They wanted me to play more sports because they were acutely sensitive to their children being one hundred percent American, and they believed that all Americans played sports and loved sports.

The remoteness of my parents from the schools, so unfashionable today, was often painful for me, but I learned early to deal with an outside and sometimes hard world.

A parent being called to the school because their child had misbehaved was as serious as a parent being called to the police station because their child had robbed a bank.

It was good fortune to be a child during the Depression years and a youth during the war years.

If something's not right, I don't believe in maintaining something for the sake of what's considered a traditional family, because I believe that there are different ways to raise children. It's far more effective to raise children in happy homes.

Songs are like children in a way. They all need to find a home.

I kind of had that Parma, Ohio, mentality that after high school, you go to college. Then after college, you get a job; then you get a family. And after that, you just stick around Parma.

I'd been on the Internet since the 1970s when it was just for nerds. I started saying, 'Who would benefit from this?' I started imagining a world where young people could have their own email address, back in the days of family AOL accounts.