"I think you have to be a little bit strict. You can't be friend and their parent in a lot of situations, especially in this day and age where it's so dangerous for kids. So there's a bit of sternness, I guess, in the way I raise my kids."

"The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country."

"When I was a kid, my step dad started this business and would go out and get lost cows and stuff. He was part-time truck driver, farmer and cowboy. He taught me how to ride from an early age."

"I'm a private guy, and you don't want to be out there preaching to people. But faith leads you in the decisions you make. You don't always pick the right path, but it's there in your conscience."

"When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer."

"Being a mother is quite tiring. There's not much time to do anything. You just rush around and it's hard work."

"I always tried to do things by example, even though I was not a very good mother regarding routines and family life."

"I have plenty of dream roles because there is so much I want to do, but my dream year would be to be in a single-camera comedy and then, on my hiatus, film a little low-budget indie drama. That would be a dream 12-month period. A dream role depends on having good material and working with people that I can learn from."