My Parents Told Me Quotes

#1. My parents told me that education was the path to success - and they showed me, taking me to Head Start while they were pursuing their own college degrees.

Denise Juneau

#2. My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.

Amy Tan

#3. Most of my story ideas come from my childhood. Sometimes they hatch from stories my parents told me, sometimes they come from experiences in my own life, and sometimes they are inspired by mere moments.

Kimberly Willis Holt

#4. When I was a child growing up in Maine, one of my favorite things to do was to look for sand dollars on the seashores of Maine, because my parents told me it would bring me luck. But you know, these shells, they're hard to find. They're covered in sand. They're difficult to see.

Sarah Parcak

#5. My whole life growing up, both my parents told me not to swear like a sailor. After college, I recall there was finally a time where I swore, and neither one of them was correcting me, and I felt so relieved. I thought, finally; I can finally be myself and not get yelled at.

Rory Freedman

#6. My parents told me I must get married. I was seen as a failure if I didn't do it.

Ben Folds

#7. I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

Adam Sandler

#8. My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble, not to make any noise.

John Lewis

#9. My parents told me they knew they made lots of mistakes raising us, but that they did their best. Most parents will say something like that at some point, and they are usually right. But I think children also do their best while being raised. Finding family "happiness" is a fine balancing act.

Torill Kove

#10. PEOPLE USED to be connected to one another all the time. That's what my parents told me. Everyone had phones and computers. Everyone called and kept in touch. They used to be everything, these things that are barely remembered now. These things that mean nothing to me.

Lauren DeStefano

#11. I've wanted to act since I was little, but my parents told me I couldn't pursue it until after college. The understanding was that I was lucky enough to be able to go to college and that it's important to being successful in life.

Allison Williams

#12. My parents told me to marry for money,' said her husband. 'But I chose the love of a strong woman.'

'And look what trouble I turned out to be,' she said.

Helen Simonson

#13. It wasn't until I got 'SNL' that my parents told me they were a little bit worried, like that I would have food to eat.

Jorma Taccone

#14. My parents told me that children were taken from their families in 1941, and my mother had a child taken from her - with the goal of saving him.

Vladimir Putin

#15. Girls see these defined roles they're supposed to follow in life, but when I was a young child, my parents told me I could be anything.

Joan Jett

#16. When I was growing up, my parents told me, 'Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.' I tell my daughters, 'Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.'

Thomas Friedman

#17. My parents told me any and every fairy-tale from all around the world. I usually gravitated towards ones with interesting, strong heroines.

Sarah J. Maas

#18. My parents told me to be careful of you. That's how I knew you were the onyly one of us we could trust with our lives.

Brian K. Vaughan

#19. It's funny because I've resisted acting as a career for most of my life. But both my parents told me if I ever want to direct, I should act first because no director should direct until they know what it's like to be in the actor's shoes.

Dylan Penn

#20. My parents told me either I choose badminton, or school has to make the best of me.

Taufik Hidayat

#21. I was 12 when my parents told me we were moving to Lebanon. I remember thinking, 'Leba-who?' I had absolutely no concept of the place.

Greg Kinnear

#22. I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me.

Greg Egan

#23. My parents told me I'd point to a bed of flowers and say 'Pink. Pretty,' before I knew any other words.

Joni Mitchell

#24. I am fortunate: my parents told me the world was my oyster, when they could have said I wouldn't make it for a lot of reasons - rural, girl, small African country. So, no regrets.

Dambisa Moyo

#25. When I was a little kid, no matter what my parents told me, I would always argue - even if I agreed with them. And I've always been a show-off. As I've gotten older, I've found ways to be more subtle about it, but that's the way I am. I suppose that has something to do with why I write and direct.

Tom Noonan

#26. My parents told me, 'Skating is a privilege, not a right, and school always comes first.'

Ashley Wagner

#27. My earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children.

Billy Corgan

#28. I don't think my parents told me enough how the world doesn't really care about me. I think it's important to tell children that the world doesn't really care about you. You have to fight to be heard.

James Gray

#29. People often assume New York City is no place to keep a dog. This is certainly what my parents told me when I was growing up there. But I have found this not to be the case at all.

