Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer.

Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.

I really just wanted to be a writer, but people tell you, 'You should have a backup career,' so I thought, 'OK, I'll act.' That was the foolishness of my vision for my life - that my backup career would be completely undependable.

Life Lesson 3: You can't rush grief. It has its own timetable. All you can do is make sure there are lots of soft places around - beds, pillows, arms, laps.

I have a feeling of reverence about my father being in his 80s - a feeling that I want to whisper, take soft steps, not intrude too much. He's like a stately old cathedral to me now.

I don't think it's an accident who our parents are; I believe we choose them. So maybe I chose my parents in order to effect change.

[On her father, Ronald Reagan:] How do you argue with someone who states that the people who are sleeping on the grates of the streets of America 'are homeless by choice'?