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

My mother raised me with God. We were poor financially, but we were rich spiritually.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

I feel impressed to counsel those engaged in personal challenges to do right. In particular, my heart reaches out to those who feel discouraged by the magnitude of their struggle.

You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

I’m attracted to women who are smart and funny and ambitious and have lives of their own and great families. Isn’t that what attracts anyone?

We were poor, but we smiled.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

I purposely don’t talk about money, because people are already skeptical about TV preachers. But I do say that I want you to be blessed. To me, prosperity is having health, having great children, having peace, good relationships. It’s not about the money.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

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.

In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.

Standing in support of children is something we should all be able to get behind, regardless of party affiliation.

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.

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 brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

I was born in Earl K. Long Hospital. I was born Feb. 5th, 1986. I have a lot of family members. My grandmother had five girls, and all of them had children. It was always a house full. A lot of cousins. A lot of family members.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

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

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

I used to carry my father’s Bible and put it on the pulpit so he could preach.

I am prepared to resort to anything, to submit to anything, for the sake of the commonwealth.

My father opened a restaurant. It’s so amazing… it’s so freaking delicious, but I’m telling you I gain five pounds every time I go in there.

Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‚Why?‘ ceaselessly.

The kids are a big part of my schedule.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

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

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

My dad was very intelligent, had a very strong personality. I was amazed with my father.

WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren’t playing so well, you don’t have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.

They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need – protection and love.

For an Ethiopian mother, if you have a chubby kid, it means you’re doing something good.

You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That’s a part of it.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

To the women and children, T stands for tender. To the bad guys and thugs, it stands for tough.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

When you’re in prison, you want to know that you were thought about.

My dad was the town drunk. Most of the time that’s not so bad; but New York City?

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.