My Old Man Quotes

My father was and is a great journalist. Thirty years ago, I was studying broadcasting in college, and the problem was I wasn't nearly as good as my father. I wasn't as quick or as smart as my old man, and I realized it would be a long time before I was ever going to be, and I decided to do something else. ~ George Clooney

You call me castoff," Mahlia said, "Chinese throwaway, whatever." Amaya was trying to look away, but Mahlia had her pinned, kept her eye to eye. "My old man might have been peacekeeper, but my mom was pure Drowned Cities. You want to war like that, I'm all in." Mahlia lifted the scarred stump of her right hand, shoved it up in Amaya's face. "Maybe I cut you the way the Army of God cut me. See how you do with just a lucky left. How'd you like that? ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

Big Yellow Taxi

They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot

Hey farmer, farmer
Put away the DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees, please

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot

I said, "Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot"

They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot ~ Joni Mitchell

My secret weapon is my anger. That's what stimulates me as an artist. I want change. I want it yesterday. I'm pissed off at America. Society. American movies. American TV. American culture. American politicians. Capitalism. I'm a little like my old man in that way only I'm a recovered drunk. He wasn't. I should have been dead years ago like my brother but somehow I dodged the bullet and it gave me something to say. Impatience and rage are always just beneath the surface for me. ~ Dan Fante

With my old man I got no respect. When he took me hunting he gave me a three minute head start. Then on the way home he tied me to the fender and put the deer in the car. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty."
Levin nodded thoughtfully.
"The bottom line was my old man was a damn good lawyer and he didn't like having innocent clients," I said. "I'm not sure I do, either. ~ Michael Connelly

My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I asked my old man if I could go ice-skating on the lake. He told me, "Wait til it gets warmer." ~ Rodney Dangerfield

My old man taught me a lot of stuff in his death that I don't even know if he would have been able to teach me had he been alive. And that was to never do stuff that can jeopardize the people you love and hurt them. ~ Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Me and my old man went on a coach trip to Switzerland and Italy once and it was a whole hour further on there. Must be something to do with this Common Market. I don't hold with the Common Market and nor does Mr. Curtain. England's good enough for me. ~ Agatha Christie

My old man is drunker than a barrel full of monkeys, but my old lady she don't care. ~ Elton John

My old man is a man of few words. ~ Scott Eastwood

Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandson run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips. ~ Grace Paley

My old man also said this about Martha Knox: "She's not beautiful, but I think she knows how to sell it." Well, it's true that I wanted to hold her braid. I always had wanted to from first seeing it and mostly I wanted to in that dance, but I didn't reach for it and I didn't set down my beer bottle. Martha Knox wasn't selling anything. We didn't dance again that night or again at all, because ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

My old man never liked me. He gave me my allowance in traveler's checks. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

My old man taught me two things: 'Mind own business' and 'Always cut cards.' ~ Robert A. Heinlein

My old man always told me never do anything during the day that will keep you awake at night. ~ Jonathan Dunne

My old man was a musician - that's what he did for a living. And like most fathers, occasionally he'd let me visit where he worked. So I started going to his recording studio, and I really dug it. ~ Dimebag Darrell

He was a good guy, my old man: simple, old-fashioned. Physically, he was built like a feather-weight, and he wore these thick, black Ronnie Barker glasses. He would say to me,'You might not have a good education, but good manners don't cost you anything.' And he practised what he preached: he'd always give up his seat on the bus for a woman or help an old lady across the road.
A good man. I really miss him. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

I used to like wolves; they always arrived so
Punctually in sheep's clothing at the mortuary
To be prepared for burial by my father who
Showered his wrath on my mother with blows
From his fists at night; this warrior, this Lord ~ Abigail George

I'm such an odd mix of things. My grandfather was Indian: I've got more family living in India than I do in the U.K. My old man was East London. I was brought up in Yorkshire. My great-grandfather was Irish. ~ Sebastian Coe

I have to admit, I wasn't close to my old man when he was alive. He was hardly ever home. But now that he was gone, and I was back in Pittsburgh, I thought about him all the time. I felt closer to the guy since he'd been buried than I ever did when he was walking around above ground. I realized how much I loved him. ~ Jerry Stahl

Books and I went back. My old man taught me to read at age three-and-a-half. I bloomed into a classic only child/child-of-divorce autodidact. ~ James Ellroy

And so I have brought this pint for him - a proper Irish pint, from Ireland. This pint - brought through the sky, and over the sea. I am finally buying my old man a good pint of Guinness. As I walk through the door, holding the glass - kids throwing themselves at me, one already crying - I hold it out to Dadda, and tell him to sip it. He tears the cling film off - looking at me, confused - and then takes a sip. "Christ. That's flat," he says. ~ Caitlin Moran

When my old man wanted sex, my mother would show him a picture of me. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating. ~ Sonny Liston

My old man was eighty-six per cent white bread and a hundred per cent asshole. ~ James Sallis

The boxers were banging away at each other. Go on, go on, go on, keep punching, Antonio, keep punching. I'm blasting away at the Cuban guy. He can't hurt me. I'm made of iron. His fists feel like friendly pats when he manages to land a punch, which he doesn't do too often, 'cause I'm fast on my feet, and I duck and weave. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. But I'm punching the hell out of him. I'm creaming the bastard, creaming the Cuban, creaming my old man... What?!... Creaming my boss,I mean. That son-of-a-bitch Mr. Hanson. For an instant he saw Janey at the receiving end of his fists. Again. He pushed the image from his mind. It was Mr. Hanson. It was the Cuban champion. And the crowd was cheering. They were on their feet and screaming. They love me. Yes, they love me. Yes they do. They really do." pg. 113. ~ Clark Zlotchew

I'm a thinkin' my old man won't know de boys and de baby. Lor'! she's de biggest gal, now, - good she is, too, and peart, Polly is. She's out to the house, now, watchin' de hoe-cake. I 's got jist de very pattern my old man liked so much, a bakin'. Jist sich as I gin him the mornin' he was took off. Lord bless us! how I felt, dat ar morning!" Mrs. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

My old man tells me every chance he gets I'm "style over substance" and that I've never done anything of value in my life. I'm fifteen. What does he expect? Being "cool as" is the only thing anyone cares about."
Burt, Book 1 "Making it ~ Jamie Scallion

My old man tried to force on me a notion of what it was to be a 'man.' And it destroyed my dad. ~ Sam Shepard

My old man says when it's time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

With my old man I got no respect. He told me never take candy from a stranger unless he offered me a ride. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

All things, my son, transmute
into old age, life diminishes,
everything declines,
the proliferation/ of kinds is a mere
illusion, and no one
knows to what end. ~ W.G. Sebald

Words.

I'm surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions.

Cathedral. Mayonnaise. Pomegranate.
Mississippi. Neapolitan. Hippopotamus.
Silky. Terrifying. Iridescent.
Tickle. Sneeze. Wish. Worry.

Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes - each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.

Deep within me, words pile up in huge drifts. Mountains of phrases and sentences and connected ideas. Clever expressions. Jokes. Love songs.

From the time I was really little - maybe just a few months old - words were like sweet, liquid gifts, and I drank them like lemonade. I could almost taste them. They made my jumbled thoughts and feelings have substance. My parents have always blanketed me with conversation. They chattered and babbled. They verbalized and vocalized. My father sang to me. My mother whispered her strength into my ear.

Every word my parents spoke to me or about me I absorbed and kept and remembered. All of them.

I have no idea how I untangled the complicated process of words and thought, but it happened quickly and naturally. By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings.

But only in my head.

I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old. ~ Sharon M. Draper

I like to talk to people. I've got one assistant, one Blackberry. That's my overhead. I don't text that much or email. I like to sit down face-to-face and have a conversation with you. I'm old-fashioned. ~ Mark Wahlberg

I was quite a looker in my time," she said. Was she reading his mind, or only being smart, to know she must be hideous?
"Oh, had they invented time as long ago as that? ~ Gregory Maguire

[I have] a deeply entrenched rule that I cannot rest or relax until all my work is done. What a deal. I could die of old age before I have met all my responsibilities and done all my chores. ~ Mary Pipher

What's the use of crying, and retching, and belching, all day long, like your lady downstairs? Life has its sad side, and we must take the rough with the smooth. Why, maids have died on their marriage eve, or, what's worse, bringing their first baby into the world, and the world's wagged on all the same. Life's sad enough, in all conscience, but there's nothing to be frightened about in it or to turn one's stomach. I was country-bred, and as my old granny used to say, "There's no clock like the sun and no calendar like the stars." And why? Because it gets one used to the look of Time. There's no bogey from over the hills that scares one like Time. But when one's been used all one's life to seeing him naked, as it were, instead of shut up in a clock, like he is in Lud, one learns that he is as quiet and peaceful as an old ox dragging the plough. And to watch Time teaches one to sing. They say the fruit from over the hills makes one sing. I've never tasted so much as a sherd of it, but for all that I can sing. ~ Hope Mirrlees