Jill Abramson

#30. My parents always told me that nothing was impossible.

Richard Rogers

#31. My friend and I were up to all sorts of shenanigans at school. But one time it ended up disrupting the whole class and we got in trouble. His parents told him he wasn't allowed to hang out with me any more. I had a friendship break-up in third grade. It was brutal.

Arj Barker

#32. I told my parents, 'You've taken care of me all my life, helped me through college. You've been awesome, but now it's my turn to be my own man.'

Eric Close

#33. I wanted to tell his dad that Nathan was fine the way he was and that he was the one that needed to change. It made me glad to have my parents. If I told my dad I was gay, he'd probably just look scared and hand over more safe sex money. -Nick Severson

C.K. Kelly Martin

#34. For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.

Sally Ride

#35. When I was ten, I spent a school holiday watching a lot of films: 'Dead Poets Society', 'Stand By Me', 'Home Alone' and 'The Goonies'. It completely inspired me. I told my parents I wanted to become an actor after that.

Russell Tovey

#36. I wouldn't listen to my parents, but I found out that I absorbed. I never heard what they said - told me - but I did what they did.

Andrew Young

#37. What I really had was stories, the oral traditions of my parents. We moved so much that that was really our encyclopedia. A dream world told to me from my parents in the living room.

Juan Felipe Herrera

#38. My mother once told me that you really know someone when you know their parents.

David Levithan

#39. When I asked my parents how the baby got inside Ma, they both laughed, and then Daddy told me they had made it with their bodies. I pictured them fully clothed, rubbing furiously against each other, like two sticks making fire.

Wally Lamb

#40. It's always been 'go'. It's always been 'lie' and 'hide' and 'disappear'. I've never belonged anywhere or had the right to call anything my own. But Coach gave me keys to the court, and you told me to stay. You gave me a key and called it home. I haven't had a home since my parents died.

Nora Sakavic

#41. My parents always told me I'm beautiful the way that I am, and I never thought to myself that I needed to be skinny because there's a magazine out there that said, 'Oh, size two,' or, 'Oh, this girl's beautiful because she's skinny.'

Hayley Hasselhoff

#42. David Stern should get with the mothers of the NBA and let the moms decide what the dress code should be. I asked my mother if I could wear a chain, and she told me yeah. So I do stuff that my parents allow me to do.

Shaquille O'Neal

#43. Being kind is the most important thing I've ever been taught. That's what my parents always told me - more important than ambition or success is being kind to people. The cornerstone of my life. What I aspire to is to be kind.

Rafe Spall

#44. My parents always told me, 'Do what you love because that is what you will do well in.' They told me to make sure that you are happy.

Dylan Lauren

#45. My parents never projected their dreams onto me. If they hoped I would be a great pitcher, or political figure, or artist (no chance), they never told me about it. Their view of parenting was to offer love and encourage me to chart my own path.

George W. Bush

#46. I had an idyllic childhood and when my parents bought me a Punch and Judy Show and a ventriloquist's dummy, I'd perform anywhere, anytime. My parents were wonderful when I told them I wanted to be an entertainer.

Ken Dodd

#47. I was never the girl that grew up saying I want to get married. I actually told my parents to not expect me to get married.

Camila Alves

#48. If I have any complaints about my youth ... one is that many well-meaning adults lied to me. Not spiteful lies with malicious intent but lies designed to prevent emotional and psychological pain - lies told by the people who cared about me most: my parents, teachers, relatives.

Chris Crutcher

#49. My parents never told me I was beautiful, and for one very good reason. I wasn't. When your child is a tubby, bespectacled little oddity, as I was, it's important not to give them false expectations.

Laurie Graham

#50. When I grew older and awkward, when my parents divorced and life had gone all to hell, Demetrie stood me at the wardrobe mirror and told me over and over, 'You are beautiful. You are smart. You are important.' It was an incredible gift to give a child who thinks nothing of herself.

Kathryn Stockett

#51. 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

#52. My parents gave me stability and a belief in myself and in all the possibilities life has to offer. I was told the only limitations I would ever face were those I placed upon myself.

