I have a profound empathy for people who are in the public eye whether they manifest it themselves or whether it happened by accident - it doesn't matter to me. I think there's a great misunderstanding of what it is to be famous.

But I am Armenian and I understand what it is to lose a country and lose a family and have massacres and genocides and everything against my people.

I grew up in a family where the internalized understanding was that the kids were going to grow up into a better world. I worry because I don't think my kids are going to have that. The world is very scary. The world would be scary without the choices the current administration made but they just exacerbated it. And it ticks me off. I want my kids to have a good life.

Anyone that has a job that takes them away from home I think can understand the difficulties in maintaining consistency not only with your family and those you love but with your friends.

Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family society and state in which we live.

Given my last position that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account.

My encounters with racism are sort of second-hand situations where I might be standing around with a group of white friends and someone makes a comment that they wouldn't make at my family reunion.

I eat a little bit of everything and not a lot of anything. Everything in moderation. I know that's really hard for people to understand but I grew up in an Italian family where we didn't overdo anything. We ate pasta yes but not a lot of it.

I'm still very connected to my family to the world I grew up in. I understand what it means to be afraid that you can't pay a doctor's bill. Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time. That will never leave me. It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.

I grew up in a family of strong women and I owe any capacity I have to understand women to my mother and big sister. They taught me to respect women in a way where I've always felt a strong emotional connection to women which has also helped me in the way I approach my work as an actor.

I've never had a very closely connected family. My parents split up when I was young and I was living with my mom for a little while then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way.

People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.

Growing up I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in you gotta stand in the doorway.

I grew up in a family where the women were just nuts. They didn't stand around in cardigans making polite conversation while they chopped tomatoes.

I understand what it's like to come with your family and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say 'She's got her daughter she's got her husband.' Yeah but she hasn't got anyone else.

Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.

Do it no matter what. If you believe in it it is something very honorable. If somebody around you or your family does not understand it then that's their problem. But if you do have a passion an honest passion just do it.

Like family we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.

The Hispanic community understands the American Dream and have not forgotten what they were promised - that in the U.S. a free market system allows us all to succeed economically achieve stability and security for your family and leave your children better off than yourselves.

But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses I still don't get young men standing up and saying 'How can I combine career and family?'

Be strong believe in freedom and in God love yourself understand your sexuality have a sense of humor masturbate don't judge people by their religion color or sexual habits love life and your family.

Now is the moment when we can stand up and say 'I'm an American. I make my destiny. And we deserve better! My children deserve better! My family deserves better. My country deserves better!' So here we stand. Americans have a choice.

He that raises a large family does indeed while he lives to observe them stand a broader mark for sorrow but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

I'll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family together all of us laughing and talking loving and understanding not looking at the past but only to the future.