I’m dying to be a great dad one day, whenever that day comes.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

Tell the children the truth.

If a great opportunity opens itself up, I would love to be involved… or star in a movie.

Over the years, I had nurtured the hope to be able to fly; to handle a machine as it rose higher and higher in the stratosphere was my dearest dream.

Just talk to me as a father – not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?

Every artist wants something different out the game.

Hopefully I won’t be the last big splash at Under Armour.

I always dreamt of holding the bat and winning games for India. That was my inspiration to take up cricket.

We’re African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

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

If you’ve ever hauled a 28-pound two-year-old around New York, you’ll find that men fold at the knees a lot quicker than women.

I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.

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.

My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God – I thank God every time I think of it – I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.

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

I always wanted to be a father and thought it would be great, but it just took the right woman and the right time to make it all happen.

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.

My three children have brought me great joy.

Homework’s hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, ‚Okay.‘ And then I sit down and they say, ‚It’s math.‘ ‚No! Not math! English, history, anything!‘

The moment you have a child, in an instant your life is not for you, and your life is completely, 100 percent dedicated to another human being, and they will always come first. It changes you forever. It changes your perspective, and it gives you a nice purpose and focus.

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

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.

We make the Sabbath a delight when we teach the gospel to our children.

My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them.

I love our daughters more than anything in the world – more than life itself. And while that may not be the first thing that some folks want to hear from an Ivy-league-educated lawyer, it is truly who I am. So for me, being Mom-in-Chief is, and always will be, job number one.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

I love everything about my job, except being away from the kids.

When I was five, I think, that’s when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn’t like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries.

I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.

I think any activity you have your kids in, you’re all trying to live vicariously through them. And you’re jealous of the kid that’s naturally more talented or has the facility, the body, the genes, or the God-given talent. People get jealous of that.

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.

Historically, the family has played the primary role in educating children for life, with the school providing supplemental scaffolding to the family.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

I don’t want to be an action star, an action star’s life is so short. I want my life to get longer, I want my career to get longer.

But I was the most unashamed lone parent you were ever going to meet.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

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

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

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

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

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever – was write novels.

I have dreams, and I want to see them come to fruition.

I want kids. I want a soccer team, and I want a husband.

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

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

Upon the farm of the uncle with whom I lived, we did know of the mortgage as some dreadful damper on youthful hopes of things that could not be bought. I do have a vivid recollection that the major purpose of a farm was to produce a living right on the spot for the family.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.

I mean, I look at my dad. He was twenty when he started having a family, and he was always the coolest dad. He did everything for his kids, and he never made us feel like he was pressured. I know that it must be a great feeling to be a guy like that.

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of being a star. I didn’t really know what all that meant. I didn’t know.

I know a lot of people say they always believed they could get into F1, but I didn’t quite believe that, certainly not when I was 7 and maybe not until I was 14. It was always so far away.

When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.

Being a kid’s not easy. You’re transforming and becoming a human being. At some point, you have everyone taking care of you, and then, all of a sudden, you’re out in the world.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.