Parent Quotes

My parents were marvelously educated people. ~ Stephen Fry

I think that we have created a new kind of person in a way. We have created a child who will be so exposed to the media that he will be lost to his parents by the time he is 12. ~ David Bowie

I never waited 27 years, because 27 years ago I was just born. My parents never told me, 'If you don't win Roland Garros we take you to the orphanage. ~ Roger Federer

Grilling outside with my parents at the Jersey shore. We would grill lobster and corn in the summer. ~ Bobby Flay

The unmarried woman seldom escapes a widowhood of the spirit. There is sure to be some one, parent, brother, sister, friend, more comfortable to her than the day, with whom her life is so entwined that the wrench of parting leaves a torn void never entirely healed or filled ... ~ Charlotte Mary Yonge

They speak to each other through the magistrate, like warring children communicating through a parent, their words are extravagantly emotive illustrated with flamboyant gestures that are wasted on the empty court room ~ Clare Mackintosh

No parent ought to punish a child except with a view to the child's good. And in order to do good to a child through his punishment, a parent must religiously refrain from punishing him while angry. ~ Henry Clay Trumbull

Parents always make their worst mistakes with their oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right. ~ Orson Scott Card

I've thought many times, 'I can't write this,' but on my own little planet I found the courage to write it because it was true. I put aside fear of Father being angry with me. It's hard though; the world pales in comparison with the stature of a parent. In some small-consolation way, my parents feel I'm helping people by giving them something to identify with. They feel proud in a sort of reverse way. My mom's proud of the fact that lots of kids look up to me. ~ Billy Corgan

It's tough for parents to talk to children about heavy-weight topics such as peer pressure, drugs and morality if they don't already have a closeness. A parent can't just all of a sudden pick out an hour and talk to a son about being morally clean if the parent and child haven't spent much time together for three or four years. I think closeness is developed more quickly by having fun together. ~ David A. Bednar

Theodosius was chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and social pleasures of the table, and the warmth of his amorous passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud titles of Imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was raised, by his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent. ~ Edward Gibbon

All over China, parents tell their children to stop complaining and to finish their quadratic equations and trigonometric functions because there are sixty-five million American kids going to bed with no math at all. ~ Michael Cunningham

The issues facing working women and their families are closest to my heart. I decided to focus intently on the challenges military wives face because they juggle the same pressures as their nonmilitary peers, all while coping as single parents while their loved ones are overseas. I wanted to help make their voices heard. ~ Michelle Obama

It is from God that parents receive their children, and it is to God that they should lead them. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What does it feel like to be a parent? What does it feel like to be a child? And that's what stories do. They bring you there. They offer a dramatic explanation, which is always different from an expository explanation. ~ Richard Russo

When they found me, Dad did what every parent I knew would have done - he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad's voice - "Either I can beat him, or the police." Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn't. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

As parents, we may as well accept that we will "lose it" at times. Perfect equanimity is beyond us. Temporary breaks in the relationship with the child are inevitable and are not in themselves harmful, unless they are frequent and catastrophic. The real harm is inflicted when the parent makes the child work at reestablishing contact, as in forcing a child to apologize before granting "forgiveness." There ~ Gabor Mate

Losing both parents at a young age gave me a sense that you can't really control life - so you'd better live it while it's here. I stopped believing in a storybook existence a long time ago. All you can do is push in a direction and see what comes of it. ~ Jon Hamm

I bought my parents a home before they died, and they got to see that I was going to be all right. They always thought I would go someplace. ~ Richard Pryor

It's a huge advantage to have parents who read to you. And it's an advantage that lasts a lifetime. ~ Laura Bush

