I can encourage my daughter to love her body, but what really matters are the observations she makes about my relationship with my own body.

Whatever role I play is a positive role; it’s a strong role. Never negative.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

When I’m around the kids I feel like I act the most grown-up just because you’re supposed to. And I say things, like every other day, that remind me of my own parents.

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.

If your mom cries a lot, you probably cry a lot. It’s what you learn.

You bring children into the world. You love them with heart and soul.

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 more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

My husband says I look like a Q-tip.

I think it’s so important for girls to love themselves and to treat their bodies respectfully.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

I’m not the most attractive fella. I’m not a Billy Dee Williams. Personality is everything.

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

Over the holidays, and even during filming, I realized that I actually like my body, even if it’s not perfect according to the book. I just feel sexy. For the first time, I don’t want to get rid of the curves. I just want to tone it up. My body is comfortable, and it’s not unhealthy, so I’m going to rock with it.

Children are our most valuable natural resource.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.

My mother loved children – she would have given anything if I had been one.

There was a point where I really felt I had ‚penniless divorcee lone parent‘ tattooed on my head.

At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.

All parents are concerned about their children’s well-being. As a parent of three kids, I’m very concerned about their well-being.

We all have our imperfections. But I’m human, and you know, it’s important to concentrate on other qualities besides outer beauty.

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

According to Ethiopian custom, parents wait to name a baby because children often die in the first weeks of life.

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‚Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?‘ I said: ‚Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.‘

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.

I had a C-section, and I found it fascinating. I didn’t find it a sacrifice, and I didn’t find it a painful experience. I found it a fascinating miracle of what a body can do.

You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still ‚mom-in-chief.‘ My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

I do not think that I am a natural born mother… If I ever wanted to mother anyone, it was my father.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

I’m not a parenting expert. In fact, I’m not sure that I even believe in the idea of ‚parenting experts.‘ I’m an engaged, imperfect parent and a passionate researcher. I’m an experienced mapmaker and a stumbling traveler. Like many of you, parenting is by far my boldest and most daring adventure.

I think all women go through periods where we hate this about ourselves, we don’t like that. It’s great to get to a place where you dismiss anything you’re worried about. I find flaws attractive. I find scars attractive.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

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

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

I love my daddy. My daddy’s everything. I hope I can find a man that will treat me as good as my dad.

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

I don’t let a lot of reporters meet my children.

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

If you have enough people sitting around telling you you’re wonderful, then you start believing you’re fabulous, then someone tells you you stink and you believe that too!

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

I was called really horrible, profane names very loudly in front of huge crowds of people, and my schoolwork suffered at one point.

You are not a problem that needs solving.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with with your self-esteem. They’re no good at all.

Any teammate of mine that had a kid and a boy that was capable of playing baseball, I think I set a terrific example of ‚Don’t do this‘ and ‚Don’t do that.‘ And that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.

I had my first baby at twenty-one.