The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

You know when I feel inwardly beautiful? When I am with my girlfriends and we are having a 'goddess circle'.

I always wanted to be a father. I have a beautiful relationship with my dad and beautiful memories. I always knew I was going to have a family.

Recently I was in Bernalda my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.

You know my mother's beautiful my dad was a really handsome man and there was a lot of talk about looks when I was growing up.

I was always okay with the fact that I was taller and bigger than everybody else growing up. My mom my dad and my friends always told me I was beautiful.

My dad's a beautiful man but like a lot of Mexican men or men in general a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more I would say conscious evolved.

When my mom ran for the Senate my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice 'Why should women have any less say than men about the great decisions facing our nation?'

It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life.

The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful often urgent and essentially life-affirming but they are all performances of courage and honesty.