And so we see the paradox that evolution has handed us. If man is the only animal whose consciousness of self gives him an unusual dignity in the animal kingdom, he also pays a tragic price for it. The fact that the child has to identify -first- means that his very first identity is a social product. His habitation of his own body is built from the outside in; not from the inside out. He doesn't unfold into the world, the world unfolds into him. As the child responds to the vocal symbols learned from his object, he often gives the pathetic impression of being a true social puppet, jerked by alien symbols and sounds. What sensitive parent does not have his satisfaction tinged with sadness as the child repeats with such vital earnestness the little symbols that are taught him? ~ Ernest Becker

I've always had good support of parents for doing what I wanted to do. When it became music they were just as supportive as well. ~ Negash Ali

It is not even accurate to say that Christianity eventually broke away from Judaism. It is more accurate to say that, out of that matrix of biblical Judaism and that maelstrom of late Second-Temple Judaism, two great traditions eventually emerged: early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Each claimed exclusive continuity with the past, but in truth each was as great a leap and as valid a development from that common ancestry as was the other. They are not child and parent; they are two children of the same mother. So, of course, were Cain and Abel. ~ John Dominic Crossan

I mean, you can't have sex until you're married if you're Mormon. The first time I had sex, my parents found out. They were listening in on the phone while I was talking about sex to my girlfriend. They freaked out, man. They both cornered me in my bedroom. ~ Bert McCracken

As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended. ~ David W. Earle

Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism; and when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child. ~ William Hazlitt

A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die! ~ Philip Roth

When I was 12, I forgot the keys to my parent's apartment. So I simply climbed up seven floors to get in. ~ Alain Robert

She wondered if this was true of every parent: if, prior to having children, they all used to be someone else. ~ Jodi Picoult

Some poets marry a language; some have affairs with it; some treat it as a parent, some as a child, some as an equal, or as a friend. ~ Stephen Burt

You have to be grown up, really grown up, not merely in years, to understand your parents. ~ Doris Lessing

Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the "wrong crowd" read like tornado alerts in parent manuals ... It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren't planning to get a Ph. D. from Yale. ~ Mary Blakely

In wonder all philosophy began, in wonder it ends, and admiration fill up the interspace; but the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance, the last is the parent of adoration. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it. ~ Marlee Matlin

So, what is the opposite of a "helicopter parent?" I wonder. A subway parent? A Sinking ship parent? A hibernating bear? ~ Wendy Wunder

Every successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and difficult path of the artist. ~ Chris Abani

My parents never pressured me except to advise me against acting. ~ Emilia Fox

I think we all have something in our life's experience that makes us feel different. It's whether we have a gay parent or we have an alcoholic mother or maybe we don't know our father. And it's something that we feel bad about initially because we think we're abnormal. What's abnormal is our assumption that there's something called 'normal.' ~ Amy Richards

To understand how my father became the way he was, I had to learn what happened to him as a little boy. It took a long time to learn the right questions to ask. ~ Thi Bui

Why would a lazy guy become a parent of five? Then again, why would creative people who inherently don't like change and criticism become writers, actors, or comedians? There's something about this process. I joke about it: My kids have made me a better person, and I only need, like, 34 more of them to be a really good guy. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Put tattoos all up and down our thighs, do anything our parents would despise. Take uppers, downers, blues, and reds and yellows, our brains are turning into jello. ~ Joan Baez

Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ~ Madeline Miller

My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support - which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby's life swiftly and humanely ~ Peter Singer

Your folks are god, you love them and you want to make them happy but you still want to make up your own rules. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Henry, this isn't about us. I mean it is, but they don't define you by the button you wear. They define you by what you do, by what your actions say about you. And coming here, despite your parents, says a lot to them- and me. And they're Americans first. They don't see you as the enemy. They see you as a person. ~ Jamie Ford

I know I still had to take money from my parents, because no one can afford to live in Manhattan, not even the rich people. ~ Drew Magary

To a father, when a child dies, the future dies; to a child when a parent dies, the past dies. ~ Red Auerbach

My need to parent is so much bigger, sometimes, than my children's need for parenting. ~ Margot Page

Losing a parent is a hard thing ... I often sit here and think it would be great if mum and dad were alive and had a chance to see their grandkids grow up. ~ Wayne Swan

