A Quote by Terry Gross

We grew up as this family of deniers. And people who knew us for years were stunned when "The Great Santini" came out because we had this appearance of being this happy, large, smiling family. We were taught to smile, put the best face forward. And so when the book ended up - Dad swatting us around the room, no one believed me.
I grew up in a very religious family and it is the motivating force to every thing I do. I am fortunate to have had adults all around me who really lived their faith, in helping other people and doing the best you can do. The world wasn't so wonderful back then, with segregated rule in the South. But we were never hopeless and we never despaired because we had adults out there struggling with us, being there for us, and buffering us.
Me and my sisters were taught that if our eyes worked and our legs worked, we were beautiful. We had so many kids in our family that if we all got in front of the mirror and were ashamed of browns and golds and yellows and whites, and we believed what society told us - that the darker people were less attractive and the lighter ones were prettier - we would have had sibling murders. My family, being half-rural and half-military, just came from a different place.
I remember I grew up in a poor family and we had almost nothing and we were not treated very well by our family. There was no safe haven for us. But somehow we always managed to be happy.
I would say I'm black because my parents said I'm black. I'm black because my mother's black. I'm black because I grew up in a family of all black people. I knew I was black because I grew up in an all-white neighborhood. And my parents, as part of their protective mechanisms that they were going to give to us, made it very clear what we were.
I grew up on my dad's sets, but I was never star-struck or desperate to be famous. I grew up being a worker. It took me a long time to realise that my work ended up being seen by people. As far as I was concerned, I was just in the family business.
My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid.
I grew up in a family that nearly lost everything, but I ended up in the United States Senate because I grew up in an America that invested in kids like me and built a real future for us.
Growing up, I knew I was different. But I didn't know what it meant to be Aboriginal. I just knew that I had a really big, extended family. I was taught nothing about who we were or where we came from.
It's tough growing up where I grew up. My family is very small and really tight. Just being around the neighborhood, my brothers were always around. I didn't want to be in any trouble because I knew my mom or brothers would find out. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I just tried to do everything right.
My father modestly referred to himself as the Great Santini when we were growing up. And he took it - I later learned he had seen a high-wire aerialist when he was a boy, and he was up doing acrobatics in his airplane, and when he came down one time - when was a young lieutenant - he said, I was better than the Great Santini today. And some of the other pilots heard it, and the nickname stuck.
I grew up in a family that was multifaceted, sexually oriented, and pretty much open to everything. And because I was working, my friends were all adults. I had a tough time going to different schools because people knew me from films and I was the fat child who got beaten up every day.
Its tough growing up where I grew up. My family is very small and really tight. Just being around the neighborhood, my brothers were always around. I didnt want to be in any trouble because I knew my mom or brothers would find out. I didnt want to hurt their feelings. I just tried to do everything right.
People hear my dad is involved in politics, and all of a sudden I went to private school and had a nanny. There's a misconception that my dad, that our family is some kind blue-blood family... If people knew my friends, talked to anybody I grew up with, knew anybody from my old neighborhood, they'd know that's really, really far from the truth.
When I smile at the audience, I'm not smiling because I was told that you're supposed to smile to the audience. I smile because they're all smiling at me, and it's a great feeling to see all these happy people out there, and it makes me happy to see them happy.
My mother wrote a book. Unfortunately, it ended up being published posthumously. But I'm glad she did, because it taught me a lot about my family that, otherwise, I probably wouldn't know.
We were all such odd characters, even though we were a really functional family, in a way, as eccentric and crazy as we were. And it was such a wonderful feeling amongst us of being a family almost. We were 'The Addams Family!'
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