Dionne Warwick

#53. I wasn't sure how my dad would react. There was an agent sitting behind them and he told me he was embarrassed to watch the scenes. My parents have always been very open. They trust my decisions.

Shannon Elizabeth

#54. My foster parents were very religious. They told me that they had not decided to take me in, rather that it was God that had decided it for them.

Lemn Sissay

#55. My sense of injustice about our family's 'weirdness' in not owning a car was amplified by the fact that we did not own a television, either - my parents were unapologetic about this and told me very cheerfully that I would thank them for it when I was older, which was quite true.

Eleanor Catton

#56. Having a support system is huge for writers. My parents were always encouraging and told me they were behind me, whether or not I made it in the business. My wife was always there for my successes and failures.

Stephen J. Cannell

#57. The report card just told me, my teacher, my parents maybe 3 weeks before when they gave me a test HE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MY POTENTIAL.

Bob Proctor

#58. I'll just go over to the Duke's," I said. "Her parents already told me I could stay there. I'll go over there and open all my presents, and talk about how my parents neglect me, and then maybe the Duke will give me some of her presents because she feels so bad about how my mom doesn't love me.

John Green

#59. I never waited 27 years, because 27 years ago I was just born. My parents never told me, 'If you don't win Roland Garros we take you to the orphanage.

Roger Federer

#60. My parents always told me that you always want to be the worst of the best. If you are the best, you never learn.

Toni Trucks

#61. If I told my parents that I was going to do that [ to be really counsel to a Prime Minister] when I was kid, they would probably put me in therapy.

Warren Mundine

#62. Grimm: The Thing with Feathers (#1.16) (2012)
Monroe: Molly, my girlfriend from high school, left me for a klaustreich, so I might be a wee bit riled up about them. He told her he loved her. He got her pregnant. She ended up delivering his litter at prom. Her parents were not thrilled.

Jacob Grimm

#63. My dad had once told me, crimson-red deep in "the talk," that with sons, all he had to worry about was one penis, but with a daughter, he had to worry about everyone else's.

Nicole Williams

#64. No one I knew in Sydney was thinking about how they might come to America and become a movie star. That would be considered delusions of grandeur. My parents were supportive, though. They just told me to keep at it as long as I was having fun.

Luke Bracey

#65. My parents always told me to be myself. I was always funny and silly as a kid. And I would always make them laugh. And they always told me to dream big and follow those dreams.

Richard Simmons

#66. Once my brother was very angry on my parents and told them "You should have killed me when I was a child"
Interestingly I was present and told him "I don't think it is still too late" and I have never heard him complaining about life.

M.F. Moonzajer

#67. My parents always told me I could do anything, but never told me how long it would take

Rita Rudner

#68. My parents, Gary and Patricia, let me be in my world. They never told me what I couldn't do. It helped me adapt in a positive way.

Candis Cayne

#69. When I was growing up, my parents always told me that I had to do what I thought was right and not listen to other people. That was hard for me.

Hillary Clinton

#70. My working poor parents told me that I could do better. They taught me that I was as good as anybody else. And it never occurred to them to tell me that I could just rest comfortably and wait for good old Uncle Sugar to feed me, lead me and then bleed me.

Mike Huckabee

#71. I can't remember a single time [my parents] ever told me not to do something I wanted to do.

Sally Ride

#72. So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.

Dustin Hoffman

#73. I told my kids when they were little, 'Look, kids, your mother and I are screwing you up somehow. We don't understand how, or we wouldn't do it. But we're parents. So somehow we're damaging you, and I want you to know that early. So just ignore me when I go to that part of my parenting.'

Pat Conroy

#74. My parents were very supportive. They went to every show. And they never told me not to do what I was doing.

Annette Bening

#75. My parents were definitely on the incentive side of parenting. Like, they told me that my father had learned to read when he was three. So, of course, I thought I had to, too.

Chelsea Clinton

#76. My parents never told me to get a real job. They always said, 'Go for it! If this is what you want to do, work hard.' They were always very supportive.