If I could summarize my suggestions to parents over the past twenty-five years it would be: worry less, criticize less, preach less, listen more, have more fun, be more honest with your own feelings, develop your own joys and friendships, and don't sweat the small stuff (which is nearly everything). The goal is not to be a perfect parent, because no such thing exists. The hope is to be a good enough parent so that your child leaves home a responsible adult who can take care of him or herself. ~ Charlotte Sophia Kasl

When you have a family, even though you might move a lot, you collect all of these things. It's the detritus of your family and they become the symbols of your family life, and your unit out in the world. In that moment I wanted to allude to the fact that the way my parents' relationship was falling apart was impacting me and my brother, my parents, but also our symbols. ~ Jesmyn Ward

When we love somebody, whether it be a friend, a parent, a child, whether it be conjugal love or neighborly love, the beloved person always stands before us as something precious and noble in himself. ~ Dietrich Von Hildebrand

It is quite in the order of things in folk-tales . . . that a parent should purchase his own safety by sacrificing his son to a ferocious animal or to a supernatural enemy. ~ C. Fillingham Coxwell

Isn't it wonderful to give birth to your own kind? ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home. ~ Pope Leo XIII

Children always think they did something wrong when their parents disappear. ~ Madonna Ciccone

Our children are extensions of ourselves in ways our parents are not, nor our brothers and sisters, nor our spouses. ~ Fred Rogers

There is a lesson we learn early and harmlessly, or late and traumatically - that there are things we can break that our parents can't fix. ~ Robert Breault

When I was growing up, my parents asked me what I wanted to do, and I said that I wanted to live in Springfield. They were like, "Well, that's not how it works. There is an actor who play Homer, and someone who writes what Homer says." So, I was like, "Well, I want to write what Homer says." ~ Jonah Hill

If you sum up your judgment of me, the result you get is that, although you don't charge me with anything downright improper or wicked . . . , you do charge me with coldness, estrangements and ingratitude. And, what is more, you charge me with it in such a way as to make it seem my fault, as though I might have been able, with something like a touch on the steering wheel, to make everything quite different, while you aren't in the slightest to blame, unless it be for having been too good to me.
This, your usual way of representing it, I regard as accurate only in so far as I too believe you are entirely blameless in the matter of our estrangement. But I am equally entirely blameless. If I could get you to acknowledge this, then what would be possible is - not, I think, a new life, we are both much too old for that - but still, a kind of peace . . . ~ Franz Kafka

The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion; but in mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they think they come under another. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'd have to say I'm most proud of my mentoring camp that I do in Dallas every year for one hundred boys from single-parent homes. I was raised by a mother who was a Sunday school teacher and a father who worked hard. Together they taught me to give back. ~ Steve Harvey

Marriage must cease to be a matter of arrangement made by parents for money. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

A sympathetic parent might see the spark of consciousness in a baby's large eyes and eagerly accept the popular claim that babies are wonderful learners, but it is hard to avoid the impression that they begin as ignorant as bread loaves. ~ Paul Bloom

I know it's a lot harder for women who don't have enough help, but the truth is, no matter how much money you have, if you want to stay involved with your children and don't want to lose being a primary parent to them, you're still in the game. ~ Patricia Richardson

I want to thank my parents for not practicing birth control. ~ Dustin Hoffman

I said, "I want to wear something funny and cool. Marjorie, could I wear your sparkly baseball hat?"

The three of us looked at Marjorie.

Now I remember thinking that her answer could change everything back to the way it was; Dad could find a job and stop praying all the time and Mom could be happy and call Marjorie shellfish again and show us funny videos she found on YouTube, and we all could eat more than just spaghetti at dinner and, most important, Marjorie could be normal again. Everything would be okay if Marjorie would only say yes to me wearing the sparkly sequined baseball hat, the one she'd made in art class a few years ago.

