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.

People are underestimating the force of angry kids.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Today, the news is scandals; that is news, but the many children who don’t have food – that’s not news. This is grave. We can’t rest easy while things are this way.

In any court-like environment of power, you will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are successful or powerful, not out of admiration, but out of secret envy.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

I’ve always been a singer. I never really decided I was gonna be a singer. It just kind of – I just sung a lot.

I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision to make because I missed my children so very much.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

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

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

Maleficent has suffered abuse in the past, and there’s a reason why she is now as furious as she is. And I think that children who have been outcast and abused in any way will relate to her. There’s a beautiful side to her; she’s not just a dark person. She has all these facets. And that is interesting.

Britney Spears was an incredible dancer. That kid was amazing.

When you have two busy kids running around the house, returning e-mails is a task, let alone surfing the web.

As a father, safety is always a top of mind issue for me.

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

India has over 20 percent of the kids born in the world. And they move around a lot.

I think about my own sons and my own daughters, and I’m sure that many parents are concerned about what their children are exposed to.

My children love Maleficent’s voice, so they always make me do it at home.

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

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.

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

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.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

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.

I have ‚Parents‘ magazine in my home.

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.

My son complains about headaches. I tell him all the time, when you get out of bed, it’s feet first!

No, we don’t own our children. Our parental privilege is to love them, to lead them, and to let them go.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

If you’ve got a talent, protect it.

I believe that every one of us has a gift. And I believe that mine is the ability to take the complex and make it simple.

Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it’s on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you’ve got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration.

I can hold my own when it comes to burping. I’ve got a good feeling that I could win a championship.

I’m trying to do what Eddie Murphy did for his generation. You have to show people, ‚I’m different. I’m not just a comedian.‘ I’m trying to become a rock star.

If you’re a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don’t understand talent any more than we understand electricity.

I don’t pick up toys. I crush them.

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.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

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

Playing big, heroic characters with heart is always a lot of fun. I enjoy making movies like that, and a lot of people love to live vicariously through those characters.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

I believe that every person is born with talent.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

Let the path be open to talent.

From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

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.

With colleagues in the work environment, we fail to see the source of their envy or the reason for their manipulations; our attempts at influencing them are based on the assumptions that they want the same things as ourselves.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

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 friend has a baby. I’m recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.

Before ever meeting Priyanka Chopra, I had heard her name coming out of Bollywood and was impressed: she was beautiful, talented, had made nearly 50 movies, earned multiple awards – a massive star.