Father Quotations | Page 2

I grew up in a very strong, nuclear family. My father was a sportsman. He represented South Africa in a couple of sports, so he was a very positive person and someone who encouraged you to be your best and give your best with everything that you do.

My only real contact with what my father did was that he could get 16-millimeter prints, so every weekend we would show two or three movies at home. But our house wasn't frequented by stars. My father's personal life was his personal life, and it was separate from his professional life.

I grew up in Muenchen where my father has been a professor for pharmaceutic chemistry at the university. He had studied chemistry and medicine, having been a research student in Leipzig with Wilhelm Ostwald, the Nobel Laureate 1909. So I became familiar with the life of a scientist in a chemical laboratory quite early.

He was definitely a father figure for all of us. Once you were a Giant, you were always a Giant.

My father was a soldier. He was a frogman in the special forces in Denmark before I was born, and always the reality of that inspired me. My mom is very left-wing, classic socialist, and she always talked about the solders as almost crazy, violent, sick people, and I want to confront that because its very judgmental, and I'm not sure it's true.

I was raised Catholic, but my father's people were Methodist, so we went to both churches.

Growing up as a kid my father was British and a soccer player. His idol was a guy that passed the ball a lot, Stanley Matthews. Our family thought if you could be unselfish your teammates would always like you.

The more consistent a father can be or a mentor can be in the person's life and teach them principles of real solid manhood, character, integrity and leadership, the more consistent you can be in the person's life and teach them those things at a younger age, and then the better off they'll be.

Thirteen, 13 children, and I love - I love them all. And I think I've been a good father to all of them.

Babies don't need fathers, but mothers do. Someone who is taking care of a baby needs to be taken care of.

The surprising thing about fatherhood was finding my inner mush. Now I want to share it with the world.

We lived in the shadow of our rich relations. Mother was intent on keeping up with the people she was raised with, which was impossible. My father was a physician who wanted to be a rabbi but was weighed down by a great sense of obligation to support his family in style.

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.

My father left me with his love of Jewish studies and cultural life. To this very day, along with several physicians and scientist colleagues, I take regular periodical lessons taught by a Rabbinical scholar on how the Jewish law views moral and ethical problems related to modern medicine and science.

I love the comic opportunities that come up in the context of a father-son relationship.

I finally did work out a very good relationship with my father, but it was rough growing up. We had a lot of conflict, and I think it surfaced in many of my works.

I was always looking for the same man - a strong father figure.

Loyalty of the law-making power to the executive power was one of the dangers the political fathers foretold.

I have seen him set fire to his wigwam and smooth over the graves of his fathers... clap his hand in silence over his mouth, and take the last look over his fair hunting ground, and turn his face in sadness to the setting sun.

Father, we thank you, especially for letting me fly this flight - for the privilege of being able to be in this position, to be in this wondrous place, seeing all these many startling, wonderful things that you have created.

I'm a father; that's what matters most. Nothing matters more.

God the Father, the supreme Architect, had already built this cosmic home we behold, the most sacred temple of His godhead, by the laws of His mysterious wisdom.

When I was a child of six or seven my father would show me the chapter in the prophet Isaiah where the name Immanuel is found; more than once he spoke to me of the faith he put in me.

My family was musical on both sides. My father's family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple's double - she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the '20s, '30s and '40s in the kitchen for my grandmother.

My father was a sailor and our summer vacations were always on a sailboat. I had a little boat before I had a moped.

My father was a milkman. So, I delivered milk.

My big advantage was to have my father accept me as first-generation.

I should have been an abortion. The only reason I wasn't was that my father was a Christian.

My mother and father, Joe and Theresa Montana brought me along and taught me to never quit, and to strive to be the best.

My mom taught me the power of love. I learned to focus on the long-term big picture from my father. His sense of humor and light-hearted approach always make me smile. My husband is a pivotal anchor in my life. His influence encourages me to be independent and take risks.

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.

Dad was the only adult male I ever trusted.

What the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution is the most magnificent government on the face of the Earth, and the reason is this: because it was intended to preserve the American society and the American spirit, not to transform it or destroy it.

The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them.

