She got her looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

I like being with my family. That’s my party.

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

We had problems like all families but we had a lot of love. I was extremely loved. We always felt we had each other.

As a father, safety is always a top of mind issue for me.

Like every parent, when you start your family, your life completely changes. And you completely live for someone else. I find that the most extraordinary thing. Your life is handed over to someone else. From that moment on, they come first in every choice you make. It’s the most wonderful thing.

My mom, she was a very, very soft woman. It was hard for her to yell or even curse. But when it came to fighting for her kids, she found a strength she didn’t always know she had.

I grew up around lots of men – my father, my brothers, my uncles – so I wasn’t intimidated by them.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread – works all the time. I think I’ve been eating pasta for 26 years.

No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!

My parents are my backbone. Still are. They’re the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Family home evening is more for the purpose of teaching values and gospel principles, displaying talents and enjoying different kinds of family fun and activities.

Maria is the best reason to come home.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

We make the Sabbath a delight when we teach the gospel to our children.

My family was mostly unemployed working class.

My mom and I are very close.

Who’s my hero? That’s a great question… Well, I think my dad is my hero, because he’s someone I look up to every day.

My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

I was very blessed to have family and friends, but particularly family, who told me I was not only all right, I was just right, so I believe that my brain is a good one, and it’s lasting me very well.

The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

I’m a woman, and anytime you tell a woman that she looks nice, it’s not going to upset her.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

Actually, I didn’t start sweating until I had children.

I like to think my dad was easygoing and kind, and I think some of those things have been passed down. I am like him in a sense of being positive and hopeful. He was compassionate, and I’ve got a lot of that in me as well.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it.

Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.

I believe that my parents did wonderful things for us.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

My son is becoming me – just a silly, silly prankster guy.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

A family shares hardships and a connected history.

I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I’ve met.

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

In my heart, I’m just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I’m not a rich man.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

I’m just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back some of that spirit.

I’d go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.

People who work for me know that family comes first. And I’m fortunate to have a family that is very supportive of the work I do, so I don’t have to live two separate lives.

I love our daughters more than anything in the world – more than life itself. And while that may not be the first thing that some folks want to hear from an Ivy-league-educated lawyer, it is truly who I am. So for me, being Mom-in-Chief is, and always will be, job number one.

Of all nature’s gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?

That’s what I do this for, to secure my family’s future. I don’t care about anything else. I’m able to spoil people, and that’s the best thing.

I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night.

My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God – I thank God every time I think of it – I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don’t take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn’t know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don’t talk about baseball at home.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Life guided me to being a bodyguard, protecting people, then in the movies, so I’m happy with everything because basically all I ever wanted to do was be a good son and take care of my mother.

Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister.