Jami Attenberg Quotes

I can remember exactly where I sat when my teacher first read Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach'.

The first thing I do when I get back to my hometown, San Antonio, is eat Whataburger.

If I go away, I take a little picture of my son. It's in a frame with a speaker, and he recorded a birthday message for me when he was nine or 10. I can't listen to it without filling up.

I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me.

The first thing I look forward to when I am in Delhi is to spend some time with my family. It's always lovely coming back here and playing in front of my own people. It's just a special place.

My earliest acting memory is making up a play for my mom and dad called The Lonesome Baby. I have no idea what The Lonesome Baby was about. I just remember the title. But I'm sure it was an epic.

The Olympia was a really special place for me as a kid. I saw Dad perform there so many times, so it means a lot.

When I was 3, my mom sent in a video of me singing George Strait to 'America's Funniest Home Videos.'

My earliest memory is dreamlike: in a small orchard or garden I am carried on the arm, I believe, of my father; there was a group of grown-ups, my mother among them, and the group was slowly walking in the orchard, it seems toward the house.

My earliest memory is seeing Michael Jackson in Melbourne with my sister when I was about ten. I still have this souvenir stick with a glove that would light up and make a peace sign in a bunch of different colors. I'm so happy my mom didn't throw that out.

When I was 5 years old, my mother read me 'Gone With The Wind' at night, before I went to bed. I remember her reading almost all year.

I grew up around the Luxembourg Gardens, so I guess that is my best memory.

When I was four, we moved to the house on the west side of Chicago where I grew up. My earliest memories are of that first summer.

In the Woodstock movie, you see Justin, my son, who is now a filmmaker, being carried off by my wife at the time to the helicopter. He's just this little bundle of joy in her arms. And it's 1969.

'House' was such a special part of my life.

When I was 10 years old my mom used to play Tupac while she cleaned the house.

My family went to Toronto to visit relatives when I was 13 or 14. It was the first time we had ever been abroad. This was the early Eighties, and I remember the impossible glamour of air travel - my mum spending days trying to decide what she was going to wear on the plane.

I love mayonnaise. Every birthday when I was a kid I'd go to Black Angus and just dip my burger in mayo.

I don't remember the first picture I took, but I actually found a picture of myself on a trip back to my old family home in Malaysia. I'm five years old, sitting on the floor with the family camera in my hand. It was a film camera - not a DSLR - with a fixed lens and a nice manual zoom.

I played rugby for years, and I had a rugby jacket that I lost when I was 14. Somehow, my brother found it in storage 15 years later, and he gave it back to me for my 30th birthday. That was amazing and probably one of the best gifts I've ever received.

For some people, home is family and their mom's house or their girl or whatever, and I have those experiences as well, but the biggest thing for me is Chicago.

While I've lived in L.A. since 1985, I'll always consider Chicago my home town and have much affection for it. My parents and sister still live there so I try to visit as often as I'm able.

When I was a kid, we would get McDonalds on Christmas Eve, and that was a big deal because the closest one to the south side of Chicago was a 35 minute drive away. I remember opening the bag and smelling those fries, and even now when I smell them, it reminds me of Christmas Eve.

I never saw 'Home Alone.'

I've always thought 'Southern Accents' would make an amazing country song. It's always spoken to me. I've always loved it. Every time I hear that song, it reminds me of my dad.