Waitresses, soldiers, rickshaw drivers, old ladies selling vegetables - my father would schmooze anybody. He was Clintonesque before the word existed. And, of course, it paid dividends. Ill-tempered guards at the most notorious border crossings waved him through with cheery smiles. Haughty maitre d's fawned over him.

Father God, we just ask You to open Your wide, wide arms and look down upon us, Lord, and lead us, and let us know what we should do to stop this, this terrible, terrible holocaust.

My father-in-law saw me at a dance performance. The next day, I got a phone call, and the caller said, 'I'm Dhirubhai Ambani... may I talk to Nita?' I said, 'It's a wrong number' and put down the phone. Then he called again... and I said, 'If you're Dhirubhai Ambani, then I'm Elizabeth Taylor.'

Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for it's own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one's thoughts.

My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.

As a little boy of eleven I entered the Cadet Corps. I was not particularly eager to become a Cadet, but my father wished it. So my wishes were not consulted.

I inherited that calm from my father, who was a farmer. You sow, you wait for good or bad weather, you harvest, but working is something you always need to do.

My mother, whose family was heavily rabbinic, said she wanted me to continue the family tradition in the rabbinate. My father said he wanted me to be a scholar of the Talmud, but he wanted me to make my living in science.

My mother missed having dinner with Lyndon Johnson because she couldn't find the right hat to wear. While my father went off to the white house to break bread with the President, my mother, who's not a things and stuff person, stayed at the hotel and tried on 10 different hats and missed dinner.

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

My father was an inspiration to me; I made a few movies with him and I loved working with him. Everything about him - his whole approach to work, as well as his love, enthusiasm and respect for it and other people in the business - was inspiring. I was very lucky to have him as a role model.

My father dealt in stocks and shares and my mother also had a lot of time on her hands.

Since childhood she had walked the Devon rivers with her father looking for flowers and the nests of birds, passing some rocks and trees as old friends, seeing a Spirit everywhere, gentle in thought to all her eyes beheld.

The thing that influenced me most in relation to 'Nanny McPhee' were the Westerns I watched with my father. All the Spaghetti Westerns; all the Virginians; all the High Chaparrals. Because if you think about the form, it's a stranger from out of town.

Well, my father's people were Mormon, and had immigrated not long after Brigham Young had settled Utah.

I want to be a soldier as my father was.

When Jane and I spoke out, people thought, What ungrateful children those two kids are to be that nasty about their father.

Be it Valentine's Day, Father's Day or Mother's Day, I feel all days are reminders of some feelings. February 14 doesn't hold any special relevance for me.

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time.

There are things that you cannot talk to your mother and father about, there are things that you cannot talk to your children about.

My father taught me things about body language that psychologists have been catching up with ever since. He always knew when I was lying, because my posture was all wrong.

My father started with nothing and is a self-made man. No matter what I do with my life, I can never match his accomplishments.

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

My first soldier role was in 'Flags of Our Fathers.' Casting director Jay Binder saw that movie and was looking for soldiers for 'Journey's End,' which led to 'Generation Kill.'

When a father, absent during the day, returns home at six, his children receive only his temperament, not his teaching.

My father valued patriotism above all other social obligations, but he had his own particular interpretation of just how true patriotism was meant to function.

But I like to be thought of as a good father and a good husband.

I would never have done what I'd done if I'd considered my father as somebody I wanted to please

My father is a very theatrical and dramatic person.

I've always despised old people. I got angry at my father when he began to show signs of age.

If there's no relationship with a father who's absent, nobody talks about it.

I attribute my entire football career, as far as getting me started, getting me interested, keeping me that way was my father. He went to every game even though he was crippled and wasn't real healthy.

What does God the Father look like? Although I've never seen Him, I believe - as with the Holy Spirit - He looks like Jesus looked on earth.

I have a 92 year old father whose doing beautifully who lives in Chicago and a sister and a nephew and a niece and I love coming back and try to do so fairly often.

I grew up not liking my father very much. I never saw him cry. But he must have. Everybody cries.

I'd watch my father get up at 5 o'clock and go down to the Eastern Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that business going and then go out on his vending machine business.

