My Father Told Me Quotes

#1. My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories - not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father's generation. It's a kind of inheritance, the memory of it.

Haruki Murakami

#2. More than fifty-five years ago my father told me, "The Bible does not belong on the shelf but in your hand, under your eye, and in your heart."

Martin Niemoller

#3. You and I certainly had out issues, Cooper. But I never, for a moment, doubted that you could be trusted. My father told me once that your word was good amber. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

Jayne Castle

#4. My father told me when I first started that standup is exciting and I should pursue it, but that writing would be the thing that would give me power over my career. I never have to take a road gig or a writing gig I don't want because I always have the ability to play one against the other.

Greg Fitzsimmons

#5. Like my father told me, if at first you don't succeed, try again. And again. And again. But after that, give up. It's no good being stubborn.

Bryce C. Anderson

#6. My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar - I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty one.

Bob Hope

#7. My father told me once not to expect anything from anybody so I wouldn't be disappointed. If somebody was nice and did nice things for me, I should be overjoyed, but I shouldn't go through life expecting it, which is very good advice.

Iris Apfel

#8. But my father told me, and my grandmother told him, whenever you try to change something, you sacrifice something else.

Heidi Heilig

#9. My mother wrote poetry when I was young - I have an early memory of the sound of her typewriter - and my father told me inventive bedtime stories.

Eula Biss

#10. My father told me very early on that it was a sin to worry too much.

Mel Gibson

#11. When I was a kid, my father told me every day, 'You're the most wonderful boy in the world, and you can do anything you want to.'

Jan Hutchins

#12. On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.

Maeve Binchy

#13. I know who you are. My father told me stories about you. He talked about your hands- hands that created the world surrendered to cruel nails

G.P. Taylor

#14. If I tried to shout over my older brother, my mother told me keep quiet. If I tried to shout over my little sister, my father told me to shut up. I found the best way to be heard was to lower my voice and actually speak when I had something to say.

Peter Welch

#15. The walls of the arch are covered with blood-red jellies that wink and glisten at me by the light of the moon. My father told me they were completely harmless. I don't believe him. Nothing is completely harmless.

Maggie Stiefvater

#16. Shortly afterwards my father told me that he might be going into the Eastern Zone of Germany. At that time my own mind was closer to his than it had ever been before, because he also believed that they are at least trying to build a new world.

Klaus Fuchs

#17. My father told me to go to bed an hour ago. I don't see why I shouldn't give you the same advice. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of ant use to oneself.

Oscar Wilde

#18. If the Danes are outnumbered," my father told me that night, "they won't fight. They're like dogs, the Danes. Cowards at heart, but they're given courage by being in a pack.

Bernard Cornwell

#19. My father told me 'Name your price in the beginning. If it ever gets more expensive than the price you name, get out of there.'

Dave Chappelle

#20. Son, anything can happen to anyone," my father told me, "but it usually doesn't.

Philip Roth

#21. When I was younger, my father told me not to pigeonhole the way that I perceive myself.

Domhnall Gleeson

#22. I'm Dhani Harrison," he said. "One of the last things my father told me was that if I ever come across people who were important to him, I should give them a hug.

Martin Short

#23. My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.

Tana French

#24. My father told me, never have partners.

Howard Hughes

#25. My father told me marijuana would cause me brain damage - because if he caught me doing it he was going to break my head.

Tom Dreesen

#26. My father told me once that we are on earth to learn. God wants us to receive everything that life was meant to teach. Then we take what we've learned, and it becomes our offering to God and to mankind. But we have to live in order to learn. And sometimes we have to fight in order to live.

Amy Harmon

#27. My father told me that if I ever did anything artistic, I was going to look like a hooker. I told him, 'With these huge boobs that I inherited from your mother, I already look like a hooker!'

Sofia Vergara

#28. My father told me I should marry the woman that loves me, not the woman I loved.

