1,327 quotes
Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father's palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels.
Thomas Traherne
Clergyman · British · d. 1674
It is much easier to become a father than to be one.
Kent Nerburn
Author · American
My father was in the coal business in West Virginia. Both dad and mother were, however, originally from Massachusetts; New England, to them, meant the place to go if you really wanted an education.
John Knowles
Novelist · American · 1926 – 2001
No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him.
John Irving
Novelist · American · b. 1942
Dad sometimes patted me on the knee and called me his Little Schmuck.
Michael Reagan
For 50 years my father worked for the railroad.
Harold Evans
Journalist · British · b. 1928
Our Father and Our God, unto thee, O Lord we lift our souls.
William Pennington
Lawyer · American · 1796 – 1862
Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother's parents were very steeped in.
Robert Jay Lifton
Psychologist · American · b. 1926
If I did not have for him the warm affection a son feels toward a less austere and preoccupied father, I at least had an immense respect for him, and a great admiration.
Lincoln Ellsworth
Explorer · American · 1880 – 1951
As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.
David Crystal
Educator · English
As a little boy of eleven I entered the Cadet Corps. I was not particularly eager to become a Cadet, but my father wished it. So my wishes were not consulted.
Manfred von Richthofen
Aviator · German · 1892 – 1918
My dad taught me from my youngest childhood memories through these connections with Aboriginal and tribal people that you must always protect people's sacred status, regardless of the pest.
Steve Irwin
Scientist · Australian · 1962 – 2006
I've always despised old people. I got angry at my father when he began to show signs of age.
William Steig
Cartoonist · American · 1907 – 2003
My uncle was a hero, Lewis Roundtree. He was not even related to me really, but he was always called my uncle. He was like a father to me. I was closer to him than I was my father.
Ed Bradley
Journalist · American · b. 1941
When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.
James Ellroy
Writer · American · b. 1948
I think he would have been proud and smiling... when we laid him to rest because his family was together. I think that was a great gift to be able to give Dad at the end.
As much as I transferred my mother to Elizabeth Shore of The Black Dahlia, as much as her dad mutated into an obsession with crime in general, well, I have thought about other things throughout the years.
There will always be a father.
Gary Gilmore
Criminal · American · 1940 – 1977
My father who in this case was an obsessive life-long storyteller, and by a very peculiar trick of my father's. My father would tell a very, very long story, and the punch line would be in Yiddish.
Stephen Greenblatt
Critic · American · b. 1943
I would say the most help I got was from my dad. My dad is a civil engineer in Switzerland; he's 90 years old now, so he's no longer active as a civil engineer, but still a very active person.
Claude Nicollier
Astronaut · American · b. 1944
Because of my father, we are that Shining City on a Hill.
Becoming a father isn't difficult, but it's very difficult to be a father.
Wilhelm Busch
Artist · German · 1832 – 1908
He followed in his father's footsteps, but his gait was somewhat erratic.
Nicolas Bentley
Author · British · 1907 – 1978
Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became extinct in the second generation.
Frederic William Farrar
theologian · Indian
If I could embed a locator chip in my child right now, I know I would do that. Some people call that Big Brother; I call it being a father.
Scott McNealy
Businessman · American · b. 1954
My father had kicked me out of his house at the height of an argument over an opinion difference. He had become so enraged. He told me never to come back, and that was all the severance it took.
Lynette Fromme
Criminal · American · b. 1948
My father was both the person who gave me reason to learn how to fight and the one who taught me the basics of fighting. He would tell me that if it was a big fight, it would probably be uneven, it wouldn't be fair.
June Jordan
Writer · American · 1936 – 2002
I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected.
Nicolaus Copernicus
Scientist · Polish · 1473 – 1543
My father and his brothers were all lawyers, so I think that the expectation was probably for me to grow up to be an attorney, but it never really fascinated me that much. I was more interested in building things.
Steve Case
Businessman · American · b. 1958
To be a gourmet you must start early, as you must begin riding early to be a good horseman. You must live in France, your father must have been a gourmet. Nothing in life must interest you but your stomach.
Ludwig Bemelmans
Author · Austrian · 1898 – 1962
And so I put down some of the things that he said, about keeping your tools sharpened and not letting them lie on the ground where they get hurt or get abused and dirty and can't find them. And some thoughts about how his father used to do things.
Bruce Nauman
Sculptor · American · b. 1941
And my father, after all, was a nationalist.
Heinrich Mann
Novelist · German · 1871 – 1950
Dad was the only adult male I ever trusted.
You know my father as governor, as president, but I knew him as dad. I was so proud to have the Reagan name and to be Ronald Reagan's son.
I grew up to have my father's looks, my father's speech patterns, my father's posture, my father's opinions, and my mother's contempt for my father.
Jules Feiffer
Cartoonist · American · b. 1929
By the God of thy Father who shall help thee, and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
John Pearson
Theologian · British · 1612 – 1686
I'm aware that most people who meet me for the first time think of me in a certain way because of who my father is. That just comes with the territory. But that's been that way ever since I was a little kid as long as I can remember. I grew up that way.
Ron Reagan
Journalist · American · b. 1958
But as my brother was doing his research for a book about my father, it became his opinion that the most influential anti-semitism my father encountered when he was growing up was from Jews, because his relatives were German Jews, and doctors.
Tobias Wolff
Writer · American · b. 1945
And I started with this: I have not painted at all my childhood. In fact, I never painted. But I helped my father who was a house painter and decorative painter. He made stage sets, he made glass paintings, he made everything.
Josef Albers
Artist · German · 1888 – 1976
Then is when I decided to take it to Archie to see if they could do it as a comic book. I showed it to Richard Goldwater, and he showed it to his father, and a day or two later I got the OK to do it as a comic book.
Dan DeCarlo
Cartoonist · American · 1919 – 2001
He learned through the way that my father and I felt about his songs, his country songs, that they were great songs. And then he went out and sang them for the audiences that we found, and he found a tremendous reaction to that.
Alan Lomax
Writer · American · 1915 – 2002
My Mother is Swedish and my Father is Scottish, he played for Charlton in the 1960's and was in the Army, he captained the British forces team. We then moved to S.A. because a lot of players did that at the time.
Richard Gough
My dad was in the Army and we traveled all over the place and I never failed to win first prize.
Randy Gardner
If, like Harry Keogh, I could talk to the dead - God, there are an awful lot of people I would like to speak to! Not least my father. Being in the army for 22 years, I didn't see enough of him, and I know there are a great many things I could have learned from him.
Brian Lumley
Writer · English · b. 1937
But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.
Norman Lear
Producer · American · b. 1922
I was just studying with my father, a very difficult task for me since he was a great, great Qawwali singer.
Nusrat F. A. Khan
My son is 7 years old. I am 54. It has taken me a great many years to reach that age. I am more respected in the community, I am stronger, I am more intelligent and I think I am better than he is. I don't want to be a pal, I want to be a father.
Clifton Paul Fadiman
Writer
My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
Clarence Budington Kelland
Writer · American
