I'm an only child. My mum and dad are six in each family. They're both twins, and they only wanted one. I always say to them though that they're lucky - it could have all gone wrong.
I was an only child, and I spent a lot of time alone. My dad was an only child, too, so we didn't have a big family, and I was really close with both of my parents. Like any kid, I thought I knew more than they did.
I'm really the only artist in my family. I have one cousin who is a painter. I think I developed all of that from television and books - from being, essentially, an only child. I'm my mom's only child and my dad's fourth child, but separated by 14 years.
Some twins feel like they need to compare themselves to each other, but we're not that way. That's because of my parents, though, and having six kids in the family.
I've always wanted a family since I was a little girl - a big family. I'm an only child, so I wanted, like, 10 kids... for sure.
My mum knows people in the village who died or were affected by Agent Orange who had kids who are disabled. I could have been an orphan. So many things could have gone wrong but here I am... I realise how lucky I am to be here.
I always remember my mum and dad arguing a lot and one main reason was lack of money. I realized very young that I always wanted to make money so I'd never have the same arguments like my mum and dad.
I'm amazed that things have panned out the way they have. I always say I'm so lucky, though my mum always says, 'You make your own luck.'
My overwhelming memory of being a child is the huge amount of love I felt for my mum. She was my everything, because she was both my mum and my dad.
I always wanted to be a writer, from being a little kid onwards. My dad and my mum both had phases when that was what they did.
since each child reads only about six hundred books in the course of childhood, each book should nourish them in some way - with new ideas, insight, humor, or vocabulary.
I would say I'm an outlier. Nobody in my family does anything creative, though my dad loved jazz and my mum likes Prince and 1980s French pop.
I remain persuaded of the inevitable and necessary complementarity of man and woman. Love, imperfect as it may be in its content and expression, remains the natural link between these two beings. To love one another! If only each partner could move sincerely towards the other! If each could only melt into the other! If each would only accept the other's qualities instead of listing his faults! If each could only correct bad habits without harping on about them!
The Greek tragedies and comedies are like a roadmap to all the ways in which trying to live this rich, full life can go wrong. You could get into a war. You could find that you have members of your family on the wrong side of a political crisis. You could be raped. You could find that your child has gone crazy because of some horrible experience she's had.
I was happy as an only child, but I've always wanted to be part of a bigger family.
We all contribute to The National, and it's like a familiar family. Matt is dad, Brian's like the dark horse uncle, Scott's the long-suffering mum, and Aaron and I are the bratty twins.
There are certain things I talk to my mom and certain things I speak to dad for. But I also know that it has never been that I can tell my mum something and my dad won't know. They are very dependent on each other even though they may not say it or realise it.