I've never mentioned this but when I was at Parsons teaching the other design disciplines they don't like fashion design. They see it as very nineteenth-century.

I just finished my homework fast I was bored to death. There wasn't 500 channels so there was a thing for a librarian to teach a kid like me about reading. I started reading early and I read all the time because I love it.

I get scared to death when I see people who say they've found Jesus Christ and they're out there and I wonder who's teaching them? Who's mentoring them?

Here I am trying to live or rather I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.

My original inspiration was my mom: a few years after the death of my dad she started dating one my teachers!

I started dating older men and I would fall in love with them. I thought they could teach me about life.

Dad worked his entire career as an aviation technician. Mom was a legal secretary who became a teacher. We lived a simple American life.

The most challenging part of being a dad is self-restraint. So often your instinct is to teach and tell. I am constantly reminding myself to listen to them.

When I realized I was having trouble reading I was too embarrassed to ask for help. Some teachers believed in me but I just wasn't focused on school - I was into the music and trying to please my dad.

I had always loved music. I grew up listening to classic country Waylon Jennings Merle Haggard. My dad loved Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley. So I kept going to class and started getting totally into playing guitar and teaching myself these songs.

Although becoming a singer was my plan A after first hearing Whitney Houston when I was 17 I started off with plan B by going to the teacher-training college that my dad went to. It was a slow coming of age.

I was born in Corpus Christi Texas the youngest of four girls including my oldest sister Lisa who has special needs. My mom was a special education teacher and my dad worked on the Army base. We weren't wealthy but we were determined to succeed.

My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United and I loved playing football but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts and I was very comfortable.

I had my heart set on becoming an English teacher but stumbled into acting after meeting a theatrical agent in my dad's restaurant in San Diego.

My dad remembers being in school with my uncle and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn't be trusted.

My dad's passion was to teach adults to read so they could read to their kids.

My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.

When I was 7 my dad asked his friend to teach me. I played my first tournament competition when I was 8. I remember I shot around 125.

I think it's easiest to teach by example. My dad didn't tell us to work hard we just saw how hard he worked. I know I have shortcomings - like a short fuse - but I've learned you can't come home from a long day of work and snap at the kids.

My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom my dad they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.

When I was in nursery school the teachers asked me y'know 'What does your dad do for a living?' So I said 'He helps women get pregnant!' They called my mom and they were like 'What exactly does your husband do?'

Dad taught me everything I know. Unfortunately he didn't teach me everything he knows.

When a father absent during the day returns home at six his children receive only his temperament not his teaching.

My father was my teacher. But most importantly he was a great dad.