Justine Bateman

Pursuing fame is the ultimate in people-pleasing and the ultimate betrayal of self.

When I graduate, I will either run a division of a company... or I'll get funding for my own company.

If my kids were to make a talking doll of me as a mother, one of my recorded phrases would be 'I will throw that in the trash.' 'If you don't put that down right now, I will throw that in the trash.' It's very funny to hear myself say certain things - like noticing which phrases become the most popular to use.

I didn't understand that I couldn't just leave and become sort of a semi-regular. I had to be sat down by the line producer, Carol Himes, in my dressing room and told, 'I hear you're thinking about going to college.'

When I got 'Family Ties', I wasn't even thinking about being an actress. I thought I might become a window dresser.

There's a confusing message that we're sending people now, that lots of money can made off of simply having a lot of followers and having no discernible skills or talents. I don't know if I'm in a minority or if it's just a guilty pleasure for people, but I think the preponderance of reality shows is of great detriment to human beings.

There's an awful lot of choices in the world as far as what one can do for a living. It's best to be familiar with as many sectors of the working world as you can be so you'll be better at your creative job anyway.

If somebody did a new show that, within a family, had conflicting political views, that would be great.

I was a regular, so that meant I was working every week on the series. Which was fine. 'Family Ties' was a fantastic series. It's all good.

The character - character - of Mallory on 'Family Ties' was a year younger than me. A fictitious year younger than me. So, I am not 21. I am not getting into the club. Boom.

When I was in my teens and 20s, I looked to older Italian and French women. They always seemed so incredibly attractive to me because of their confidence. And because their faces had evidence of age: lines, dark circles, and half-lidded eyes, it made that confidence so rebellious. And that was incredibly attractive to me.

I wanted to find a way to intelligently argue that we should be valuing our own skills and talents instead of valuing the number of people we can get to look at us.