Quote

If I could change anything, I would definitely have had a father around. My father. I would definitely say it affected me deeply as a young man, coming up. Who doesn't want a father? Those are the beginnings, and those are what can dictate the roads you choose in life, and choosing them well.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

My entire life changed when I became a mother - my priorities, my understanding, appreciation of life, and my relationship with God.

I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then I had this really extraordinary, different life than my parents.

My father was out of my life when I was pretty young - when I was 7 years old, he was gone. I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood.

A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling that I didn't fully belong, that my parents didn't belong.

Mum and Dad split up when I was nine. We upped and moved from London to Sussex, and suddenly I went from an urban life to nothing in the countryside - with a new father and new life.

I never knew my father. He was never married to my mother; he was never a part of my life. It was just my mom, my brother and me.

When I was little, I knew that I was not adopted, but I actually imagined and hoped that I was - and that my real parents were going to come get me.

The day my son was born my life changed completely.