I couldn't wait until I grew up. I used to look at my mom's stockings and put them on with her high heels and mess with my hair.

My mom grew up in Kansas, my dad in Indiana. They had boring childhoods.

My mom was a dancer, my dad's a singer and I've always had that kind of music in my life.

My mom died of cancer when I was really young. I'm not someone who tries to work out their own stuff with a role, but I think that happened despite my best efforts to keep myself separate from it.

My mom sent me to regular high school because she wanted me to have that experience and not say that I missed out, but I didn't like it at all. I'm more comfortable in the world that I'm in, I grew up in it so when I get around normal kids in regular high school I don't know what to do. I feel more secure in an adult environment.

We've got activists all across the country like the members of the Million Mom March organization, some of their leaders are here tonight. We're phone banking congressional offices and pursuing editorial boards.

My dad and mom divorced when I was around ten, and I didn't live with him after that, though he was close by and we saw each other weekly. I wasn't really aware that he was a writer I didn't start reading his writing until I was about fifteen. It occurred to me then that my dad was kind of special he's still one of my favorite writers.

Sometimes, if you don't have kids yourself, it's assumed you won't understand or know how to play a mom, which is kind of silly if you think about it.

I wasn't always a writer. When I went to college and majored in fine arts, I was a painter. Then I was a stay-at-home mom.

It's always been a dream of mine to get somewhere and to have my mom and dad with me up there.