My idea of a holiday was following my family up the hill with my pekinese, who would skip over the heather in front of me.
My family's challenges meant we lived hand to mouth. There were weeks when we had neither electricity nor heating.
When I think of the love I feel for each member of our family, I sense, to a slight degree, the love that our Heavenly Father bears for His children.
Soaring prescription drug costs have placed a tremendous strain on family budgets. They have also imposed a heavy burden on employers - both public and private - who are struggling to provide affordable health insurance coverage to their workers.
Twenty years ago, I wrote a book called 'It Takes a Village.' And a lot of people looked at the title and asked, 'What the heck do you mean by that?' This is what I mean. None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community or lift a country totally alone.
Everything that makes man's life worthwhile - family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head - all this depends on the decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of its people.
I believe in energy like dark energies. I believe that when a family moves into a house where six murders took place, there's going to be some bad juju in that house. But then again what the hell is wrong with you to be moving in that house to begin with?
In the case of 'Ocean at the End of the Lane,' it's a book about helplessness. It's a book about family, it's a book about being 7 in a world of people who are bigger than you, and more dangerous, and stepping into territory that you don't entirely understand.
'Hereditary' is unabashedly a horror film. In a lot of ways, it's in dialogue with other horror films. But I do know that it was important for me that the film functioned first as a family drama. I know that I'm never affected by anything if I'm not invested in the people to whom the genre things are happening.
I can say that I put a lot of personal feelings into 'Hereditary', though I can also say that none of the characters in the film are surrogates for anybody in my family or for myself.
'Hereditary' is unabashedly a horror film, whereas 'It Comes at Night' was a lot of things: it was a thriller; it was a postapocalyptic drama. It was a slow-building, very dark movie about relationships. 'Hereditary' is also about relationships, and I hope it functions as a vivid family drama, but it is also very much a horror film.
Right now I just want to chill for a while. Take a hiatus from all the craziness. To clean my house, see my family. Just see some movies and pick some strawberries.
We didn't really grow up in a gendered environment. We didn't have a hierarchy. My family is fearless. They truly believe that they have something to contribute to society and that it is an obligation as humans. I try to embed in my children that they have something to contribute. And that you give because you have to, not to be appreciated.
A person can be big, because of spirit. A person can be big because of their position in the family, the hierarchy in the family. That role has been played by women who are quite thin.
A lot of people in my family have high blood pressure. Dre told me I better start hitting the gym... so I took his advice.
I was raised on pork... steak, chicken, everything... And everyone in my family pretty much of the older generation has diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer.
I was a vegetarian first. I had high blood pressure at 27, everybody in my family died of cancer, and I knew it was in the food, so I changed my diet.
I've seen so many kids walking to school with these massive high energy drinks, and they are nine or 10. I'm like, 'What?' It was a treat for me. It is still a treat for my family.
'Shake It Up' definitely teaches kids about the importance of reaching for your dreams and setting high goals. It also teaches great lessons about friendship and family.
After Hurricane Sandy, my family and I stayed in our apartment in lower Manhattan before things normalized. We're lucky enough to live on a bit of high ground, so we weren't flooded... but it was intense. Since there was no light, water, or electricity, I spent a lot of time playing acoustic guitar in the evenings.
