Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was.
My childhood name that my father gave me, my mother, my grandmother, grandfather, family and friends all call me T.I.P.
My father, who grew up picking olives on the Greek island of Lesbos, was a doctor. So my family expected me to become a physician.
My father's family can be traced back to 1400. I've been told by gypsies that there is unmistakeably gypsy blood in me. Lee is a gypsy name, you know.
When I was somewhere between child and adult, my father left us. My first family broke apart, but this liberated me to create a new family as I pleased.
I'm from a family of teachers. My father would drown me in the bathtub if my daughter didn't graduate from college. I don't care who she is or what she does. Just get the diploma.
My father was a civil servant, so having a regular job, being respectable is a big deal for me. Respectable in the sense that I support my family. That's what I mean by respectability.
The idea of having proper qualifications had been very much ingrained in me. My father had a steady job for the Potato Marketing Board, and the family emphasis was on getting to university.
Everybody in our family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took a year or two of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons.
My father's failures inspired me the most and still drive me. He worked for 10 years, but wasn't invited to award functions, forget being nominated. So winning even one trophy is a high for our family.
My father gave me an old Olympia portable when I was in fourth grade. Our ancestors came from Ireland. Our family stories of immigration helped me understand more about my characters in 'The Lemon Orchard.'
I grew up not really having a father figure, and it didn't bother me, because he wasn't there in the first place. But then he started other families, and I was jealous. It was like he was happy without our family.
I've met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother's father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious.
'Catcher In The Rye' was my favorite book, honestly. I read it when I was thirteen, and the book was a bit of a family heirloom because it was passed down from my grandfather to my father to my older brother and then to me.
Sometimes my family got me in the door. Somebody would say, 'Bruce Dern's daughter - sure I'd like to meet her.' It was a point of interest. But after five minutes of talking about my father, I still had to read for the part.
My father discovered that our family had made long-case clocks in Warwickshire in the early 18th century. He managed to track down a fine example through an English antiquarian and horologist and gifted it to me for my 30th birthday.
Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.
My family background really only consists of my mother. She was a widow. My father died quite young; he must have been thirty-one. Then there was my twin brother and my sister. We had two aunts as well, my father's sisters. But the immediate family consisted of my mother, my brother, my sister, and me.
He's my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression... I cannot see him. I cannot have a relationship with my father and be morally consistent. I lived with all these adopted children, so they are my family. To say Soon-Yi was not my sister is an insult to all adopted children.
All my family worked for Puma. My mother worked there, and my father was the guy that opened and closed up in the evening. We lived in the neighbouring building - just a couple of steps, and I would be in the Puma factory. All 300 people that worked there knew me; it was my adventure playground. I knew everything, even how to make a shoe sole.