If you’re working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.

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

My three children have brought me great joy.

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

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

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

When I was a young kid, I did not even dream about playing for my country. It was such a farfetched thing to play for India.

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

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

My momma didn’t clean up floors so I could be a thug… so I could wear my pants down.

If you want someone to say, ‚She’s so sweet, and she’s so cute, and, honey, point your foot,‘ that’s not my school. You can go to the YMCA and have a nobody teach your kid if that’s what you want to hear.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, ‚He is not a lush.‘ That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, ‚Look!‘

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.

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.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

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 notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We’re the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.

Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.

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

I always joke that my kids‘ favorite holiday is Father’s Day. They love the way I celebrate the occasion by writing each of them a thank-you letter and a generous check. It’s my way of letting them know how much I appreciate the great pleasure and privilege of being their dad.

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life… it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.

Men are what their mothers made them.

I was kind of secretly hoping one of my kids would go out and make a million bucks. So when they put me in a home, at least I’ll have a window with a view.

My son is becoming me – just a silly, silly prankster guy.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.

I wish I had been home more when the children were growing up. I missed a lot.

Education commences at the mother’s knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character.

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.

In order to fulfill the aspirations of masses, we have to sharpen the tool called the government machinery: we have to make it keen, more dynamic, and it is in this direction that we are working.

I always entertain great hopes.

Do I worry about being in the public eye and raising kids? Yeah. Any situation you’re in, you’re gonna worry about raising kids. But it’s champagne problems, too. There are people who can’t feed their kids.

A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship – and you know what, a father does, too. It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a ‚Mad Men‘ episode.

I had this dream to become a writer since I was a teenager.

I didn’t tell any of my friends that I wanted to be a comedian, because I was superstitious. I thought if I told people, it wouldn’t happen. So I kept it all in my head for years and years.

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

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.

I think about the milestones from my childhood and what it will be like to watch our kids go through them. Taking Riley to her first day of school was a whirlwind. I can’t imagine what middle school is going to be like, and high school, and graduation.

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

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword – two jackets, one that’s driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

I’m definitely looking forward to the day when I stop working – if I ever stop working. I like the idea of keeling over in my tomato vines in Sardinia or northern Italy.

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

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.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

Why should I stop working? If I do, I’ll die and it’ll all be finished.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

My next baby will be my new record.

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

We’re all dreamers.

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.