The longer we watched Marjorie and waited for her response, the more the temperature in the room dropped and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

She stopped twisting her spaghetti around her fingers. She opened her mouth, and vomit slowly oozed out onto her spaghetti plate.

Dad: "Jesus!"

Mom: "Honey, are you okay?" She jumped out of her seat and went over to Marjorie, stood behind her, and held her hair up.

Marjorie didn't react to either parent, and she didn't make any sounds. She wasn't retching or convulsing involuntarily like one normally does when throwing up. It just poured out of her as though her mouth was an opened faucet. The vomit was as green as spring grass, and the masticated pasta looked weirdly dry, with a consistency of mashed-up dog food. ~ Paul Tremblay

Having a white parent undoubtedly makes for a different childhood experience than having two black parents. ~ Melissa Harris-Perry

There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents-if the term is to be used at all. ~ Bernadette Devlin

I was angry at my parents when I had to have brain surgery, that they weren't still around, because no matter how old you are you want you parents when you're going through something like that. ~ Rosanne Cash

Glen had a disability more disfiguring than a burn and more terrifying than cancer.
Glen had been born on the day after Christmas.
"My parents just combine my birthday with Christmas, that's all," he explained.
But we knew this was a lie. Glen's parents just wrapped a couple of his Christmas presents in birthday-themed wrapping paper, stuck some candles in a supermarket cake, and had a dinner of Christmas leftovers. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I have six kids - four girls and two boys. I'm amazed that growing up in the same house, same parents with the same exposure to the same things that all my six kids can be so different. I see that as their (being) designed by God. ~ Alex Kendrick

I don't know who my parents were. I know nothing about my inheritance. I could be Jewish; I could be part Negro; I could be Irish; I could be Russian. I am spiritually a mix anyway, but I did have a solid childhood fortunately, because of some wonderful women who brought me up. I never had a father or a man in the house, and that was a loss, but you live with that loss. ~ James A. Michener

The mere existence of an additional child or children in the family could signify Less. Less time alone with parents. Less attention for hurts and disappointments. Less approval for accomplishments ... No wonder children struggle so fiercely to be first or best. No wonder they mobilize all their energy to have more or most. Or better still, all. ~ Adele Faber

It's a paradox that most parents would never let their children associate with an undesirable person in their neighborhood, but many think nothing of letting them associate with the same type every day on TV. ~ Randall Wright

We all know people who tend to overstep their bounds. Maybe it is a mother-in-law who tells you how to run your house or a parent at school who always manages to get you to volunteer for events you don't want to participate in. These types of people can be very draining on us emotionally, demanding too much of our time and energy. For you to be the best woman you can be, you need to put boundaries around those relationships. ~ Jessica N. Turner

I really believe that if you're going to bring a child into the world, it's your job to parent that world. Especially if it's just you; you don't pawn her off on somebody. ~ Jennifer Lynch

Everytime I hold you is the last time I hold you, I've known that since the very first time. ~ Joakim Zander

Communism is not a political party nor a political plan under the Constitution; it is a system of government that is the opposite of our Constitutional government, and it would be necessary to destroy our government before Communism could be set up in the United States ... [Communism] even reaches its hand into the sanctity of the family circle itself, disrupting the normal relationship of parent and child, all in a manner unknown and unsanctioned under the Constitutional guarantees under which we in America live. ~ David O. McKay

The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless. ~ Thomas More

I think any parent that makes their kid sit at a piano against their will and practice, they're going to have a kid that's not going to want to play the piano. ~ Debbie Gibson

When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves," he said. "Your whole world ceases to exist and you're nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it in her way, me in mine, and you in yours." He lifted his hand off John's gravestone and rose. "Your mom hates the world, I avoid it, and you try to save it. ~ Nicole Williams

Living a life of faith is not superficial. You are not simply living in some hurt from the past, trying to be the top dog, or even tying to fulfill a parent inadequacy. No, you are on a unique journey, living each day anew, with freedom to be yourself, with special guidance from above, there is a set purpose to what your doing, and some goal in mind. ~ Phil Mitchell

