“My worst moments as a parent have been much like my greatest moments as a parent: the product of complete and perfect accident.”

Don’t go to eighth grade…don’t talk about something old…don’t bring up old memories that have nothing to do with who we are now. THIS is all that matters! TODAY.

Today, I don’t believe in destiny. But I do believe in history…There’s nothing more powerful than history.

There is no better place to plot the death of a character than when you’re miserable and working out.

I tend to do something for two years then move on to something new. Yoga, then biking, then weight lifting, then back to biking. The moment it feels like a rut, I switch and search for a new love. It’s like having a midlife crisis, but without the new wife or cheesy BMW.

Women are not weaker. Read that again. Women are not weaker. They are just as strong, just as resolute, just as creative, and are filled with just as much potential as any man.

No amount of reading or memorizing will make you successful in life. It is the understanding and application of wise thought which counts.

I love when I teach my son a good lesson. But I love it even more when he teaches me.

Here’s what I love: I love sitting at my desk, staring at the blank screen, and beginning that conversation with my imaginary friends.

When you believe in something, fight for it. And when you see injustice, fight harder than you’ve ever fought before.

Tell your story. That’s the secret of immortality. The one true way to live forever.

But to me, the most important page in my daughter’s book is the last one – because it’s blank. It says, “Your Hero’s Photo Here,” and, “Your Hero’s Story Here.”

Every life has forks in the road. And sometimes, the tines of that fork stab deep.

As I tell my daughter, when you want something in life – no matter how impossible it seems – you need to fight for it.

Haven’t you ever played Uno?… Sometimes you have to lose all your cards to win.

Sharing education, sharing a book…that’s what changes the world.

You tell them – you tell them there’s a cost…..Every decision we make in life, there’s always a cost.

Soon it will be a sin of parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.

In California, I guess you belong to the state; you don’t even belong to your parents. It’s an old Spanish law. It doesn’t require your parents to swear out a complaint; anybody can.

My parents used to take me to the pet department and tell me it was a zoo.

Where are all the sour patch parents?

I have always been a singer, a writer, and a musician, not as a prodigy or as in a trade handed to me by my parents, but because of an inner voice or maybe a command from beyond reality as it is usually defined.

We all need that extra friend outside of our immediate family to talk about that extra stuff you wouldn’t normally talk to your parents about.

It was a mixed blessing to have famous parents. It was tough to go to auditions and be bad, since I couldn’t be anonymous.

I was an only child, a very late child, born to parents who were both 39 at the time, which was very late back then. That kind of confirmed my sense of being the center of the universe, which I guess every child feels – children and poets both tend to feel.