The upheavals of adolescence silenced 'A Christmas Carol' for a few years. I became a firebrand atheist. Christmas - humbug! Too commercial! Then I became an agnostic. Christmas was a pro-forma affair basically a chore. Buy mother a book dad a new tie my brother and sister small gifts. Pretend thanks for the fountain pens and shirts I received.

Yeah I started when I was 6 years old. My brother and sister would get all of these presents at Christmas time from the cast and crew of their show and I was jealous. So I decided that I had to become an actor.

I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody's presents - everybody's - so by the time the rest of us got up all the gifts were shredded ribbons off torn open and thrown aside.

With over 3 million women battling breast cancer today everywhere you turn there is a mother daughter sister or friend who has been affected by breast cancer.

I'm excited about there being more of a sisterhood these days. Back in the '90s there was a lot of hate - the women I looked up to as artists were dissing me! It's not so patriarchal these days - there's more love and a lot less hate!

It is true that a fellow cannot ignore women - but he can think of them as he ought - as sisters not as sparring partners.

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born one heart must hold both sisters never seen apart.

I sang a song at my sister's wedding. My mother forced me into that too. But that one felt all right.

I got the travel bug when I was quite young. My parents took me and my sisters out of school and we travelled all over Europe. It was an eye-opening experience and although I love Norway I also enjoy visiting new countries. I don't get homesick.

The typewriting machine when played with expression is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

I didn't have a teacher like Sister Mary Ignatius.

I started studying music at the age of five and a half. My older sister was taking piano lessons. When her teacher left our apartment I would get up on the piano bench and start picking out the notes that were part of my sister's lessons.

My grandmother was a teacher my sister was a teacher my daughter was a teacher and is now a superintendent in northern California and my son-in-law is a high school principal. I am surrounded.

My younger sister had kids before I did and managed to earn a master's degree while raising them as a single parent. Now she's a brilliant second-grade teacher. I'm in awe of her ability to juggle everything and still be a great mother.

Badges mean nothing in themselves but they mark a certain achievement and they are a link between the rich and the poor. For when one girl sees a badge on a sister Scout's arm if that girl has won the same badge it at once awakens an interest and sympathy between them.

If a tie is like kissing your sister losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.

A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of being alive is called Good Baby Bad Baby. This consists of being told I am a good baby until I smile and laugh then being told I am a bad baby until I burst into tears. This training will stand me in good stead all through my life.