When families are strong and stable, so are childr...

My view is pensioners don't have the one option that people of working age have. They can't really increase their income, because they are no longer able to work.

Work is transformative. It gives you a greater chance of a greater income. You can affect your life while you're of working age, so you have scope and opportunity. Pensioners do not.

For families across the UK who are income-poor, but more than that, whose lives are blighted by worklessness, educational failure, family breakdown, problem debt and poor health, as well as other problems, giving them an extra pound - say through increased benefits - will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.

As you age naturally, your family shows more and more on your face. If you deny that, you deny your heritage.

I was born in ancient times, at the end of the world, in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me.

My inspiration was my mom. She's a great cook, and she still cooks, and we still banter back and forth about cooking. Growing up in a mostly Portuguese community, food was important and the family table was extremely important. At a very young age I understood that.

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.

I'm totally into new age and self-help books. I used to work in a bookstore and that's the section they gave me, and I got way into it. I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.

It's amazing how a competitive nature can turn a negative into something positive.

The upside to anger? Getting it out of your system. You got to express your anger. Then you have room for more positive things. If I hold something in a long time, and then I speak it, it's amazing how the light shines so much brighter.

It is amazing that something I did 23 years ago still has an audience that people respond to and I am touched and surprised that people are still very positive about.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can't deal with a woman of their own age.

If you love somebody, you love them. My parents had a 25-year age gap between them and my mum was the breadwinner, my dad the house husband. I'm a strong believer that a good relationship can work, whatever the situation.

My grandparents got married at a very young age, and a lot of what I think about marriage is based on their relationship. I watched them over the years and saw how they dealt with everything together, as a team.