I set a goal for myself in being an actor and moving out to L.A., and I really felt I had achieved it when I landed 'Shameless.'

When I was in college, I wasn't in a fraternity or anything. I always wanted to jump around to all different types of cliques.

You try to find the romance in the struggle, or at least that's what you keep telling yourself. But you talk to successful actors, and the struggle always is what they miss the most.

I'll never forget the moment in class when I went from being afraid to fail, to expecting to fail. This informs everything I do.

I'm a fan of the hand-me-down recipes - friends, family, bake sales, community cookbooks - those are the recipes that have withstood the test of time and fed many hungry fans.

If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers.

In giving us children, God places us in a position of both leadership and service. He calls us to give up our lives for someone else's sake - to abandon our own desires and put our child's interests first. Yet, according to His perfect design, it is through this selflessness that we can become truly fulfilled.

Sometimes it was difficult to make friends and be social in school because I was always practicing while other kids were getting together and doing things. But it just made me closer to my family, and I realized that they would always be there no matter what.