It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.

The voters are going to decide in November who is going to fix their personal family dismay over not having jobs in America. They are going to pick Mitt Romney.

I don't want to be reincarnated that's for sure. When you've had rewarding experiences in your life - a loving family friends - you don't need additional reassurances that you're going to do something with a new cast of characters. I'd just as soon pass.

The name Van Halen the family legacy is going to go on long after I'm gone.

I grew up in a family where the internalized understanding was that the kids were going to grow up into a better world. I worry because I don't think my kids are going to have that. The world is very scary. The world would be scary without the choices the current administration made but they just exacerbated it. And it ticks me off. I want my kids to have a good life.

It's a tremendous responsibility to be direct descendants of the prophet Muhammad. This family has had the burden of leadership on its shoulders for 1 400 years. I'm not going to drop the ball on my shift.

We'll be going to the fish market and a farmer's market this afternoon to get what we need to make and eat dinner as a family. I'm trying to expose my kids to going to a farmers market or the fish market and learning what that's all about.

None of my actions have ever sort of been motored by the search for a husband or wondering if I was going to have a family someday or wanting to live in a really great house or thinking it would be really great to have a diamond.

My priorities are always going to be my husband and my family now. That's a huge huge thing.

I for one am quite willing to join the 'forgive forget and move on' crowd but it does make me wonder if Evangelicals are going to sound believable when they say that they tend to vote Republican because of their religious commitments to the family.

When you look at a family if you have a family that never interacts with each other never has strong conversation with each other never has disagreements nine times out of ten you have a very cold family and they're not going to be at the end they're not going to be close.

By the time I was 30 nobody would work with me. I was friendless I was hopeless I was suicidal lost my family - I mean it was bad. Bottomed out didn't know what I was going to do. I actually thought I was going to be a chef - go to work in a kitchen someplace.

I just want to be healthy and stay alive and keep my family going and everything and keep my friends going and try to do something so that this world will be peaceful. That is the most ambitious and the most difficult thing but I'm there trying to do it.

I don't hide my feelings but when it comes to illness I guess I don't panic. My father was the same way. I'm the provider for the family and the caretaker. If I panic who is anybody going to run to?

I'm often asked if I regret not going to Hollywood. I'm glad I didn't go because if I had I wouldn't have my extended family which is the fabric of my life. Only recently have I realised how special and unusual it is.

You follow any family around you're going to see elation you're going to see disharmony.

If you share a common ancestor with somebody you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion but it means that you share DNA. I think it's fascinating.