My father told me to dress to reflect the respect you have for the people around you. I've never forgotten that.

I was always fascinated by engineering. Maybe it was an attempt maybe to get my father's respect or interest or maybe it was just a genetic love of technology but I was always trying to build things.

The territorial state is such an ancient form of society - here in Europe it dates back thousands of years - that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland.

I have respect for what other people believe. What I believe in my own life is that it's a search for how I can do things better whether it's being a better man or a better father or finding ways for myself to improve.

Like the average American that I hang out with and like my father before me I raised all my children to respect tools and use them wisely and safely.

I am a person whose father had no religion but who went to the nuns for a couple of years. And I think I'm the same: On one hand I pray on the other hand I don't believe. I am constantly between the two.

Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers.

But I remember the moment when my father died. I wasn't a very committed Catholic beforehand but when that happened it suddenly all felt so obvious: I now believe religion is our attempt to find an explanation for us to feel more protected.

The fact that religion plays such a part in how people vote troubles me troubles me as a minister's daughter. Because I always felt that the separation of church and state was what our forefathers and foremothers really fought for.

I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion if they can find out what it is.

My first memories of religion were being taken to Episcopal church. My father was Catholic but my mother I believe was Episcopal. So I sort of veered off into the watered-down version of Catholicism.

I was raised Catholic but my father's people were Methodist so we went to both churches.

The Godhead consists of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being.

Our Father and Our God unto thee O Lord we lift our souls.

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 was really important in my relationship with James Caan that I understood the relationship between the family and the father.

I met Roy's father once... And I think that Roy's relationship with his father is still at the heart of what Roy does. But at the end of the day he's trying to prove himself to a father he'll never really please.

I finally did work out a very good relationship with my father but it was rough growing up. We had a lot of conflict and I think it surfaced in many of my works.

My relationship with my father is pretty non-existent.

I'm working on my relationship with my mother and father but my upbringing has been very destructive.

Oddly I do have a problem with authority. I find it very difficult to knuckle down and follow rules. Which are the classic symptoms of someone who has a troubled relationship with their father. And yet I never had a problem with my father.

But mostly it's a book about my relationship with my father.

I told my father to stop smoking around the age of two or three years old and he stopped smoking. So the relationship between the kid and the parent is very powerful and if you give the kid the right information it can be very useful to the family.

I've just finished my next collection Possible Side Effects and I'm now working on a collection of holiday stories as well as a memoir about my relationship with my father.