My three children have brought me great joy.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

My grandmother used to embarrass me more, when she would pick me up from school wearing a big fuzzy hat. I didn’t like that.

Being the only man in the household with my mom definitely helped me grow up fast.

For me, often, there’s such a cloud of melancholia about knowing I’m going to have to leave my daughter on her own. I don’t know what age that is going to be, thank God. It just doubles me up in grief.

There is a ‚sanctity‘ involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

When you have two busy kids running around the house, returning e-mails is a task, let alone surfing the web.

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.

I think the depth, what children can handle and what they’re interested in, is much deeper than I think what people assume. I think it’s why sometimes we make things too simple for them.

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.

I mean, families are weird.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

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.

You know, nothing is more important than education, because nowhere are our stakes higher; our future depends on the quality of education of our children today.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

In our home there was always prayer – aloud, proud and unapologetic.

Be nice to your children. After all, they are going to choose your nursing home.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

I take my kids to school. And if I go to work, I go to work, and they visit me on set. I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, very warm home.

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

I’m touring the world, not doing nothing against the law, getting money to feed my family. I got employees that have felonies, and they can’t get jobs. They work for me.

Through the ages, many of His children have had access to the blessings of the gospel, but many more have not.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

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.

Just talk to me as a father – not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?

I was born in Earl K. Long Hospital. I was born Feb. 5th, 1986. I have a lot of family members. My grandmother had five girls, and all of them had children. It was always a house full. A lot of cousins. A lot of family members.

A people do not throw their geniuses away. And if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists and as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children and, if necessary, bone by bone.

With the amount of money I have, it’s difficult raising children the way I was raised.

Too many people treat parenting like it’s the 20th item on their to-do list.

My mom and my dad were both very sociable, meeting lots of interesting people.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

I still learn, but I think it’s the best thing in life to have a kid.

I don’t know if I officially proofread my father’s book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

My parents weren’t actors or studio executives.

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

When I tell a child something the first time, I’m nice. The 15th time, I start to get aggravated.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow.

In the real world, children love me.

You know, my family and friends have never been yes-men: ‚Yes, you’re doing the right thing, you’re always right.‘ No, they tell me when I’m wrong, and that’s why I’ve been able to stay who I am and stay humble.

When I cook for my family on Christmas, I make feijoada, a South American dish of roasted and smoked meats like ham, pork, beef, lamb, and bacon – all served with black beans and rice. It’s festive but different.

Since the child knew his parents would give in, he tried the same trick again and again.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

I’m not an analyzer. I’ve got a son that analyzes everything and everybody. But I don’t analyze people.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

I was very worried about my mother, growing up – a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me.

I believe with all my heart that America remains ‚the great idea‘ that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.

I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids. Whenever the time is right, I’ll just know. If I had a girl, she’d probably be really rebellious. She would be like a bundle of karma. I would love to bring them up in Barbados.

I used to live with my grandmother. I used to wonder why the other kids in school went home with their mothers and fathers. I wanted to be the guy that got married. I wanted to be the guy with the children and the white picket fence. I never had that.

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

Most of us are raised to believe we are ordinary. The anchor of the universe is present in every child. A parent only needs to guide and step aside and let them fulfill their dharma. Help children remember that they can do or be anything.

My mom and I are very close.

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

That’s one of the biggest things. Never being home, always traveling, having different interests and focusing on different things, just the time aspect of going back home and seeing them, you don’t have that at all. It was a big sacrifice but, at the end of the day, it was worth it.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

Something’s very wrong with a nation that would rather spend money on war than take care of its children.