The evening being come, I return home and go to my study; at the entrance I pull off my peasant-clothes, covered with dust and dirt, and put on my noble court dress, and thus becomingly re-clothed I pass into the ancient courts of the men of old, where, being lovingly received by them, I am fed with that food which is mine alone; where I do not hesitate to speak with them, and to ask for the reason of their actions, and they in their benignity answer me; and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Well, Valek, any new promotions?" the Commander asked
"No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortunately she doesn't want to be in my corps or even be my second.She just wants to beat me." Valek grinned, delighted by the challenge.
"And can she?" the Commander inquired. His eyebrows rose.
"With time and the proper training. She's deadly with her bow; it's just her tactics that need work."
"Then what do we do with her?"
"Promote her to General and retire some of those old wind-bags. We could use some fresh blood in the upper ranks."
"Valek, you never had a good grasp of military structure."
"Then promote her to First Lieutenant today, Captain tomorrow, Major the next day, Colonel the day after, and General the day after that."
"I'll take it under advisement. ~ Maria V. Snyder

In so many ways," I tried to explain. "I feel repaired. The old wounds feel repaired, anyway. As if what was taken has been returned. I don't get to be my mother's daughter ever again. But I get to be a mother ~ Jennifer Handford

I always knew the importance of it, since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food. ~ Robert Mondavi

My comedy notebooks are filled with random journal entries. It's all the same. I can look back on old joke notebooks, and know exactly what was going on in my life. ~ Sarah Silverman

My songs speak for themselves. The musicians who play on them and the way they sound and where they were recorded and the way they were recorded is the old Nashville way ... they sound as country or more country than a lot of things that are on country radio ... ~ Neil Young

The family were wild," she said suddenly. "They tried to marry me off. And then when I'd begun to feel that after all life was scarcely worth living I found something" - her eyes went skyward exultantly - "I found something!"

Carlyle waited and her words came with a rush.

"Courage - just that; courage as a rule of life, and something to cling to always. I began to build up this enormous faith in myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past some manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of life. All sorts of courage - the beaten, bloody prize-fighter coming up for more - I used to make men take me to prize-fights; the déclassé woman sailing through a nest of cats and looking at them as if they were mud under her feet; the liking what you like always; the utter disregard for other people's opinions - just to live as I liked always and to die in my own way - Did you bring up the cigarettes?"

He handed one over and held a match for her silently.

"Still," Ardita continued, "the men kept gathering - old men and young men, my mental and physical inferiors, most of them, but all intensely desiring to have me - to own this rather magnificent proud tradition I'd built up round me. Do you see?"

"Sort of. You never were beaten and you never apologized."

"Never!"

She sprang to the edge, poised or a moment like a c ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

She was heading for the piano, and something told me that it was her intention to sing old folk songs, a pastime to which, as I have indicated, she devoted not a little of her leisure. She was particularly given to indulgence in this nuisance when her soul had been undergoing an upheaval and required soothing, as of course it probably did at this juncture.
My fears were realized. She sang two in rapid succession, and the thought that this sort of thing would be a permanent feature of our married life chilled me to the core. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I might have to consider coaching- I'm getting too old to be a world class runner and my mind isn't gone enough to become an official. ~ Sebastian Coe

My old vintage designs are so popular now. I must have been on to something. ~ Pierre Cardin

Oh, I suppose they're not exactly gone, those green boys. It's rather like a sapling turning into a tree. Can't scrape off the bark, and whittle it down until you find that sapling again, now can you? No, of course not. The sapling becomes an oak. Forever changed. The realities of that war will remain inside us through heaven or hell. Best try and face it, Ty. Running from it won't help. You'll never turn back into the innocent sapling you once were." Robert lifted his glass and grinned. "My friend, we've become a pair of gnarled old trees. ~ Kathleen Baldwin

Oh, I had a great time. My thirty-three-year-old boyfriend said he wished they could package my cum like ice cream so he could eat it all day. ~ Augusten Burroughs

my father liked his Indian talk about the Great Spirit," Ridgeway said. "All these years late, I prefer the American spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and civilize. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed. To lift up the lesser races. If not lift up, subjugate. And if not subjugate, exterminate. One destiny by divine perscription--the American imperative. ~ Colson Whitehead

