Dave Pelzer

Everybody makes mistakes.

What distresses me at times is that I meet a lot of people in their 40's, 50's, 60's, who still say they're a victim of child abuse.

I know I can be very standoffish.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

Just as young people absorb all kinds of messages from the media, young girls learn what it means to be a woman by watching the older women in their lives.