Irina Abramovich

We went to theatres and museums with a crowd of bodyguards.

My life with Roman was not the fairytale that the papers reported.

We were afraid of attempts of kidnapping.

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring, quite often the hard way.

My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived, I probably wouldn’t be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.

My mom has always been my champion. She was very smart and grounded. She said, ‘Save your money. Pay your taxes. Don’t put everything in one basket,’ but she let me explore and be creative.

How do you build a relationship when you’ve hardly shared a word but suddenly share a child? How do you love a daughter you don’t see for nearly two years? When does she become your daughter? How does she become your daughter?

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

[On his mother’s adversity] She had a very difficult beginning… All of my mothers family were killed… and she came to America at the time of the depression. It was not an easy life at all.

You know, it’s the silliness in me. It has always been there. I love to make people laugh. It comes from my family. My family is funny.

I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family. I have a wonderful relationship with my brother and sister; this makes me feel that I know always where I belong.

There’s no other love like the love for a brother. There’s no other love like the love from a brother.

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.

I am lucky because my family are comfortably off. My father has his own glass business.

I know what it’s like to be married and to live in a house with a garden, but it’s not something I’m striving for at the moment.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert’s understanding, but also approached art emotionally.

Now that the baby is coming, I will do a lot more balancing. I’m going to be a real mommy.

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.