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Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

Every child growing up will look to their parents, my mother and my father. My grandmother lived with us. I picked up quite a bit of family lore and history from her, which was interesting.

From a young age, I wanted to differentiate myself from my older siblings.

I come from a great family. I've seen family life and I know how wonderful, how nurturing, and how wonderful it can be.

My parents were second cousins. That is enough to explain all of my peculiarities.

In one way or another, everybody has this experience in their lives... the moment when you have to define your relationship to family and how your family's made you who you are, whether you've spent your life running from your family or deeply connected to your family.

It's a funny thing when you know someone and you meet their siblings - you get so much a sense of who they are because when you can recognize similar traits in the family, you understand exactly why they are the way they are.

My sister and my brother, of whom I have not spoken before, were considerably older than I; it seemed almost as if we belonged to different generations.

I had a really wonderful upbringing. We were a tight family. It was wonderful to grow up with so many siblings. We were all just a year or two apart, and we were always so supportive of each other. I learned everything from my older brother and sister and taught it to my younger sisters.

When you are born into a family like mine, you don't really know anything else. But you quickly realise that it's more about other people and how they are dealing with it. Some can be hugely in awe or uncomfortable, but to you, your parents are just your parents.