My goals have changed throughout my life. At one time it was winning awards, selling out concert dates, selling more albums than anyone else. Now, my goals are to see my grandchildren grown, live a long and healthy life with my family and friends and travel the world. 696
My family, you know, are all still, you know, very close. We’re all still very close. Mom and Daddy are still alive. So, what more can you ask for? Your kids are healthy. 584
There is good in everything; it’s just how you choose to look at it. Everything that’s worth it has a price. For me to be a model – I had to leave my family. Do you think I liked that? No! There are sacrifices. Life is meant to be a challenge, because challenges are what make you grow. 619
In a couple, sometimes, one or both people have to give up their personal life, dreams and ambitions for the good of the family. 680
Selfishness, narcissism, being uncomfortable in your own skin, not feeling connected to the world around you, feeling dislocated from family and youth, having a strange relationship with your childhood – all those things feel really true to me. 651
The kitchen really is the castle itself. This is where we spend our happiest moments and where we find the joy of being a family. 856
‘I Know You Care’ is really personal and fragile for me. For me, it’s about losing a family member and also about a breakup. It’s about this idea of losing someone for good. 584
I am a big fan of smelly cheeses but the rest of the family don’t seem to be particularly keen on them. 675
Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can’t soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own. 775
I have other obligations now – the show, my family, my life… though I know that without my sobriety I wouldn’t have any of those things. 649
My grandfather’s family used to own a pasta factory in Naples and they would go door-to-door selling their pasta. So his love of food came from his parents, which was then passed down to my mother and then again to me. 643
Even if you plan a marriage and a family, you are never quite prepared for the reality versus how you imagined it. In a lot of ways it’s better, and in a lot of ways it’s worse. That’s life, right? 2.54K
I vowed that whenever my family needed me, I would give up everything to go to them, no matter what. The show must go on was meaningless to me. 642
If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you’re related to them. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA. I think it’s fascinating. 2.08K
I grew up in a family of strong women and I owe any capacity I have to understand women to my mother and big sister. They taught me to respect women in a way where I’ve always felt a strong emotional connection to women, which has also helped me in the way I approach my work as an actor. 2.5K
So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and… Wanda Sykes and John Legend… we’re adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that’s the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship. 694
