I think a father is important for everyone. If you don’t have, then maybe not so much. In the world today, it’s possible that you grow up with only one parent in the family.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

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

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

My son has died of AIDS.

My sisters are stronger and my brother’s bigger than me.

My mother is from another time – the funniest person to her is Lucille Ball; that’s what she loves. A lot of times she tells me she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I know if I wasn’t her son and she was flipping through the TV and saw me, she would just keep going.

We lived in a tall, narrow Victorian house, which my parents had bought very cheaply during the war, when everyone thought London was going to be bombed flat. In fact, a V-2 rocket landed a few houses away from ours. I was away with my mother and sister at the time, but my father was in the house.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

I’m happiest with my family around me.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We’re the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.

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.

My biggest competitor was my mum. I used to try to beat her at Chinese chequers, chess, carrom, volleyball, badminton, football, wrestling.

My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I’d wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, ‚You’re going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.‘

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

I have spent so much time and so much energy making other people’s children stars.

‚Love Story‘ is actually about a guy that I almost dated. But when I introduced him to my family and my friends, they all said they didn’t like him. All of them!

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

My kids are the funniest two human beings there are.

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

There’s a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

I’m blessed to have such a tight-knit family that we can talk about anything. Whether we talk frequently or not, since we’re on separate ends of the country, there are a lot of moving parts, and we always stay tight and find that center ground that keeps us together.

Marriage and family are ordained of God. The family is the most important social unit in time and in eternity. Under God’s great plan of happiness, families can be sealed in temples and be prepared to return to dwell in His holy presence forever. That is eternal life!

My family, frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn’t raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.

I’m happy that I have my family, and I’m happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing’s changed, really.

People wonder aloud about whether I am an okay mother. That is obviously painful because it’s so important to me. It’s hard to hear that people think I’m not a capable mother and a good person, that they just think I’m nuts.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

I’ve lost both parents in the last two years, so you pick up on that stuff. That’s the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother’s funeral, but you don’t switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

My husband’s a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can’t raise children who have more shame resilience than you do.

A family shares hardships and a connected history.

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

John D. Rockefeller apparently became more of a tightwad the richer he got. I don’t know if it is true, but one story I read was about one of his sons having to wear his older sister’s clothes in order to save money.

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.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

Someday I want to have children and give them all the love I never had.

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.

We should not look down on our first ancestors.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

My grandpa was a preacher.

Treat your children like the blessings they are or don’t have them at all.

My father opened a restaurant. It’s so amazing… it’s so freaking delicious, but I’m telling you I gain five pounds every time I go in there.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

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

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

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.

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

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

I knew I was blessed with a gift of having both parents.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Do I worry about being in the public eye and raising kids? Yeah. Any situation you’re in, you’re gonna worry about raising kids. But it’s champagne problems, too. There are people who can’t feed their kids.

What used to keep me up at night was the fact that I didn’t know how I was going to pay the rent. Now that I can pay the rent, I’m worrying about people I care about, you know, the people I love. The little aches and pains of my children that I, my family. That’s always first.

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

Whenever something went wrong when I was young – if I had a pimple or if my hair broke – my mom would say, ‚Sister mine, I’m going to make you some soup.‘ And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.

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.

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

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

If something inconveniences my children too much or takes me away from them, I won’t do it.