# Familie

"Marriage is a core component of the patriarchal system. According to Gerda Lerner's research on ancient societies, a woman could achieve at least some status, and with that, better treatment and privileges, through preserving her only capital – her virginity – and eventually offering it to just one man."

"I didn't come from a lot. I had a lot of love and support from my family, but as far as money and that type of thing, I didn't really have any of that. All I did was follow my dreams. If my fans take anything from me, I hope it would be that."

"I do my work and do the best I can. I'm quite happy with my anonymity. All I can ever hope for is that I continue to do great work that will be remembered, and I leave my imprint so that my son can say proudly, 'That's my dad!'."

"The mother is always at fault. So is the wife, really. Women are supposed to control men, isn't that how it goes? What's that saying again: 'behind every great man is a great woman.' we're supposed to be the ones holding them back. Forget having our own lives. Forget our own careers and loves and losses. We're the matriarchs."

"The famous atheist Christopher Hitchens once declared that ‘You’re expelled from your mother’s uterus as if shot from a cannon, towards a barn door studded with old nail files and rusty hooks.’ Presumably that was what he had in mind when conceiving his three children."

"Nana’s oven-baked fried chicken cut off the bone (with plenty of ketchup) was a huge hit. So were Thanksgiving turkey bathed in gravy and Nana’s Passover brisket."

"If women could regard childbearing not as a duty or an inescapable destiny but as a privilege to be worked for, the ay a man might work for the right to have a family, children might grow up without the burden of gratitude for the gift of life which they never asked for."

"The only big things I've purchased are my dad's heart valve and a Rolls-Royce for my parents, for their anniversary. And that was only because my dad had a Lady Gaga license plate on our old car and it was making me crazy because he was getting followed everywhere, so I bought him a new car."

"Our whole family thrives under pressure. It's like our family motto or something.Apart from my brother Peter, of course. He had a nervous break down. But the rest of us."

"One night I heard my dad say to my mom: I can't help but think of the good times we're having now as being painful memories later on. And my mom saying, c'mon now honey."

"And sometimeswhen she does remember,she calls me her little angeland she knows where she isand everything is all rightfor a second or a minuteand then we cry;she for the life that she lostI for the woman I only know about through the stories of her children."