a family house for everybody to live in - my mom my sisters and I. And I made sure that it has a separate apartment downstairs for myself. Family is more important than anything. We don't come from any money. So once I get them settled in in a nice house then I'll branch out and see if I can get something else.

From the very start of all of this my mom has read the scripts first. And if she liked something she let me read it. She told our agent what kinds of parts that we would want.

I've never had siblings I didn't grow up in a big family it was just me and my single mom. And hectic family dysfunction was actually something that I craved.

I don't spend a lot of time online. My mother's really good at picking out if she sees a really great review and she'll forward it to me. She's like my little Internet filter. It's always nice to see something going up if I want to find something on Nathan Fillion I do know where to look but I've got a nice little delivery system in my mom.