But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns.

We are used to female writers who use their private lives as unmitigated material being somewhat hormonal this somehow 'excuses' what might be seen as a highly unfeminine ability to turn their personal upsets into money.

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But... I continue to find my greatest pleasure and so my reward in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

Well my mom taught public school music for almost 40 years. And she's about 5 feet - and very mighty. And she would control her kids a lot by giving them the eye or the stare.

My mom thought I might be good for voiceover. She thought I had a cute voice so maybe I could do a cartoon or something. And while we were looking into that we also thought I should get into theater acting so I tried it and the first audition I went on I booked it. And it kind of just snowballed from there.

My mother smokes me out. We'll get these long periods of me thinking I'm too busy to call her up or e-mail her and she'll send me something. My mom's a real whiner. I love her to death but she always sends me these 'woe is me' things. I think she might be Jewish. I'm not sure. She's Baptist-Jewish which is a double whammy.

I love my mom. I totally look up to her and she just doesn't let anybody take advantage of me. People might call that a stage mom.

It is generally recognised that women are better than men at languages personal relations and multi-tasking but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be less good at mathematics and physics.

It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.

A hero is born among a hundred a wise man is found among a thousand but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.