It's the moms of this nation - single married widowed - who really hold this country together. We're the mothers we're the wives we're the grandmothers we're the big sisters we're the little sisters we're the daughters. You know it's true don't you? You're the ones who always have to do a little more.

I was a bartender for a long time so I know how to make drinks but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did and why I get to produce more writing than she did and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.

I remember a specific moment watching my grandmother hang the clothes on the line and her saying to me 'you are going to have to learn to do this ' and me being in that space of awareness and knowing that my life would not be the same as my grandmother's life.

My identity is linked to my grandmother who's pure Filipino as pure as you can probably get. And that shaped my imagination. So that's how I identify.

I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you but about what you do with what happens to you.'

My grandmother always taught me 'If you don't have a home family and church you don't have anything.'

It's in the history books the Holocaust. It's just a phrase. And the truth is it happened yesterday. It happened to my mother. I never met my grandmothers or my grandfathers. They were all wiped up in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.

My grandmother had six kids - one died as an infant - and she was dirt-poor and all her kids got an education. And my mom grew up poor. And they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness. I wanted to have that like an amulet. Not like armor but like a magic feather. Like Dumbo's magic feather.

The word 'good' has many meanings. For example if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards I should call him a good shot but not necessarily a good man.

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now and we don't know where the hell she is.

My view is that good community management is like having good municipal government: You should be able to have dissenting opinions and so on freedom of speech but your grandmother should also be able to walk down the street at night without having to worry about getting mugged.

You don't have to look far to taste some of the best food the world has to offer. I'd pit my grandmother against a 3-star Michelin chef any day.

My grandmother was the greatest cook in the world. She could just go in there the whole kitchen would look like a tornado hit it and then she'd come out with the best food. Then she'd sit at the table and she wouldn't eat!

Of course I will continue to share my favorite Southern recipes just like my mama grandmother and family shared with me over the years. And now I'll be adding a little bit of a lighter touch to some of these wonderful dishes.

My worst hair experience was when I was trying to relax my hair and my grandmother did it. It went all straight and I looked like a black Bee Gee.

Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote our right to choose affordable quality education equal pay access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.

My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.