A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he’s in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.
A word to the wise ain’t necessary – it’s the stupid ones that need the advice.
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Any man today who returns from work, sinks into a chair, and calls for his pipe is a man with an appetite for danger.
As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by “survival of the fittest.”
Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.
Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.
Did you ever see the customers in health – food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half – dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They’re dying, of course, but they look terrific.
Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you’re telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.
Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.
Every success story has a parent who says, ‘over my dead body.’ Every success story has an old person who walks up to you and says, when you’re acting the fool, ‘you know I worry about you sometimes.’
Family is conflict and it’s something that we all relate to.
Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.
For college seniors there should be a week of being allowed to cry. Just break down and cry because you are scared and don’t know what’s next.
Gray hair is God’s graffiti.
Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit.
Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.
I am certainly not an authority on love because there are no authorities on love, just those who’ve had luck with it and those who haven’t.
I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.
I cannot understand how the education of this United States of America has been fooled time and time again. Either make it separate but equal or integrate, therefore it will be equal. And it has been separate and unequal.
I don’t have a problem believing in God and Jesus. But in Genesis one has to wonder about these sentences that just go on and end without finishing. The thought is unfinished. Where did Adam go? What is he doing? Hello? There has to be some pages missing.
I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
I guess the real reason that my wife and I had children is the same reason that Napoleon had for invading Russia: it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I have to follow my thoughts and mine for the gold. I have to dig it out.
I often try to tell kids to think about all the people who love you, don’t cry over the one person who doesn’t.
I think the part of media that romanticizes criminal behavior, things that a person will say against women, profanity, being gangster, having multiple children with multiple men and women and not wanting to is prevalent. When you look at the majority of shows on television they placate that kind of behavior.
I want all this loud profanity in the street stopped. I want people to think about choices.
I was put in remedial everything.
I wasn’t always black… there was this freckle, and it got bigger and bigger.
I’m not the healthiest, but I am healthy. I’m healthy to the point where there are things that I have to eat that I don’t want to eat, but I eat it because I’m enjoying staying alive.
I’m old, not dead.
If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right.
If you have no faith, you’ve lost your battle.
If you speak your mind and if it is true what you’re saying, then I think the integrity of what you’re saying carries through.
Immortality is a long shot, I admit. But somebody has to be first.
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
It isn’t a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that’s beautiful.
Kids need to remember that when you put something on Twitter, it’s not like whispering to your friend, you’ve put it on a billboard that the whole world, including your own kids someday, can see.
Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge.
Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.
Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy.
My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn’t because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.
No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.
Nothing I’ve ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a father to my children.
Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.
Old is always fifteen years from now.
Parents are not interested in justice, they’re interested in peace and quiet.
Parents are people who yell and they yell and they yell and they yell. And you already have the point… and they’re still yelling.
People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.
Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die.
Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made.
Sex education may be a good idea in the schools, but I don’t believe the kids should be given homework.
Social networking helps reach people easier and quicker.
That married couples can live together day after day is a miracle that the Vatican has overlooked.
The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic.
The first-born in every family is always dreaming for an imaginary older brother or sister who will look out for them.
The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods.
The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.
The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.
The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.
There are some people who have trouble recognizing a mess.
There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.
There is no job a man can do that is undignified – if he does it well.
There is no labor a person does that is undignified; if they do it right.
Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
We’re not raising children with the love that we need to.
We’ve got to get the gun out of the hands of people who are supposed to be on neighborhood watch.
When a person has a gun, sometimes their mind clicks that this thing will win arguments and straighten people out.
When I say, I don’t care what white people think, I mean that.
When I was a boy if a girl got pregnant the shame was placed on her and the boy could get away.
When you become senile, you won’t know it.
When you carry a gun, you mean to harm somebody, kill somebody.
When you introduce competition into the public school system, most studies show that schools start to do better when they are competing for students.
Women don’t want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think – in a deeper voice.
You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.
You can’t compete with Walmart. But you can have smaller businesses that are successful.
You know the only people who are always sure about the proper way to raise children? Those who’ve never had any.
