I put the copy of 'A Christmas Carol' that my grandfather had first read to me 60 years ago on my desk and I began to write. The result for better or for worse is the 'Christmas Spirits.' I plan to read it to my grandson.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group there was much less competition.

My grandfather Frank Lloyd Wright wore a red sash on his wedding night. That is glamour!

The wedding ring on my left hand was bought by my grandfather Samuel Miliband in Brussels in 1920. I never knew him as he died when I was one. But his ring was kept by my aunt until it was placed on my finger by my wife Louise 32 years later.

My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform.

When my grandfather died I started adopting some of his accents to sort of remind myself of him. A homage. He was a war hero and he was really great with his hands.

My grandfather on my mother's side was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology my other grandfather was a lawyer and one time Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

I've always loved 3D. In fact as a kid I was exposed to 3D at an early age because my grandfather was a specialist of 3D in cinematheques. And then my cousin put it in 'Science of Sleep' with toilet paper tube cities. But he was a specialist and I always wanted to do something in 3D.

My great-grandfather was in the army in India and we have photographs of my family there in full Victorian dress. They're incredibly romantic.

If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.

It's interesting that I had such a close relationship with my grandfather. Because your parents always judge you: they say 'You shouldn't do this you shouldn't do that.' But with your grandparents you have a feeling that you can say anything or you can do anything and they will support you. That's why you have this kind of connection.

You see I had been riding with the storm clouds and had come to earth as rain and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me.

I created the Women's Federation for World Peace in order to restore all that woman originally lost. You American women don't need a man in the position of grandfather parents husband elder or younger brother. You only need the true Adam.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate very simple and emotional about that music.

When I was a little kid - and even still - I loved magic tricks. When I saw how movies got made - at least had a glimpse when I went on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather I remember feeling like this was another means by which I could do magic.

Unlike my grandfather or my brother I've actually been able to make some money at a racetrack.

My parents and my grandfather on my mom's side would travel the earth. They went to Australia and China and they went to probably every soccer game I ever played.

Miami Beach - that's where I grew up in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor who was my roommate - my grandparents my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.

Mom was a smoker. My grandfather was a smoker. My aunts were smokers. My uncles were smokers. I don't know any smokers now not even my mom.

Three of my children are medical doctors they know at least a hundred times as much about your body as my grandfather knew but they don't know much more about soul than he did.

There are fathers who do not love their children there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history for instance because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books.

It's in the history books the Holocaust. It's just a phrase. And the truth is it happened yesterday. It happened to my mother. I never met my grandmothers or my grandfathers. They were all wiped up in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.

I think there is a heritage which I'm proud of which is a fight for democracy a fight for social justice a fight for freedom. My grandfather went to jail or exile six times in his life fighting for his principles for democracy or for his country. And my father twice.

My grandfather gave me inspiration to cook and love food and flavors. My Aunt Raffie gave me creativity and the inspiration to create new things. My mother inspires me to find simplicity in food.

Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids and his parents had a pasta factory so as a kid he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores - one in Los Angeles and one in New York.

I felt no pressure that my grandfather was famous and my uncle was famous.

My grandfather's family used to own a pasta factory in Naples and they would go door-to-door selling their pasta. So his love of food came from his parents which was then passed down to my mother and then again to me.

But whatever my failure I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession just as my grandfathers were in theirs in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

I want to be able to experience everything. I want to experience being a husband experience being a father experience maybe hopefully someday being a grandfather and all those things. I want that experience. When I die I want to be exhausted.