These wretched babies don’t come until they are ready.

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.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

The human body is strange and flawed and unpredictable. The human body has many secrets, and it does not divulge them to anyone, except those who have learned to wait.

With the amount of money I have, it’s difficult raising children the way I was raised.

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.

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

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.

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.

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.

We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and me at all. I think we would both prefer that they didn’t become actors.

My kids are the funniest two human beings there are.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

I look at how my kids view exercise. They have a complete understanding that nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. I didn’t think like that when I was a kid. But they have a real consciousness about it that I’d like to think comes from the years of attention we’ve put into this.

When I’m around the kids I feel like I act the most grown-up just because you’re supposed to. And I say things, like every other day, that remind me of my own parents.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

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

He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

I didn’t start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born – I started getting wicked BO. You know there’s a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

If I ever had twins, I’d use one for parts.

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

The loss of a child is my greatest nightmare.

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

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’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

The only time my records are going to be broken is by my own spawn. I’m going be training that child out the womb.

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

Sometimes, it’s just easier to say yes to that extra snack or dessert, because frankly, it is exhausting to keep saying no. It’s exhausting to plead with our kids to eat just one more bite of vegetables.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that’s where a lot of preachers‘ kids get off base sometimes. Because they don’t see the same things at both places.

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.

No parent is perfect; we all can look back and think of things we could’ve done to help our children be better prepared for adulthood. And sometimes it’s best to admit it to them and encourage them to learn from our mistakes.

You have a ready wit. Tell me when it’s ready.

Even if we give parents all the information they need and we improve school meals and build brand new supermarkets on every corner, none of that matters if when families step into a restaurant, they can’t make a healthy choice.

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.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

I wasn’t going to shy away from getting married when I did and having a baby young and starting a family, even with the job that I chose.

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

Be nice to your children. After all, they are going to choose your nursing home.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

The kids are a big part of my schedule.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

When I take my kid to school, all the parents stop and stare.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

As a father and now a grandfather to three wonderful grandchildren, I know how magical the first year of a child’s life is but also how much hard work it takes. Being able to spend as much time as possible with your loved ones is absolutely vital, especially early on.

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.

This is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff. I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

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.

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

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.