Leon G. Cooperman

#29. I made the mistake of writing something very, very short about Obama for this website that I write fiction for, and my father told me never do that again. And he was right. I have nothing to add to a political conversation because it's not my area.

Jesse Eisenberg

#30. My father told me abuse is generational.

Glenn Beck

#31. When I started racing my father told me, 'Cristiano, nobody has three balls but some people have two very good ones.'

Cristiano Da Matta

#32. As a child, I was rather active for my age. Sensing something special about me, my father told me that I had the vision to accomplish great things in life. He always encouraged me to do what I wanted to do - and this has stood me in good stead.

Sunil Mittal

#33. The last thing my father told me was: 'On your way up, take me up. On your way down, don't let me down.' A father telling his son that puts some responsibility on my shoulders. He told me that, and I take it very seriously.

Ziggy Marley

#34. There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.

George R R Martin

#35. My father told me you have two loves in your life: What you do and the people you're with.

Mario Van Peebles

#36. My father told me to dress to reflect the respect you have for the people around you. I've never forgotten that.

Sam Raimi

#37. When I was 7, I wanted to be a jockey. My father told me women weren't allowed. I couldn't believe it. I was perfectly willing to fail on my own merits, but to be flunked at birth?

Mavis Leno

#38. When I was a small boy, my father told me never to recommend a church or a woman to anyone. And I have found it wise never to recommend a restaurant either. Something always goes wrong with the cheese souffle.

Edmund G. Love

#39. [i]We were fighting so very hard and achieving so very little aside from staying alive. BUT THAT'S EVERYTHING, my father wrote to me, when I told him that in a letter.[/i]

Helen Oyeyemi

#40. Raysel, you told me yourself that your father wasn't my liege anymore. I don't have to obey his wishes, spoken or unspoken, and so I can finally say this: go drown yourself, you self-righteous little bitch.

Seanan McGuire

#41. My father was an atheist, absent. He was a salesman; I was four years old when he told me that the end of life was death.

Alejandro Jodorowsky

#42. My mother told me once that she and my father agreed that I would not be brought up Jewish in Chicago. She had me going to a Methodist church.

Wesley Clark

#43. I'm often a crier and many things make me cry. I come from a crying family - my mother cries, my grandma used to cry. It was never shameful to cry. My father never told me men don't cry.

Michael Silverblatt

#44. My father Big Max told me many years ago that 'anything you are good at will contribute to your happiness'. Great advice.

Max Walker

#45. I spend a lot of time parenting because I'm home. A friend of mine told me that the average father sees each kid an average of twenty-two minutes a week, which I found almost unbelievable. Mine are in my hip pocket all the time. And I like it that way.

Stephen King

#46. My father, a surgeon and urologist, studied sex professionally all his life. Before he died at 82, he told me he hadn't come to any conclusions about it at all.

Katharine Hepburn

#47. Sometimes I try to remember things my mother told me about the awful way he was raised. But why does he have to keep on going? Why would you take something bad out of your mouth and hand it to another, saying, Here, eat this?

Elizabeth Berg

#48. You scratch whatever itches you choose," Charles told her, his voice cold and quiet."Enjoy yourself. But at the end of the day, you remember that Isaac belongs to my father - and to me. He is necessary to us as you are not. You will leave him unharmed or I will hunt you down and destroy you.

Patricia Briggs

#49. I asked her why my father resisted the guards when they always won in the end. Why didn't he just save himself the pain and pay them what they wanted? She told me that sometimes, you can't choose what happens to you, but you can choose who you become because of it. That's why my father fought back.

Jessica Khoury

#50. I wanted to take up music, so my father bought me a blunt instrument. He told me to knock myself out.

Jay London

#51. My father once told me love is magic, sir.

Victoria Alexander

#52. I told my mother at about the seventh year of therapy that I had been abused sexually by my father, and she hung up the phone on me.

Anne Heche

#53. When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.

