My family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

I’ve told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are.

You can only choose between rich and poor. The middle class is gone.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.

For revolutionary Cubans, to cooperate with other poor and exploited peoples has always been a political principle and a duty towards humanity.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

And I come here as a daughter, raised on the South Side of Chicago – by a father who was a blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

It’s hard knowing who to trust with your personal life. When you cry in your room at night, you don’t always know who to call. So I am very close to my family.

Sometimes you can’t prioritise family and you feel guilty.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

I feel only my friends and family need to know what is happening in my personal life.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.

I always thought money was something just to make me happy. But I’ve learned that I feel better being able to help my folks, ‚cause we never had nothing. So just to see them excited about my career is more of a blessing than me actually having it for myself.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

My father opened a restaurant. It’s so amazing… it’s so freaking delicious, but I’m telling you I gain five pounds every time I go in there.

My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn’t have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.

To bring a healthy child into this world, raise them right and watch them grow is the biggest miracle there is.

My family didn’t have a lot of money, so I worked my heart out to get my degrees. But the minute I graduated, suddenly everyone was asking me, ‚Well, when are you going to get married and start having kids?‘ And the truth is I had no idea how I would balance the expected role of wife and mother with a challenging career.

I was very worried about my mother, growing up – a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me.

My father wasn’t a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher – one of those Victorians, hard as iron – but my dad was tough enough.

It was a privilege to pray with Governor Romney – for his family and our country.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin‘ wealthy.

People are going to buy cheap fertilizer so they can grow enough crops to feed themselves, which will be increasingly difficult with climate change.

I didn’t have any children of my own.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

I had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn’t greedy. It was mine, my girl’s, my mom’s. I got Benzes for my ladies. But I felt crazy. You have to understand I come from a world where we’re very modest. But that’s not greedy. That’s nice, right?

In our home there was always prayer – aloud, proud and unapologetic.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

It took Simone a long time to understand why people want Daddy’s autograph. I’d tell her, and my wife would tell her, too, ‚People see Daddy in the movies, and they are excited to meet him.‘ But she couldn’t really grasp it.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.

I have ‚Parents‘ magazine in my home.

I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids. Whenever the time is right, I’ll just know. If I had a girl, she’d probably be really rebellious. She would be like a bundle of karma. I would love to bring them up in Barbados.

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community.

My three children have brought me great joy.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

Heavenly Father loves every one of His children. After all, He is their Father.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

The Sabbath provides a wonderful opportunity to strengthen family ties.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread – works all the time. I think I’ve been eating pasta for 26 years.

I wish I had been home more when the children were growing up. I missed a lot.

I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like – when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn’t look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that’s terrorism, too.

My mom and I are very close.

Within one’s own family, money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything.

Nobody can ever make enough money for as many poor relatives as I’ve got. Somebody’s got a sick kid, or somebody needs an operation, somebody ain’t got this, somebody ain’t got that. Or to give the kids all a car when they graduate.

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

It is totally different making films in the East than in the West. In the East, I make my own Jackie Chan films, and it’s like my family. Sometimes I pick up the camera because I choreograph all the fighting scenes, even when I’m not fighting. I don’t have my own chair. I just sit on the set with everybody.

My biggest competitor was my mum. I used to try to beat her at Chinese chequers, chess, carrom, volleyball, badminton, football, wrestling.