I just want to make sure when I have kids, I can spend time with them. That’s the whole point.

My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I’ve had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm’s way until they could be their own guides.

My mother taught children to love to dance.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Tell the children the truth.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

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 know from having had a child, and from having been a child myself, that children will copy you.

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they’re already asleep.

The thing I want more than anything else? I want to have children. I used to feel for every child I had, I would adopt another.

There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

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

I’ve worked with children all my life.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

I think the reason I don’t read is because, when I’m reading, I feel like I’m missing out on something else. You know, What are my friends doing? Where’s my girlfriend?

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

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.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

My mother insisted that her children read.

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

My children love Maleficent’s voice, so they always make me do it at home.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

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

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.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

The side of fairytales I don’t like is that they always have happy endings, that there’s just good and evil, and things are perfect. But life is a little more complicated, and that’s what I try to teach my kids.

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.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

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

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

Just be a cool grandpa who’s creative, and hang out and tell stories and read a book in the library.

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

I had my first baby at twenty-one.

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

Pfft, I hate Christmas Day. It’s for children and families. Not for people like me.

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

I’d like to think that I’m a calm and sweet person. I tend to be very playful at home with my children, but in life… we have to fight our battles – our work battles, our political battles, our personal battles – and we’re focused.

Never take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in.

We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and me at all. I think we would both prefer that they didn’t become actors.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

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

Unfortunately, the highly curious student is a small percentage of the kids.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

The childcare tax credit makes some sense.

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

I want parents to teach that academic intelligence is essential, but so is financial intelligence.

The ‚Maddox Jolie-Pitt‘ Foundation’s work is inspired by our children and their connections to particular countries.

We’re all bombarded with so many dietary messages that it’s hard to find time to sort through all this information, but we do have time to take a look at our kids‘ plates.