Chris Adrian Quotes

My mom and I used to listen to records, read, and take train rides across the country in the summer. It was a very chill life. She didn't expose me to anything that was ahead of my development, but she expected me to adjust to her world - she did not expect to adjust to mine.

I grew up listening to my father argue politics into the night and taking trips every Saturday to the Hood River library where my mother maintained her interest in reading and encouraged the same from her sons.

Neither my mom nor my dad ever bought me any comic books. Certainly not for Christmas. I suspect that doing so would have violated the Parents' Code.

I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.

Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.

As a child I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me - also because I read a lot.

I started cooking when I was about 10. I have memories like when I was 6 or 7 with my mom, and when I was 12 I started getting real serious about cooking.

Reading was a huge part of my life as a child - we were a family of storytellers.

My mom would put me in these preppy little suits and slick my hair to the side. I have these baby pictures of me where I'm this little preppy kid with a sweater tied around my neck.

Red certainly is the family color. From my mother and my grandmother, I've learned a lot of little tricks - the significance of color and lipstick being one of them. I started skating when I was eight years old, and my mom did my makeup for me back then.

Our house was awash in books, and my mother doled out her favorites like they were special treats - which they were.

I always loved movies, especially watching some of my mom's films when I was younger, like 'Out of Darkness,' where she played a schizophrenic.

No, I got a GED in my 30s. My kids know that I never stop learning, and they know I love reading. I have books overflowing everywhere. I am current on today's events and I read the paper every day, and we talk about it, so they see that appetite.

At 3 years old, I was imitating and doing fun little commercials for the family. Then at 5, I knew, 'OK, this is something I really like.' At 8, I was crying in front of the mirror and my mom was like, 'Oh boy, here we go. We know what she's going to do.'

I was a pretentious child. I grew up without a television. I read a lot of books and I loved Shakespeare. Still do.

My parents know I was outgoing as a child, and whenever people came over, I'd automatically do impressions of them as soon as they left; it was my mom's favorite thing. Yes, I grew up in Hollywood, but not in any rich neighborhood.

My mom was working through my childhood, so I would be running around Mumbai from one dance class to another with my mom carrying the tape recorder with me. I would sit on the sidelines and watch her teach dance.

Whatever your parents do, you get conditioned to that. I remember my dad would put gramophone record, and would sit and read a book. And then once a week, we would go and watch a movie.

My sister and I had a tough childhood, but my mom always said that travelling is the most beautiful thing you can do in your life. She always showed us the globe and gifted me an atlas.

Believe it or not, I thank my mom for how she raised me in a neighborhood daily to jump and chase me. It only made me what I am today.

As a kid, I was a big reader. Books and theater were the way I understood the world, and also the way I organized my sense of morality, of how to live a good life. I would read all night. My mom would come into my room and tell me I had to go to sleep, so I would hide books under my bed. At first I had a tough time getting through novels, so I read plays, because a play is generally shorter and has all those tools for getting people hooked early on.

My father had a tremendous influence on me, and I think many children who come from broken homes, esp. when they're very early. My dad left when I was 3 1/2, and he left my mom and I. It was something in order to empower myself.

My earliest memories are of my brother, pointing the home video camera at me and saying, "C'mon, Ange, give us a show!" Neither of my parents ever said, "Be quiet! Stop talking!" I remember my father looking me in the eye and asking, "What are you thinking? What are you feeling?" That's what I do in my job now - I say. "OK, how do I feel about this?" And I immediately know, because that's how I grew up.

The mother memories that are closest to my heart are the small gentle ones that I have carried over from the days of my childhood. They are not profound, but they have stayed with me through life, and when I am very old, they will still be near . . . Memories of mother drying my tears, reading aloud, cutting cookies and singing as she did, listening to prayers I said as I knelt with my forehead pressed against her knee, tucking me in bed and turning down the light. They have carried me through the years and given my life such a firm foundation that it does not rock beneath flood or tempest.

All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small, the neighborhood fashionable or downtrodden. Rather, we delight in the experiences we shared as a family. The home is the laboratory of our lives, and what we learn there largely determines what we do when we leave there.