AIDS can destroy a family if you let it, but luckily for my sister and me, Mom taught us to keep going. Don't give up, be proud of who you are, and never feel sorry for yourself.

Given six months to live and being the fighter that I am, I set high goals for myself.

Twice a week I would receive injections or IV's of Factor VIII which clotted the blood and then broke it down.

Rumors of sneezing, kissing, tears, sweat, and saliva spreading AIDS caused people to panic.

Because of the lack of education on AIDS, discrimination, fear, panic, and lies surrounded me.

Mayor Koch, of New York, was the first public figure to give me support.

Most recently my battle has been against AIDS and the discrimination surrounding it.

Eventually, I won the right to attend school, but the prejudice was still there.

I was labeled a troublemaker, my mom an unfit mother, and I was not welcome anywhere.

My family and I held no hatred for those people because we realized they were victims of their own ignorance.

I received thousands of letters of support from all around the world, all because I wanted to go to school.

My studies are important to me. I made the honor role just recently, with 2 A's and 2 B's.

Listening to medical facts was not enough. People wanted one hundred percent guarantees.

The first five to six years of my life were spent in and out of the hospital.

We began a series of court battles for nine months, while I was attending classes by telephone.

Entertainers, athletes, and stars started giving me support.

How could these people in the public eye not be afraid of me, but my whole town was?

This brought on the news media, TV crews, interviews, and numerous public appearances.

I came face to face with death at thirteen years old.

AIDS can destroy a family if you let it, but luckily for my sister and me, Mom taught us to keep going. Don't give up, be proud of who you are, and never feel sorry for yourself.

I believe in myself as I look forward to graduating from Hamilton Heights High School in 1991.

We had great faith that with patience, understanding, and education, that my family and I could be helpful in changing their minds and attitudes around.

People would get up and leave so they would not have to sit anywhere near me.

My name is Ryan White. I am sixteen years old. I have hemophilia, and I have AIDS.

Even at church, people would not shake my hand.

Financial hardships were rough on us, even though Mom had a good job at G.M.

A lot of my time was spent searching, thinking and planning my life.

On December 17, 1984, I had surgery to remove two inches of my left lung due to pneumonia. After two hours of surgery the doctors told my mother I had AIDS.

The desire to move into a bigger house, to avoid living AIDS daily, and a dream to be accepted by a community and school, became possible and a reality with a movie about my life, The Ryan White Story.

I'm just one of the kids, and all because the students at Hamilton Heights High School listened to the facts, educated their parents and themselves, and believed in me.

The school I was going to said they had no guidelines for a person with AIDS.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.

We're parents first, and once you have kids, everybody knows that you have priority lists. Number one is your family and everything else just kind of finds its place.

I have a project at HBO and one at the Family Channel coming that are being looked at. Aside from that I am not doing much more than playing golf and some skiing.

I didn't tell anybody about my plan because I was convinced my family or friends would stop me. I didn't think much about what would happen afterwards.

You know raising a family in the lifestyle of a professional athlete can be very difficult.

I love to see my family together. That's what life is about. It's about family.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

Even though we were all celebrities to a certain extent, we all looked at each other as family.

The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.

A growing awareness of the depth of popular attachment to the family has led some liberals to concede that family is not just a buzzword for reaction.

I love my family.

I have other obligations now - the show, my family, my life... though I know that without my sobriety I wouldn't have any of those things.

When they were small and my wife really had no other responsibilities, except taking care of the family and all of us, it wasn't that big a deal. It was fun. Hey, we're going to Moscow. We're going to Italy. We're going to Toronto. We're going to New York.

I miss my family, and I like being a tourist when I go back.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.

The last three decades have seen the collapse of the family wage system.