Tara Westover Quotes

Growing up an only child with a single parent is probably why I'm an actor.

Without siblings you get quite a skewed vision of yourself and of the world. I always felt I didn't understand how it worked. I remember feeling quite lonely.

My mom and dad never really had friends, never went on vacations. We stayed home. And I see a similarity there: A general anxiety runs pretty deep.

My mother has a very big family in Shanghai, so I have, like, almost 40 cousins, so we stayed together all the time. So by the time I get to Hong Kong, I become the only child and the only one surrounded by adults, you know.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

My dad is Greek and my mum Jamaican. My grandparents brought me up for most of my childhood, but I saw my mum and dad all the time.

I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply religious and my mother was not.

I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

I was born during the war, on October 20, 1942, as the second of five children. My father, Rolf Volhard, was an architect.

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.

Look, everything that you experience as a kid is the foundation of how you are today. I was brought up in a working class family in Leeds and when it comes to money both my parents worked hard and instilled the same attitude into me.

My father had very little formal education.

My father was one of ten children.

My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.

I grew up in a show business family, so we've always had a great sense of balance, being so close to my parents.

I suppose that when I'm building a character, it's usually related to what their family is like and who their parents are, as well as how I grew up - that nurture side.

My parents were not perfect, but no one's parents are. As childhoods go, mine was pretty comfortable and good in a lot of ways, and yet I still ended up with anxiety.

As with most people, my ideology and my attitudes about life were informed by parents and family.

It was pretty awful for us children because we never really knew the local children. Mother was keen for us to learn languages, so our travels took us to France and Italy, as well as the West Country.

I lived in a small village outside the city and grew up in a large family, so my world was very much centred around that. I used to sing in the local church, and I would also occasionally sing in the local pubs for which I used to get a few bob. That, for me, was the start of my interest in music, which has obviously expanded since then.

I always wonder what my life would be like if I had parents like the other kids who went to my high school.

My mom's actually a Buddhist. My dad's a Christian and he was a Muslim, but he converted to Christianity.

I'm really the only artist in my family. I have one cousin who is a painter. I think I developed all of that from television and books - from being, essentially, an only child. I'm my mom's only child and my dad's fourth child, but separated by 14 years.

I grew up in a normal family. I have sweet parents, who are still married... But my life is so different from how I thought it would be.

It was just how my parents treated me. It was the world they decided to show me. I was really sheltered. My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying, you know, with the family in Soweto. And every household, for instance, had to have a registry of everyone who lived in that house.