My prescription for women entering the war zone of the professions: study football ... Women who want to remake the future should look for guidance not to substitute parent figures but to the brash assertions of pagan sport. ~ Camille Paglia

I judge myself by the shiny, pretty people I see at parent-teacher meetings, or on Facebook, or Pinterest, who seem to totally have their shit together and never have unwashed hair. They never wait until Thursday night to help their kid with the entire week's homework. They don't have piles of dusty boxes in corners waiting to be opened from the move before last. They have pretty, pastel lives, and they are happy, and they own picnic baskets and napkins and know how to recycle, and they never run out of toilet paper or get their electricity turned off. And it's not even that I want to be one of those people. I fucking hate picnics. If God wanted us to eat on the ground He wouldn't have invented couches. I just don't want to feel like a failure because my biggest accomplishment of the day was going to the bank. ~ Jenny Lawson

There's no one right way to parent, and there's no magic combination of genders that produces the most well-adjusted child. We all do the best we can at loving our kids and building our families. ~ Jessica Valenti

Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensible structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown.
Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need. That is why, for many people, a job is crucial psychologically, over and above the paycheck. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be organized. The absolute demands imposed on a parent by an infant, the responsibility to care for an invalid, the tight discipline demanded by membership in a church or, in some countries, a political party - all these may also impose a simple structure on life. ~ Alvin Toffler

International adoption does not begin to solve the problems of the world's orphaned children. It's truly not the answer. At the same time, it solves a problem for a few. I think it can be a brilliant solution to the problem of adults wanting a child in their lives or wanting more children in their lives and the problem of children who want parents in their lives. ~ Melissa Fay Greene

Suddenly I realized that I wanted everything to be as it was when I was younger. When you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing other than a chair. A dandelion growing out of a crack in the sidewalk outside your front door is a garden. You could believe that a song your parent was singing in the evening was the most tragic opera in the world. It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you. ~ Heather O'Neill

Sales is the parent of marketing. ~ Eben Pagan

For a very long time, ever since men formed societies in which some people bossed others, children have fulfilled this very important function. Every adult parent, however lowly or powerless, had at least some one that he could command, threaten, and punish. No man was so poor, even a slave, that he could not have these few slaves of his own. Today, when most "free" men feel like slaves, having their own homegrown slaves is very satisfying. Many could not do without them. ~ John Holt

I come from very conservative parents, and we weren't particularly wealthy, but we were comfortable. ~ Richard C. Armitage

We owe our existence to our parents, but we actually didn't have a choice. ~ Leon Kass

My parents met in Kenya. My father is African, is Kenyan. The Kenyan side of my family was involved in the anti-colonial movement. ~ Tom Morello

I always thought I'd make a good parent, but I was single and led a solitary life for many, many years. Then I met David, and he had experience with kids and wanted to have a family, too. ~ Neil Patrick Harris

It's amazing how coke encompasses everything in your life. Addicts cannot confront life because they only think of their next hit. I ruined life for my parents, my sister and all my friends. ~ Kirstie Alley

You will find love, when you surrender yourself to love. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

One of my favorite things is watching my children learn something new. The combination of innocence and excitement makes a parent feel truly alive, even if only for a second and peripherally. ~ Michael Adam Hamilton

Love is probably the most powerful force in the cosmos, capable of creating miracles. Love can manifest in so many ways - love between parent and child, husband and wife, partner and partner, teacher and student, service volunteer and recipient, God and one's spirit. The manifestations of love are innumerable. ~ Mike Love

There is a core value I wanted to illuminate: No matter what kind of family you have - straight, gay, married, single parent, separated, no kids, two kids, 20 kids, whatever - we all go through the human comedy. But if the bonds are strong enough, and the desire is there, you can get to the other side, still together and still a family. ~ Lisa Cholodenko