Paula Danziger

#54. Afterwards, walking to the car with my father, he told me I had played a nice game. No I hadn't, I said, it was terrible. Well, you did your best, he answered. You can't do well everytime.

Paul Auster

#55. My father took me aside one day soon after and told me this: The things you do in your twenties are just things you do. But as you approach thirty what you do starts to become who you are. And there are some things you do not want to be forever.

Jessica Valenti

#56. My father once told me that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for. If you don't know that, he said, what are you worth? Nothing. You're not a man at all.

Tana French

#57. Oh, that all the things my father had told me about how disgusting Washington is are true. And again it's the system - there are lots of nice, well-meaning people there. But it's a sleazy place. And politics is all about doing favors.

Esther Dyson

#58. My father once told me that anyone who worked for three dollars an hour owed it to himself to put in four dollars' worth of work.

Bill Russell

#59. My father lied to me! He distorted the events, taking credit, hiding the extent of the brutality and suffering - even Omnius knew it. On the other hand, Serena had told him the truth.

Brian Herbert

#60. I was a hostess in a restaurant in New York when I was 21, and I was too good of an employee. I was putting most of my energy into that instead of acting. But my father told my sister and me to look at whatever needed to be done and do that job well, no matter what it was.

Emily Deschanel

#61. My father said the weakest camel draws the wolves."
"Mine told me to hide until the wolves go away," Abban replied.

Peter V. Brett

#62. The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up.

Madeleine Albright

#63. Pavlik denounced his father's crimes, and when Trofim shouted out, 'It's me, your father,' the boy told the judge: 'Yes, he used to be my father, but I no longer consider him my father. I am not acting as a son, but as a Pioneer.

Orlando Figes

#64. My goal was to play drums, but my father made me take piano lessons. He told me I needed to learn to read music first, so I took lessons for six years. I thank God that he made me take those lessons, because it taught me a tremendous amount.

Brian Austin Green

#65. I am a storyteller, and I grew up with a father who told big-fish stories, so storytelling is very much a part of me. It was a part of my family.

Susan Stroman

#66. I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.

Imelda Marcos

#67. I was a very good baseball and football player, but my father always told me I was much more interested in how I looked playing baseball or football than in actually playing. There's great truth in that.

John Malkovich

#68. My father was an old - fashioned bloke, and he actually told me one day, "I'm not your friend, I'm your father. My job is to bring you up, give you values for life and to ensure that you carry those values through."

Warren Mundine

#69. My father was clearly a mentor. He told me if you work 10 years and you worked 40 hours a week, then you had 10 years experience. But if you worked 10 years and you worked 60 hours a week, then you had 15 years' experience.

Terry J. Lundgren

#70. When you have a child, you think about your personal history and what you offer them as a larger narrative, and I realised I knew nothing about my father's circumstances other than what he'd told me.

John Burnside

#71. My father told and taught me that the word, can hit harder than the fist.

Wladimir Klitschko

#72. Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I'm considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, Who knows why the fuck anything happens?

Ben Aaronovitch

#73. She told me that while my father's body might be crushed under tons of black earth, the body is nothing but camouflage. She whispered that every soul is a river trying to find its way back to the sea.

Simon Van Booy

#74. My father didn't think running was sensible. He told me running is just wasting time.

Haile Gebrselassie

#75. My father once told me about a city on the other side of the sky.

Gods watch over us from there.

Mervin Ignacio

#76. This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating.

Melina Marchetta

#77. When she asked what my father taught me, I told her I couldn't put it into words. But then I lay awake watching the snow fall outside and came up with this: how brave a thing it was for him to try to rediscover something, even if it was only himself, not a continent.

Peter Geye

#78. 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

#79. Suddenly I'm aware of my own heartbeat. This is what my father said would happen. He told me that they would ask me if I was aware during the simulation, and he told me what to say when they did. "No," I say. "If I was, do you think I would have chewed through my lip?" Tori studies me

Veronica Roth

#80. Me and my father went through a war period where we wasn't talking. He wanted me to go to theology school - I didn't want to go. I wanted to do music. I told him I was a minister through music.

