I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one's life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.
World fertility surveys indicate that anywhere from one third to one half of the babies born in the Third World would not be if their mothers had access to cheap, reliable family planning, had enough personal empowerment to stand up to their husbands and relatives, and could choose their own family size.
Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.
I lost relatives to AIDS. A couple of my closest cousins, favorite cousins. I lost friends to AIDS, high school friends who never even made it to their 21st birthdays in the '80s. When it's that close to you, you can't - you know, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.
I would expect illegal alien parents to take care of their children. If it means the kids go back home with them, that's what happens. If it means there are legal relatives in the United States that can take care of them, that can happen to. But I believe it's the parents responsibility to take care of the kids.
If God has given you the world's goods in abundance, it is to help you gain those of Heaven and to be a good example of sound teaching to your sons, servants, and relatives.
The great thing about getting married young like I did and having a child so young is that he gets to know all the relatives. He knew his great-grandmother, and we sat down together and tied down the stories of our uncles and aunts. They were quite the characters, and we tied them to about 50 recipes. It's like a memoir-cookbook.
Everyone is related to Africa; everyone comes from Africa. We are all distant relatives.
Love in capital letters is important. It is impossible to live without love. You must have the feeling of being loved. All artists need love - from the audience, friends and relatives. But true and faithful friends are exceptionally rare.
I stayed in Baghdad every summer until I was 14. My dad's sister is still there, but many of my relatives have managed to get out. People forget that there are still people there who are not radicalized in any particular direction, trying to live normal lives in a very difficult situation.