Tell me about your family," I said. And so she did. I listened intently as my mother went through each branch of the tree. Years later, after the funeral, Maria had asked me questions about the family - who was related to whom - and I struggled. I couldn't remember. A big chunk of our history had been buried with my mother. You should never let your past disappear that way.

Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them.

I regret not taking my 83-year-old mother to the Oscars the year I won. She deserved the Oscar for giving up so much for me.

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.

My mother graduated from high school at 15 and went to work to support the family because the eldest son went to college.

Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.