My dad had this philosophy that if you tell children they're beautiful and wonderful then they believe it, and they will be. So I never thought I was unattractive. But I was never one of the girls at school who had lots of boyfriends.

It's a complex relationship when your dad happened to be president and you are president and then you have all the amateur psychology that goes on when people try to speculate about motivations.

My guess is my brother would call his mom and his dad pretty regularly, a lot more than I probably did.

I'm lucky because my dad taught me to be frugal and save. And that's important because I want to know that I don't have to take an acting job for two or three years if I don't want to and that I'll still be able to make my house and car payments and buy food for my dogs.

My mom and dad just loved the fact that I fooled around. They just embraced it. They'd always kind of enjoy it, and they liked it when I made them laugh.

Often as a child you see someone with a learning disability or Down's Syndrome and my mum and dad were always very quick to explain exactly what was going on and to be in their own way inclusive and welcoming.

When I started writing, I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I've gone on. I certainly don't feel I need his approval, although maybe that's because I'm confident that I've got it.

It was, you know, probably 80 degrees out in L.A., and my dad took me outside and there was snow. At the time, I thought, 'Every kid doesn't have snow in their backyard on Christmas?'

I'd like to play Matt Damon's daddy. He's a wonderful actor, I really admire him, and I'd like to play his dad one day.

The one thing that kept our family together was the music. The only thing that our family would share emotionally was to have our dad cry over something the kids did with music.