It's something my mother believed in: If you are in a position of privilege, if you can put your name to something that you genuinely believe in, you can smash any stigma you want, and you can encourage anybody to do anything.
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.
My mother was the sweetest lady who ever lived on this planet, but if you tried to tell her that Jesus wasn't a Christian, she would stomp you to death.
I left school at 16 and my mother got me a job as a trainee wine taster. But one day I followed some girls into St Martin's art school and saw a voluptuous woman sitting on a stool being sketched. I decided to get myself fired.
My mother would put me on a wooden box at the stove and tell me to call her if certain things would happen. Like if the steam turns blue, that is danger!
For the purposes of the play, it was perfect to be able to use that and the stresses and strains that there were. At the end of the play, the mother realizes the terrible things she had done.
As a child, I saw my mother prepare for Christmas every year, and it never occurred to me that labor was involved. I thought it was my mother's joy and privilege to hang tinsel on the tree strand by strand, to make sure that every room in the house had a touch of Christmas, down to the Santa-themed rug and hand towels in the bathroom.
My parents met because my father was an actor friend of one of my mom's brothers, but my mother has never set foot on the stage - she's quite shy. So it's a strange thing because people say, 'Oh, coming from acting parents,' when the idea of acting would literally make my mother just want to throw up.
We grew up in a very strange world, because my mother was up against it all when she had three black children.
My father was a certain kind of man - I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father's name.
I was a mother who worked ridiculously hard to keep catastrophe at bay. I didn't allow my kids to eat hamburgers for fear of E. coli. I didn't allow them to play with rope, string, balloons - anything that might strangle them. They had to bite grapes in half, avoid lollipops, eat only when I could watch them.
Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully.
By the time I was four, I would walk around the corner and wait at a local streetcar stop, get on the streetcar with somebody who looked like they could be my mother and go to the end of the line.
I love a lot of these older actresses, like Cicely Tyson, who played Kunta Kinte's mother in 'Roots.' She was really great, and I like seeing her because every movie she plays, she plays a strong character. As a kid, she was really inspiring to me.
When my mother tells me to do something, I'll do my own thing. A strong character can be good, but sometimes it is not good. I hope it's good in my case.
Mothers are supposed to listen and, afterward, to respond with some wisdom and perspective, but these things were not my mother's strong suit.
I am convinced that this approach, a mainstream Democratic approach, commands the strong support of the American people, and presents a sharp and compassionate contrast to the Republican abortion position which offers no real hope or commitment to mother or child.
I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I've always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband.
My mother is such an incredibly strong woman. She raised a family of five boys extremely well. She made us all strong, loving, caring people. We all support each other. I'm really thankful to her.
My mother is a strong woman. Her strength comes from being tested by life's unpredictability. It comes from soldiering on for her children, even when she might rather have given up. I know it hasn't always come easily, but I also know it's her greatest gift.
