I was raised in the greatest of homes... just a really great dad, and I miss him so much... he was a good man, a real simple man... Very faithful, always loved my mom, always provided for the kids, and just a lot of fun.
My dad was in my life, and he was actually a very positive influence on me in my life. He was always there. He was a great dad. But my parents divorced when I was 5, so I grew up in a single-parent home.
I definitely got my philanthropic genes from my mom and dad. They taught me from a very early age to always lend a helping hand to anyone in need, and I hope to raise my daughter to be a very kind and charitable person.
My motivation in personal and professional life is my dad because the way he has played and inspired many other players to play cricket the correct way. He had a great professional life and has always been an outspoken man.
I love a man with a great sense of humor and who is intelligent - a man who has a great smile. He has to make me laugh. I like a man who is very ambitious and driven and who has a good heart and makes me feel safe. I like a man who is very strong and independent and confident - that is very sexy - but at the same time, he's very kind to people.
My dad was a very funny man - he's the one who taught me life would be awfully hard without humor! I'm sure his Irish wit in some way influenced my decision to become an actress.
If I'm a young mom or young dad, I can find a great source of strength. God has promised that He will help me to be the mom or dad that He wants me to be. He has promised to be with me every step of the way. He has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me. These are wonderful promises that I can learn to trust and build a life on.
My dad wasn't someone who was a great disciplinarian, we had a fun relationship, but he gave me really constructive advice in my life, which I still carry today and I do pass on to other people. So if I can have the same relationship with my son as I had with my dad, then I think he'll be very happy and I'll be very happy.
But my father was also the one who told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I'd never find a man. What's very important to him is manners. Show up on time. Always send thank-you letters. He is one of the more thoughtful humans I've ever met. He's a great man and a very good dad.
My dad encouraged me to quit my job and pursue the life that I am about to have. He got excited with me. He was the first one to tell me that I could do it. I am 30 years old, and I still find great power in my own dad telling me it's possible. I still find great power in my own dad telling me I can do it.
You know, you learned that very young in American culture that the feminine boys don't do well. And yet, I had a dad who was a lieutenant colonel in the army. My dad was a man's man, but he still adored me. And somehow in the midst of that, I still grew up hating the sissy in me.
Great Britain provided time; the United States provided money and Soviet Russia provided blood.
I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: 'What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.'
Did you ever stop to think that a great man in life who has won great acclaim and great reputation is the very man who is willing to share and give the honor to others in the doing of things that made him great?
My life story is something obviously that belongs to me very personally. And the fact of the matter is that I had choices and chances and opportunities that were provided to me, based on the way I was able to direct my own decision-making. And what I'm working to fight for is to make sure that all women have the ability to do that.
Whenever my parents got married, my dad had a mullet. Me and my dad are very similar-type people with the way we look and the way we act, and I figured if he could get away with it when he was around 25, then I could try to do the same thing.