... I am left with less
than one drop of my blood that does not tremble.
I recognize the the signs of the old flame. ~ Dante Alighieri

My tradition of shaving on the final day of hunting season lasted until Duck Dynasty started. Now I keep the beard year-round because we're filming episodes all the time. The last time I completely shaved my face, my daughter, Mia, was about five years old. I had to go to the barbershop to get my beard shaved off because it was so thick and long. When I walked in, the look on the barber's face was priceless. We both knew I was fixing to get my money's worth. When I came home, I walked in the door and Mia started crying. She even took off running! She didn't know who I was! She wouldn't speak to me for about a week out of fear. Finally, she realized it really was me. That was the last time my face was ever completely smooth. ~ Jase Robertson

I found myself surrounded by really old veterans wearing hats that said, "Retired Marine - SEMPER FI." These hats didn't appear to fit on their heads, but instead seemed to hover over them.
At one point, I mistakenly tried to take the last box of crackers that a veteran also wanted. He started yelling, "I ran away from home at seventeen, lied about my age, and joined the Corps! I fought in World War II, Korea, and NAM! I have no cartilage in my right knee! It's bone-on-bone, but every morning I run six miles! I did not sacrifice my knee for this country to come here today and have you disrespect me at the commissary. Oooh-RAH!"
I dropped the crackers and walked away. ~ Mollie Gross

But I, who am old, who have done what I must do, who stand in the daylight facing my own death, the end of all possibility, I know that there is only one power that is real and worth the having. And that is the power, not to take, but to accept. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Oh! Thanks for the public service announcement about what not to do in college, Mr. Eighteen-year-old-frat-boy-with-eleventy-billion-'serious'-girlfriends-under-his-belt!
Get in the fucking car. You're a mean drunk.
You haven't seen me mean, mama's boy!
I told you we're close!
Yeah, so are me and my asshole! Doesn't mean I'm going to call it twice a day!
You're a bitch!
Take. Me. Home.
I'd love to, if you'd get in the fucking car! ~ Jamie McGuire

I've stayed buddies with my old buddy Jackie Slater. I talk to Jackie Slater. I play golf with Marcus Allen a lot. I play golf with Marshall Faulk a lot. My buddy Craig Young, he lives up in New Mexico. I still talk to a lot of the guys. ~ Eric Dickerson

Through the clouds of smoke I seemed to see all old Asia before me, and the adventures of past years behind me. A carnival of old camp-scenes danced before my mind's eye, expiring like shooting-stars in the night - merry songs which came to an end among other mountains and the dying sound of strings and flutes. And I was surprised that I had not had enough of these things and that I was not tired of the light of camp-fires. ~ Sven Hedin

I remember first learning about death quite vividly.

I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. My grandfather had died, and my mother was trying to explain it to me.

'Sometimes, when someone gets ill, and they're very very old, they don't get better again. They just get iller and iller and then... then their body stops working.'

'I don't understand.'

'What's in them just goes away, and doesn't come back.'

'Grandpa isn't coming back?'

'No,' she said. 'Not ever again.'

'Grandpa said he was going away and not ever coming back after he held Grandma's head in that cotton-dump outside of town and kicked Skeeter seventy-three times.'

'Grandpa was very drunk. That's not the same as being dead. Grandpa's dead, son. He's not there anymore.'

And I remember saying, 'Hold everything right fucking THERE.

'You went to all the trouble of conceiving me, and giving birth to me, and raising me and feeding me and clothing me and all-- and, YEAH, whipping me from time to time, and making me live in a house that's freezing fucking cold all the goddamn time-- and you make me cry and things hurt so much and disappointments crush my heart every day and I can't do half the things I want to do and sometimes I just want to scream-- and what I've got to look forward to is my body breaking and something flipping off the switch in my head-- I go through all ~ Warren Ellis

I had old bunk beds that my dad got from Seabrook Farms. They were first used by German prisoners during World War II, who were sent to work the farms during the war. The metal beds with their thin mattresses could easily be used as a jungle gym and I loved them. ~ David Mixner

I met Grahm there as well . . . One day, I walked in, and my table was taken. Now, the old me would've just sat somewhere else. But that was my table, and my friendship with Larel had made me bold. Plus, he was really, really cute. ~ Elise Kova

Writing about the futility of trying to force a wolf into a vehicle, Martino describes the final stage of the conflict. The italics are hers:

"But if I continue, perhaps muttering 'Get up you lazy old dusty thing,' The wolf grabs my arm in his teeth, snarling, as if to say, Look, move me where I don't want to go, and we're going to have problems. Your problems will be bigger than mine. He then looks at me with a frank arresting stare, the strength of the mountain rumbling in his eyes. ~ Teresa Tsimmu Martino

You can say any fool thing to a dog and the dog will just give you this look that says, 'My GOSH, you're RIGHT! I NEVER would've thought of that! ~ Dave Barry

Do you know what I dream about? My dream would be to die looking at the lights on the Ferris wheel. When I get old, when my body has given up, that's what I want to see. And in that dream, you're standing next to me. ~ Jane Harvey-Berrick

In Spain, actresses work until they are old. That's my plan. ~ Penelope Cruz

My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more. ~ Og Mandino

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHECKLIST If we want our kids to have a shot at making it in the world as eighteen-year-olds, without the umbilical cord of the cell phone being their go-to solution in all manner of things, they're going to need a set of basic life skills. Based upon my observations as dean, and the advice of parents and educators around the country, here are some examples of practical things they'll need to know how to do before they go to college - and here are the crutches that are currently hindering them from standing up on their own two feet: 1. An eighteen-year-old must be able to talk to strangers - faculty, deans, advisers, landlords, store clerks, human resource managers, coworkers, bank tellers, health care providers, bus drivers, mechanics - in the real world. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

If I ever saw my muse she would be an old woman with a tight bun and spectacles poking me in the middle of the back and growling, Wake up and write the book! ~ Kerry Greenwood

I had a total revelation with the feminist moment, with Carolee Scheeman and Marina Abromovic and of course Joan Jonas; that was a big breakthrough with me. And through them, [I was introduced to] Chris Burden and Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci. You can almost call it a gang, because the works are always talking together. That stuff had a huge impact on me, but other than that, my interest had always been old paintings. ~ Ragnar Kjartansson

My memory plays me odd tricks these days [...] Age spares us nothing, old friend. Like ancient trees, we die from the top. ~ Gore Vidal

Oh my goodness, I'm in love with Channing Tatum, although I think I'm too old to play his love interest. They'd probably cast me as his grandmomma's friend or something like that, but anything to be in a movie with Channing. ~ Sherri Shepherd

If you have it, it is for life. It is a disease for which there is no cure. You will go on riding even after they have to haul you on a comfortable wise old cob, with feet like inverted buckets and a back like a fireside chair ... when I can't ride anymore, I shall still keep horses as long as I can hobble about with a bucket and a wheelbarrow. When I can't hobble, I shall roll my wheelchair out to the fence of the field where my horses graze, and watch them. ~ Monica Dickens

When my brother was a child, he kept telling my mom he wanted to be in the box. She didn't get it - he was two or three years old and kept saying he wanted to be in the box. She finally realized he was talking about the television. ~ Aldis Hodge

No one wants to learn an instrument, Rachel. It's grueling repetition. And besides, you're too old to start. Concert violinists who learn the traditional way begin when they're six or seven."
Risa can't help but listen to the irritating conversation taking place between the well-dressed woman and her fashionably disheveled teenage daughter.
"It's bad enough they'd be messing in my brain and giving me a NeuroWeave," the girl whines. "But why do I have to have the hands, too? I like my hands!"
The mother laughs. "Honey, you've got your father's stubby, chubby little fingers. Trading up will only do you good in life, and it's common knowledge that a musical NeuroWeave requires muscle memory to complete the brain-body connection."
"There are no muscles in the fingers!" the girl announces triumphantly. "I learned that in school."
The mother gives her a long-suffering sigh.
"Think of them like a pair of gloves, Rachel. Fancy silk gloves, like a princess wears."
Risa can't stand it anymore. Making sure she's low enough so that her face can't be seen, she gets up, and as she walks past them, she says, "You'll have someone else's fingerprints. ~ Neal Shusterman

There's an old Japanese proverb - to wait for luck is the same as waiting for one's death. We make our own luck, my old friend." "I ~ David Leadbeater

I realize that Facebook today is a global success with more than 600 million users worldwide. But I also understand, maybe a bit sadly, that it is not for me. Perhaps it is because I am a bit too old? Or perhaps it is because I am more interested in exploring the epic text, which I have lived with for all my life. ~ Henning Mankell

My family didn't have very much money, so ballet wasn't even on my radar; I just found it randomly when I was 13 at a Boys & Girls Club. We were practicing in a basketball court in gym clothes with some old socks on. Even though it terrified me at first, I found that I really liked it. ~ Misty Copeland