My parents were divorced by the time I was even conscious – like, I don’t remember them ever being together.

Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!

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

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry.

People are always coming up to me and saying, ‚I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.‘ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.

We believed in our idea – a family park where parents and children could have fun- together.

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.

My mom is American, so I was raised in her household in my formative years.

What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy’s tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes.

I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.

Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.

When I was 5, some financial things happened, and I moved seven times in a year. We moved from apartment to apartment, sometimes living with friends. My mom would always say, ‚Don’t get comfortable, because we may not be here long.‘

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief. Making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls… that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe.

Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.

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.

My family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation.

From the time I was a kid, I always knew something was going to happen to me. Didn’t know exactly what.

Children, I mean, think of your own childhood, how important the bedtime story was. How important these imaginary experiences were for you. They helped shape reality, and I think human beings wouldn’t be human without narrative fiction.

I’ve been in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus since I was 8.

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there’s less of you.

I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don’t want people to think that ‚Let’s Move‘ is about complete, utter deprivation. It’s about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families.

My mother was Catholic, my father was Protestant. There was always a debate going on at home – I think in those days we called them arguments – about who was right and who was wrong.

My family has never been there for me. They expect things because we’re blood.

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.

I’m touring the world, not doing nothing against the law, getting money to feed my family. I got employees that have felonies, and they can’t get jobs. They work for me.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of.

When they set off for their first day at their new school, I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls, just 7 and 10 years old, pile into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns.

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 knew sports was important to us and our family, but there are priorities in life.Obviously, faith is foremost; how we did in school is important. If we didn’t handle that business then there were no privileges.

When I was 8, I thought I was Harrison Ford, Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Elvis, and Chuck Norris all at once.

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.

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

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

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

My parents are my backbone. Still are. They’re the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

I just want my family to be safe. Because I am sometimes polarizing, I fear for their safety.

It’s a big compliment that so many people want to see me. For them, it’s all about football. That’s what they remember about me.

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

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.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

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.

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

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.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

My whole family have all been through a difficult time. My focus is my children, our children.

The name Zahra was to have been lman’s own name at birth, but a senior member of the family changed it to lman at the last minute.

All that the future holds in store for each sacred child of God will be shaped by his or her parents, family, friends, and teachers. Thus, our faith now becomes part of our posterity’s faith later.

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

In my heart, I’m just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I’m not a rich man.

My mother and my father have been married 50 years, and he’s just started to understand that something’s wrong with the system. He accepted the whole thing, you see. Yet this industrious kind of engagement didn’t bring him the success, according to American terms, that he wanted. I was probably affected by this very much. In fact, I know I was.

Akron, Ohio, is my home. It will always be remembered. Akron, Ohio, is my life.

I think I have had so much blessing – I’ve had my brother, who was brilliant – I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother – Bailey was just all of that. He loved me.

From my childhood I had been intended for the clergy. This prospect hung like a dark cloud on my mind.

Sometimes a nickname is used instead of the real name. But a nickname may offend either the one named or the parents who gave the name.