"What that meant for me: It meant bringing everything — every single thing that I had accumulated at that point in my life, in terms of my professional experience — and focusing it into my studies at San Francisco State. It was not always easy"

"I look at the awards and I'm incredibly grateful. But a career like mine would not be possible without a village, without a support system, without the people who are actively behind me"

"It’s important for me to speak up for kids like my own kid, because trans folks are being erased, as if their existence never happened. But trans folks have been around forever."

"It’s a song [about] being a Filipino that’s been transplanted to another country, and you are remembering what it is about home that you remember and love so much."

"You can basically throw all the stuff at the wall and see what sticks. In her case, she throws everything at the wall and everything sticks."

"And it's incredibly empowering to be a part of something like this."

"You have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised."

"It has to be talent first. Because that’s how we got them in the first place."

"If [you’re] a mom who remembers the first movements of your child while they were still in the womb, it’s the excitement of that."

"You discover how much motivation you actually have. Really."

"This is the most precious human being in my little world. The one who captured my heart from the word go. The one that made me realize how insignificant my life was, until that initial piercing cry at 12:12 PM on May 16, 2006."

"The one thing I’ve learned is that you have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised… As a parent I want to set my child up for success. I want my child to feel safe and strong and ready to conquer the world on their own terms."

"The funny thing… kids are easy to mold. They’re so easy to teach and they’re so open to suggestions."

"And now for me to come in as a woman from Southeast Asia, as a woman from the Philippines, and kind of getting into this mix, it's just one episode, but it's like, it's nice to be able to center women's stories and the stories of women of color."

"With each step into adulthood, my heart grows in ways I couldn’t have predicted. That he is, with honesty and courage, growing into who he’s meant to be makes me incredibly proud."

"Playing her again 30 years later is going to be illuminating."

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"The worst you can do is believe yourself to be any more than what you actually are."

"Just believe in who you are. Period."

"I try to be cool and not get too emotional, but it's like 'Oh wow.' To be able to be that person to someone, it's pretty crazy and really wonderful, and to continue to work in the Philippines where you're with your people, creating theater."

"The only thing that trans folks, any LGBT person wants, is to exist and to live and to love in the way that they were born to. Full stop…"

"Just a reminder… I have boundaries. Do not cross them. Thank you,"

"Just now woke up to this bit of amazing news!"

"This is my 18-year-old. My artistic, sensitive, creative, smart, beautiful, affectionate, loving, incredible 18-year-old. I’m beyond blessed and fortunate to call this one mine."

"My son and every single trans kid out there, they are bravely trying to navigate the world as who they are, despite an environment that seems hostile to their existence, so I have to lift up every single kid that has to do this."

"And if you really believe in your heart of hearts that you have the talent, go for it."

"My first job, my first time in front of a paying audience, first time to get paid for work. I don't remember the paycheck being anything big (it's theater, meaning it wasn’t) but I loved the experience so much!"

"I was really concerned with how conservative audiences in the Philippine were going to take it, because my career up at that point was just very wholesome. And I was a child entertainer, performer. I was about to turn the page in a really big way. Because back home actors especially actresses you were really either wholesome or really not. There was no gray area"

"Musical theater is quite an unpredictable, sometimes think-on-your-feet type of art form. I’ve learned how to raise a child who is their own being. I mean, there are obviously expectations. I’m glad this kid can cook and do his own laundry and doesn’t forget to feed the cat."

"You have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised, where they are, no matter their background or identity. Literally any kid. Queer or otherwise."

"The story is important but not to the point of emotional manipulation of the audience. It has to supplement the talent."

"As a parent, I want to set my child up for success. I want my child to feel safe and strong and ready to conquer the world on their own terms."

"I'm here in this very strange country with a culture that's so very different from mine. I need to hang on to a little bit of home to not go insane."

"But the one thing I’ve learned is that you have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised."

"It means the world that there is a universe in which these kinds of stories are able to attract interest and wide viewership where we are centering the experiences of not just Southeast Asian people, but it's Southeast Asian women."

"I keep a few mementos of Olivia around the house. One is a letter that she wrote when she was about 6 to a family friend. It says, “Dear Sheila, Thank you for the bubbly gum. I hope you are well. The bubbly was the most exciting present I ever had and I can blow bubbles... Love, Olivia. XXXXX.” That’s my Olivia. Isn’t she a honey of a girl?"

"Over the years, I did other things to help keep Olivia’s memory alive, donating a silver cup to her school each year to be awarded to the best high jumper, as she was in 1962. And when I played Olivia Walton in the TV film that preceded The Waltons television series, I insisted that my character’s name not be changed to “Mary” as the producers wanted."

"I was the strong one at that point. I don’t want to brag about myself, but I’ve never seen anything like it. Roald really almost went crazy. I held everything together. I cooked all day and went on. Of course 34 years ago anything like a survivors’ support group was virtually unheard of. You had to pull yourself together. I loved Olivia, loved her, but my God, I had two more children. I had to go on."

"Over the years, I found that talking about Olivia helped immeasurably. Roald... couldn’t say a word. It was locked inside him."

"Part of my healing came by having another child. No one could replace Olivia, but a new child would begin to heal the emptiness. In a letter to my doctor in California soon after Olivia’s death, I wrote, “I absolutely believe in a soul. And I long to let her go, to free her and hope she will be born again to me.” Two years later, was born and a year after that, ."

"The phone rang. It was the doctor. He said, “Mrs. Dahl, ’s dead [from measles]. Did you hear me? I said Olivia is dead.” I said, yes, thank you. I couldn’t believe how cold he was. came back from the hospital and he cried. Oh, he cried. He had seen her dead. I unfortunately never did. My sisters-in-law talked me out of it. I wish they hadn’t. I stayed up that first night just looking out the window. Your love is dead, and the sun still comes up. It’s just so sad."

"Not nearly as exciting as it would be if I were acknowledged as one of the greatest lays in the world."

"There are many roads to good acting, I've been asked repeatedly what the key to acting is, and as far as I'm concerned, the main thing is to keep the audience awake."

"Cast throughout her career in supporting roles, Stapleton was content not playing a lead character, I don't think she ever had unrealistic aspirations about her career."

"I figure you're a successful actress only when you don't have to work."

"Family is the best thing I’ve ever had. My family is my life. There’s something primitive in your feeling about family,"

"You have to know the insane odds, but you have to have the energy to buck them. You don't know if you're going to get a job anyway, so why give yourself the extra added handicap of dying if you don't play St. Joan?"

"It was really a good way to audition, because it’s more of what I think the experience of auditioning should be, which is more exploratory, not a presentation. You’re in the room with the director, so you may as well work, and he may as well direct you. That’s what we did."

"I want to thank Troy, N.Y. … and everybody I ever met in my entire life."

"Usually the actor learns them during the day. But as an actress, I have never had a sigh of consternation when I get something complicated. You know how it is when you feel used in a good way."