"When I look at my daughter, who's 24, she is much more confident than I ever was and her expectations are higher. But I worry that there is a backlash brewing against progress on equality."

"My mom says: 'Why aren't you a doctor?' and I'm like, 'I am a doctor!' and she's all, 'No, I mean a real doctor.' She reads my books, but she says they give her a headache."

"My dad put me with all the greatest people. It definitely helped me now, because I know so much more about music and composition. It's cool. I love Pops. I'm super thankful for everything he's done to help my career."

"I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... Let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves."

"I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters. You are Black and White, Jewish and Muslim, Asian, Spanish speaking, Native Americans and Aleut. You are fat and thin and pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered, and I am speaking to you all. Here is my offering to you."

"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."

"My mother smiled. 'I knew my baby wasn't like that.'I looked at her. 'Like what?'Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.' She paused. 'I knew you'd decide to be all right again."

"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 want to speak directly to the audience, to say, 'I'm like you - I'm frustrated, I'm not an expert, I don't have a manual on parenting, I make mistakes, I'm selfish too.'."

"Ruth once wrote, “Dear Journal, Never let a single day pass without saying an encouraging word to each child . . .‘More people fail for lack of encouragement,’ someone wrote, ‘than for any other reason."

"That's enough!' Holly scrambled out of her seat, too. 'My three-year-old behaves better than all of you.' She looked down at LJ, who was trying to stuff a fry up his nostril. 'And that's not saying a whole lot."