I've covered a lot of ground geographically and emotionally and for years I lost my connection with my family. But the best comfort you can have whether you are on the phone or sitting there in the living room with them is with your parents and to me family has always meant protection. When you smile you get a smile back unconditionally.

Children learn to smile from their parents.

1988 I also received from the city of Vienna the cross of honour for art and science. These titles and the various honors mean a great deal to me most of all for the reason that they would mean a great deal to my parents too.

My parents divorced when I was born and my mother is a political science professor like a feminist Mormon which is sort of an oxymoron.

Much of what Tea Party candidates claimed about the world and the global economy during the 2010 elections would have earned their adherents a well-deserved F in any freshman economics (or earth science) class.

For whatever reason I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.

The most watched programme on the BBC after the news is probably 'Doctor Who.' What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.

It's a sad moment really when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

Since it's based on my parents it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them.

I think a lot of people think that my parents' deaths is why I write such sad songs but that's not true. Those songs may just be the woman I am.

Every word facial expression gesture or action on the part of a parent gives the child some message about self-worth. It is sad that so many parents don't realize what messages they are sending.

My parents' divorce left me with a lot of sadness and pain and acting and especially humour was my way of dealing with all that.

And I don't believe that children are innocent. In fact no one seriously believes that. Just go to a playground and watch the kids playing in the sandbox! The romantic notion of the sweet child is simply the parents projecting their own wishes.

I used to get nervous you know if my parents would come watch. And then I would get nervous if my friends came and watched. Today it's not a problem anymore actually because now I enjoy it. I see that they you know respect me immensely and I try to put on a good show and show that I can still play very good tennis.

My parents started a business out of the living room of our home and 30-plus years later it was a multimillion dollar company. So President Obama with all due respect don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business.

The only ground on which a neutral State can claim respect at the hands of belligerents is that so far as she is concerned their rights are protected.

Parents need to teach their children principles of respect and acceptance.

Wherever I look I see signs of the commandment to honor one's parents and nowhere of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.

I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement in the overwhelming virtue of diversity these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.

Both of my parents would say they were atheists so where I inherited my connection to God I don't know. But it's natural. No Bible no Torah just the love religion.

I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.

I'm not defined by where I came from. I never took part in the rules and hatred that sometimes go along with religion. But if my parents are happy with what they believe then I'm happy to stay out of their way. We agree to disagree.

As with the Christian religion the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.