The loss of a child is my greatest nightmare.

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

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

It took Simone a long time to understand why people want Daddy’s autograph. I’d tell her, and my wife would tell her, too, ‚People see Daddy in the movies, and they are excited to meet him.‘ But she couldn’t really grasp it.

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.

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.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

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.

Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.

I’m not an analyzer. I’ve got a son that analyzes everything and everybody. But I don’t analyze people.

Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

It wasn’t so long ago that I was a working mom myself. And I know that sometimes, much as we all hate to admit it, it’s just easier to park the kids in front of the TV for a few hours, so we can pay the bills or do the laundry or just have some peace and quiet for a change.

I’m not great at bedtime stories. Bedtime stories are supposed to put the kid to sleep. My kid gets riled up and then my wife has to come in and go, ‚All right! Get out of the room.‘

Everything I do, I hope, is that I represent something, and I represent the right things to my children and give them the right sense of what they’re capable of and the world as it should be seen.

I used to meditate all the time in bed. That was when I was raising my daughter, and I’d get her up and off to school, and then I would go back to bed and meditate. And then I would do the same in the evening, and that was very good for that period because I had so many things to juggle as a single mother.

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

To bring a healthy child into this world, raise them right and watch them grow is the biggest miracle there is.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

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

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

The best thing about being a dad? Well, I think it’s just the thing that every man wants – to have a son and heir.

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

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 do not raise brats!

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

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.

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.

I did have two dads; one was a socialist, and one was a capitalist. I really decided I would rather be a capitalist.

Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit ‚how-to-parent‘ strategies both seductive and dangerous.

Since the child knew his parents would give in, he tried the same trick again and again.

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

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

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

Tears are the silent language of grief.

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.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

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.

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.

Any teammate of mine that had a kid and a boy that was capable of playing baseball, I think I set a terrific example of ‚Don’t do this‘ and ‚Don’t do that.‘ And that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.

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.

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a ‚race‘ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest. Comedy is my therapy. That’s how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it’s a release, for lack of a better word.

You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still ‚mom-in-chief.‘ My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

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.

You send a boy to school in order to make friends – the right sort.

My wife is already in Heaven.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

I remember thinking quite logically that I didn’t want to spoil my children with wealth and so that I would create a foundation, but not knowing exactly what it would focus on.

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

The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny.

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

Children make your life important.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‚Wind in the Willows‘ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‚The Wind in the Willows.‘

I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.