Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

Film is a very tight little box. If you don’t fit in that box, you’re gone. Television, there’s more room to move around.

Having a child, that’s always been my biggest fear. I want a child and I fear a child.

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: ‚Checkout Time is 18 years.‘

When I take my kid to school, all the parents stop and stare.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

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.

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 don’t believe you could be a 39-year-old quarterback in the NFL and eat cheeseburgers every day. I want to be able to do what I love to do for a long time.

I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don’t want people to think that ‚Let’s Move‘ is about complete, utter deprivation. It’s about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

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.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

I think the running game is very important to every offense. Being balanced is extremely important. There’s times where you have to throw the ball. You could be down late in the game, you need to come back; you have to be able to pass it when they know you’re passing it.

My ultimate life dream project is my kids. My family.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.

Children are our most valuable natural resource.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

An index is a great leveller.

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

I don’t want people saying, ‚Should we get a female director?‘ I want to hear, ‚Should we get a great director for this movie?‘

My dad was like a stage mother he always pushed me to do what I wanted.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

When I feel I’m doing too much, I do less if I can.

I will never win an Oscar, and do you know why? First of all, because I’m not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money for all those old farts in the Academy.

I think I have had so much blessing – I’ve had my brother, who was brilliant – I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother – Bailey was just all of that. He loved me.

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.

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God’s sake, not a television personality.

I’m one of those people who says, ‚yes, cinema died when they invented sound.‘

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.

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn’t let them into the family brokerage business.

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

My mother was Catholic, my father was Protestant. There was always a debate going on at home – I think in those days we called them arguments – about who was right and who was wrong.

The loss of a child is my greatest nightmare.

My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

When I was growing up, my family was so poor we couldn’t afford to pay attention.

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

You know, I live a monastic lifestyle. No, I do. I do live in extremes, basically. I go back and forth. Once every six months, I’ll have a day where I eat more chocolate than has ever been consumed by a human being.

A lot of preachers‘ kids are some of the most rebellious kids in the world. I never was like that.

Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.

I was totally dominated and revered my father. I admired everything he did. He was a great sports person. He loved me. I was his only boy at that time, before my brother Billy came along.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

Hollywood has a way of making everything seem like an overnight success.

I’ve always wanted a baby.

You know, my sister sings, my brother plays drums in my band. My whole family is a bunch of musicians.

I imagine I will spend my days traveling from country to country to visit our children, who I expect will live around the world.

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

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

There’s love, and certainly children you care about more than yourself. But nevertheless, we’re alone in our heads.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

I never promise anything. I don’t promise anything to my mum. I don’t promise anything to the supporters.