Dad Quotes - Page 58

From a very young age, I liked to take apart things. All of my Christmas gifts would wind up in a million pieces. I actually recall taking apart my dad's lawnmower three times to understand how combustible engines work.

From time to time, I'll look back through the personal journals I've scribbled in throughout my life, the keepers of my raw thoughts and emotions. The words poured forth after my dad died, when I went through a divorce, and after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. There are so many what-ifs scribbled on those pages.

I grew up in such a macho family. I had a former Green Beret for a dad, a mom who's really rough-and-tumble, and three very macho brothers.

I struggle every day with trying to be a better dad, a better husband, better musician, better artist. It consumes me, and I don't see an end in sight.

What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys.

If my own current husband was suddenly a stay-at-home dad, it would be emasculating. That would be hard for me.

I asked my Dad once, "How did you and Mum stay married for 33 years?" He said. "Well, we never wanted to get divorced at the same time.

Mom was the one who taught me unconditional love. With Dad, I'd always felt there was something to live up to - expectations. But in the last year, we had a wonderful relationship.

Swimming in my Daddy's big nuts

My dad was in the Navy, so we moved around a lot. That led to me seeing myriad cultures and cuisines. I have been excited about eating and cooking for as long as I can remember.

My dad's family were political and he was always a theatrical creature, whereas my mum is really musical and her father was the touring pianist with Nat King Cole. My family was an explosive mixture of politics, religion and music - no wonder I turned out how I did.

I've never been a hands-on dad. I'm not ashamed to admit it, but you can't run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

In my case, I was born to parents who were very young, and I don't think they were entirely ready to have a child. My dad was going to college and working two or three jobs at the same time, and my mum was working and going to school.

There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.

After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time.

I had watched Dad climb into the biggest arena and succeed. I wanted to find out if I had what it took to join him.

The best advice I got from my aunt, the great singer Rosemary Clooney, and from my dad, who was a game show host and news anchor, was: don't wake up at seventy years old sighing over what you should have tried. Just do it, be willing to fail, and at least you gave it a shot. That's echoed for me all through the last few years.

Within our culture, every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy, basically.

It's a very painful, eye-opening experience to realize, "Wait a minute, my dad actually doesn't want me to be successful because he's not happy." Whether you call it misery loves company, it's not like parents are bad people. It's a human trait. It's just a thing.

'Nil By Mouth' was a bit autobiographical, but as I always pointed out at the time, that's not my dad.

I met Gemma, my wife, when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for her to meet me. Later, she started coming to my concerts, but I only got to know her well after her mother died. I rang to see how she was, and that's how it started.

I was born when my dad was 50... It's weird growing up with a dad that much older than you. We'd go to the movies, we're both getting discounts.

I would have loved to have had a gay dad. At school, there were always kids saying 'my dad is bigger than your dad, my dad will batter your dad!' So what? My dad will shag your dad..and your dad will enjoy it.

Dad took moving pictures of us children washing dishes, so that he could figure out how we could reduce our motions and thus hurry through the task. Irregular jobs, such as painting the back porch or removing a stump from the front lawn, were awarded on a low-bid basis. Each child who wanted extra pocket money submitted a sealed bid saying what he would do the job for. The lowest bidder got the contract.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.