I learned from the example of my father that the manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.

The most important influence in my childhood was my father.

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?

From the first moment that I can remember, I had identified myself as a bass player and it had everything to do with my father, who was a bass player. And he loved music, you know, as much as anybody Ive ever seen. And that dynamic I just thought as somehow was a straight pass to me.

Congress is functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority.

My father came from a very poor background, but I was very fortunate in the sense that we were never in need. My dad was determined to make sure that we didn't want for things. He wanted to give us more opportunity than he had, a better shot at a better life.

Many great stories are father issues, mother issues or death.

My father was always telling himself no one was perfect, not even my mother.

When I hit 16, I got a scooter to ride to school. It was bright pink, and I saw on the ownership papers that Jonathan Ross once owned it. My friends slated me for it because of the colour, but it was cool. My father used to ride, and my mother's boyfriend has a bike, so we're a bit of a biker family.

I am not sad, but I am melancholic. When you lose your mother at 20 and then your father soon after, melancholia is part of your life.

I owe my success to my two families. If my father hadn't been willing to make sacrifices for me, I would have never won the role on 'Everybody Hates Chris'. I like working with my television family, too. We have a lot of love for each other.

Mothers, stay close to your daughters. Earn and deserve their love and respect. Be united with their father in the rearing of your children. Do nothing in your life to cause your daughters to stumble because of your example.

I was myself brought up with my brother, whose name was Matthias, for he was my own brother, by both father and mother; and I made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding.

It absolutely helped - to write the father in both 'Juicy' and 'Beasts,' I had to see the whole story from his point of view. All of a sudden I understood more of what my own father must be going through - the fear, the frustration, the anger... the hope that he'll leave a legacy.

Ron Reagan amazingly qualifies as an honest broker. I asked him if he was a mama's boy and he said no, more of a papa's boy. At the same time he was willing to say that his father had many shortcomings and needed to be held accountable.

My mother's family is Christian: her father was a Baptist lay preacher, and her brother, in a leap of Anglican upward mobility, became a vicar in the Church of Wales. But my mother converted to Islam on marrying my father. She was not obliged to; Muslim men are free to marry ahl al-kitab, or people of the Book - among them, Jews and Christians.

My mother was keen that I complete my graduation and never ever wanted me to be in the movies, as my father had made five films that lost money. One of the films he made was 'Agneepath,' which was hugely hyped but underwhelming at the box office, and I remember that my dad had to sell my grandmother's flat to pay off the loan.

My father was a middle manager at an oil company, but I never knew anything about his work. Whatever business acumen I have just got gleaned over the years.

But it's also because of something personal. My mother and father met while playing chess, so I've always had a fondness for the game. If it weren't for chess, I might not be here.

There are so many things that are misunderstood or not recognized about my father's music because they've been filtered by people who work for magazines like Rolling Stone.

I don't care what they say about me when I'm through with sports. I don't want to be known as anything else in life but a great father.

My father was an Episcopalian minister, and I've always been comforted by the power of prayer.

The best way for women to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother, or a friend, in the way of family intercourse and easy conversation, and by such a course of reading as they may recommend.

My father was a Norwegian tenor and my mother a New York Irish librarian.

He's my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression... I cannot see him. I cannot have a relationship with my father and be morally consistent. I lived with all these adopted children, so they are my family. To say Soon-Yi was not my sister is an insult to all adopted children.

A distant cousin sent me some genealogy report on my father's side, and it's sort of what I suspected. Coal miners for generations... four or maybe five generations.

If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body, using gentleness and humility in order to bring the world back to his Father?

My father was a member of the Teamsters Union in California, where he helped to organize better health care for workers. My mother worked for more than 20 years on an assembly line.

When it comes to Father's Day, I will remember my dad for both being there to nurture me and also for the times he gave me on my own to cultivate my own interests and to nurture my own spirit.

My family originally lived in Brooklyn. Our first apartment was a little place above my father and uncle's hardware store in Coney Island. Now, don't get the impression that we were surrounded by merry-go-rounds, roller coasters and Ferris wheels. Nope, this was a little side street.