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.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don’t baptize the children of single mothers because they weren’t conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today’s hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation.

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

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

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.

I like talking. I like acting.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

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.

A child miseducated is a child lost.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.

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

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.

God always takes the simplest way.

I don’t argue when people say that my message is simple, but I believe Jesus‘ message was simple. Jesus didn’t go around condemning people.

I don’t let my religious world get too complicated.

I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

I feel like I’m the kind of guy that would have kids before getting married. The first thing would be kids.

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

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.

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.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

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

To rule children by force is the technique of Satan, not of the Savior.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

I purposely don’t talk about money, because people are already skeptical about TV preachers. But I do say that I want you to be blessed. To me, prosperity is having health, having great children, having peace, good relationships. It’s not about the money.

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

Simplify, simplify.

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

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

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.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

If you realize all the time what’s kind of wonderful – that is, if we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience – every once in a while, we have these integrations when everything’s pulled together into a unification, in which it turns out to be simpler than it looked before.

Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.

I’m asking myself, ‚What do my girls, what do all our children deserve in their president? What kind of a president do we want for them?‘ Well, to start with, I think we want someone who is a unifying force in this country: someone who sees our differences not as a threat, but as a blessing.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

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

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

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.

Faith is easy; I think people complicate it.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his children and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of Pakistan, a Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws have been violated, its national dignity offended, and its religious traditions desecrated.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.

The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you’re opposed to it. But when you’re writing a novel, you don’t want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

My wife, a schoolteacher, very disciplined. If you think I’m tough, trust me, and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It’s hilarious. So we decided that I’m going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.