Wyclef Jean

#81. My father once told me that I have a mind like a lint trap - I pull stuff out of everything, and a lot of it just clings.

Ellen Klages

#82. I was raised in Brooklyn and in Baltimore. My father was a bookkeeper. When I was 36 years old, my mother told me I was adopted.

Harry Frankfurt

#83. My father always told me to wisen up, son.
Cause if you hung with nine broke friends, you're bound to be the tenth one.

PMD

#84. When I was a boy, my own dad told me in a smiling and wistful way that it's a wise man that knows his own father.

Michael Leunig

#85. I remember having my father stand over me when I had driven over my own foot; one leg was out of the car and one leg was in the car. He looked at me and told me that I was a drunk and that he was ashamed to call me his son. That night, I stopped drinking and I never drank again; I was twenty four.

Randy Bachman

#86. I was 21 and had been going out with my boyfriend for two years when I found out I was pregnant - despite being told by doctors that I was sterile. Jamie's father and I hadn't discussed marriage, and to me, it wasn't something to be entered into just to stop gossip.

Joanna Lumley

#87. My parents love it! They're on set. They make cameos in the movie. My father is a psycho-analyst and a professor at Harvard and he told me how many of the other professors at Harvard have gone and seen it. They love Hostel and they love the thought behind it.

Eli Roth

#88. But my father was also the one who told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I'd never find a man. What's very important to him is manners. Show up on time. Always send thank-you letters. He is one of the more thoughtful humans I've ever met. He's a great man and a very good dad.

Zosia Mamet

#89. I had a choice. My instincts told me to hurry up and give the choking man the Heimlich maneuver. My brain told me to stay still until he expired and chalk this one up to divine intervention.

Dinah Katt

#90. And I told Father Flood that since I would already be getting my reward in heaven, I have that nicely arranged, thank you, he owes me a favour that I would like repaid on this earth.

Colm Toibin

#91. My dad had once told me a definition of faith and I had not forgotten it: 'Faith is to believe something you do not see. The result of that faith is to see what you believed'.

Braam Malherbe

#92. My father hasn't told me about it but he showed me the straight path

Fahmid Hassan Prohor

#93. My father always told me, 'Don't waste energy worrying about things you can't control. Spend your energy focusing on solutions'.

Jared Kushner

#94. Wing watched her leave and turned to Otto. 'My father once told me that only the foolish man pulls on the tiger's tail as it dangles from the tree.' It was the first time that Otto had seen him smile.

Otto grinned at Wing. 'True, but how else do you find out if it's a tiger at all?

Mark Walden

#95. When I was a sophomore in college, my father called me at the fraternity. He told me he no longer had the funds to pay for college. If I wanted to continue, I would have to do it on my own.

Terry J. Lundgren

#96. My father made me who I am. He gave me a basketball and told me to play with the ball, sleep with the ball, dream with the ball. Just don't take it to school. I used it as a pillow, and it never gave me a stiff neck.

Shaquille O'Neal

#97. My father once said something very shrewd about me to a woman journalist who had told him how courageous she thought I was for always speaking my mind. My father said, 'If you couldn't care less what anyone says about you, then it's not courage.'

Gore Vidal

#98. She told me that every other step was just for me.'
But that's only half of the dance,' I said.
Yeah,' my father said. 'She was keeping the rest for herself. Nobody can give everything away. It ain't healthy.

Sherman Alexie

#99. I grew up in a second when my mother died," he told Sunil. "My father and brother didn't understand me.

Katherine Boo

#100. Before I left home for drama school in England, my father took me outside one night and told me that wherever I was, the moon would shine on both of us. Months later, walking in London, I'd look at the moon and feel his love. Now I've shared the ritual with my own kids.

Roma Downey