My parents would use all of their money for us to go new and exciting places, instead of a new television or a big car.

We had everything. We were young kids. We were driving cars our parents couldn't afford, living in big houses. For me to sit here and say, 'Oh my God, I didn't enjoy any of it' - no, I did. Of course I did.

I was in diapers when my parents left me with the babysitter to participate in an armored car robbery. They never came home.

I had a '69 Road Runner when I was a kid. I had it for 13 days, came home one day, and my parents were in the driveway. They said, 'Meet the new owner,' because they'd gotten phone calls about me burning rubber for the last 12 days. They thought I'd wrap it around a tree, and it was too much car for a 16 year old.

When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed, do you pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?

My mom and dad were 'helicopter parents,' literally. Meaning, I didn't have a nanny, so I went up in the helicopter. My entire early childhood education consisted of tagging along while they reported on car accidents, multiple-alarm fires, and shootouts.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.

You have to respect your parents. They are giving you an at-bat. If you're an entrepreneur and go into the family business, you want to grow fast. Patience is important. But respect the other party... My dad and I pulled it off because we really respect each other.

I don't have family in this business. I had two parents that loved me, that worked 24-7, and this is what instilled hard work in me. So you hear the stories about my upbringing, my religion.

In terms of diet, my parents had a restaurant business so I don't eat any junk food - they taught me to appreciate good food.

When I was 13, my parents bought me a mini snooker set for my birthday. From the moment I first held a cue in my hands, I was transfixed.

I spent my 18th birthday in jail. Charges were dropped as long as I promised never to return to the state of Kansas. My parents took me home to Louisiana. I lasted there a week. Then I ran away.

My parents split before my fifth birthday, and I moved with Mom and my three siblings to her native Oahu.

I remember one summer I played, like, with the granddaughter of this known Klan member. Like, all summer we caught cicadas. And we had grown close, and so it was, like, time for her birthday party and I said 'Oh, like, what time do I come for your party?' And she's like 'Oh, no, you can't come to my house 'cause my parents don't like black people.'

When I was younger, I was a rave kid trapped inside a singer/songwriter's body. But I kind of figured my way out because I started making these really terrible beats on this Yamaha keyboard that my parents got me for my 10th birthday.

For my 10th birthday, what I wanted was Beatle boots and a Beatle wig. My parents couldn't find Beatle boots, but down at the dime store, Woolworths or someplace, they found a Beatle wig!

I first picked up a guitar when I was ten years old; my parents surprised me with it for my tenth birthday. I started taking lessons when I was thirteen, but only for a few months, and then I just kept teaching myself.

Ask any teenage girl to describe her perfect bedroom, and you'll get answers like 'a room with a private phone line, a place to hang out with friends, and for it to be way-cool and funky.' Ask parents the same question, and 'a locked door that opens on their 21st birthday' might top the list!

I'm one of those people who had Christmas and my birthday always combined, and generally, my birthday was pretty much ignored. But my parents are always good about making some kind of special effort to make me feel like I also have a birthday that exists.

I think I've wanted to be an actress since the day I was born. I even asked my parents for an agent for my seventh birthday!

When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.

I have been a frequent air traveler since I was a few months shy of my sixth birthday, when my parents packed me off to boarding school two plane rides away from home. Those days of being willingly handed from air hostess to air hostess as an 'unaccompanied minor' made me blase about the rigors of air travel.

I had Hallowe'en parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.