Imelda May

#77. When I went to college, as much as my parents emphasized academic achievement, they emphasized marriage even more. They told me that the most eligible women marry young to get a 'good man' before they are all taken.

Sheryl Sandberg

#78. To my father, who told me the stories that matter. To my mother, who taught me to remember them.

Marita Golden

#79. People at shows have told me that they've shown my videos to their parents and families to help them come out of the closet. It's very inspiring that comedy can do that and can help people cope with everyday life and challenges through humor.

Margaret Cho

#80. My parents always told me that if you want something, you can do whatever you have to do to get it. As long as it's not against someone else.

Marion Cotillard

#81. My parents had told me that I would not really die, not the real me: that nobody really died, when they died; that my kitten and the opal miner had just taken new bodies and would be back again, soon enough.

Neil Gaiman

#82. My parents have always told me to work hard. My father was a friend, a very good friend, but when he needed to be a father, he was.

Jeev Milkha Singh

#83. My parents always knew that I wanted to act, so it didn't really come as a big surprise. The only thing they told me was that I had to wait until I was 18 so I could get my education out of the way first.

Rumer Willis

#84. When I was seven and told my mom, 'I'm gonna be a writer,' she said, 'Oh, that's a terrible idea. You'll live in misery and die teaching other people's children badly.' My parents wanted the safer path for me, and I think they failed miserably achieving that.

Stephen Gaghan

#85. The only other time I can recall my dad getting upset at me was when I missed a hockey practice. My parents were away, so my buddy and I decided to skip it. I never told my dad about it, but he found out from the coach.

Mike Weir

#86. I was the suburban kid of Scottish parents, and the idea of an acting career was so beyond my experience. I didn't even know there were drama schools until a friend told me.

Lindsay Duncan

#87. I never got picked on, but I never had a lot of friends. When I talked to my parents about it, they said, 'They're just jealous because you're beautiful and talented.' It was probably one of the worst things they could have told me, because I became self-conscious.

Teri Polo

#88. Im pleased to say that in telling them, and especially my parents, they told me that they love me and they support me. And for young people out there, know that thats usually what the answer is.

Ian Thorpe

#89. When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me.

Ben Schwartz

#90. So many times, people told me I can't do this or can't do that. My nature is that I don't listen very well. I'm very determined, and I believe in myself. My parents brought me up that way. Thank God for that. I don't let anything stand in my way.

Chantal Sutherland

#91. Even though I played national level badminton, I told my parents when I was in 10th that I was not interested in continuing. Being a model or actor fascinated me from a young age, and I even did a couple of ads when I was just eight years old.

Deepika Padukone

#92. As a child, I was a brat, and my parents didn't know how to control me. So they told me ghost stories, which stayed with me. I am still petrified of darkness and being alone.

Bipasha Basu

#93. My parents were angry, but they were relieved that I was in good condition. They had been afraid the Russians would torture me. They told me not to do it again!

Mathias Rust

#94. My parents won't let me have a motorcycle, but they give me all the guns I want. I asked them for a motorcycle last Christmas and they told me I'd only kill myself. They got me this twelve-gauge instead.

Scott Thompson

#95. My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, "If you want to do that, fine." When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, "Fine, but study welding just in case."

Robin Williams

#96. I owe a lot to my parents, because they kept no genre off limits. Music was always playing in the house. They never told me to be quiet, turn the music down or anything like that. So I felt pretty free and experimental as a kid to kind of figure out my own voice.

Tori Kelly

#97. You told me a love story. I honestly believe your parents wanted the best for you, but their love almost destroyed your life. If Our Lady, as she appeared in my grandmother's painting, was treading on a snake, that indicates that love has two faces.

Paulo Coelho

#98. Archie asked if I'd told my parents about him, and I said I hadn't. "How much longer are you going to keep me in the closet?" he said. "It's dark in here. And I keep stepping on your shoes.

Melissa Bank

#99. I've been very blessed. My parents always told me I could be anything I wanted. When you grow up in a household like that, you learn to believe in yourself.

Ricky Schroder

#100. I would not have stayed at a university if it told me upfront that a condition for me getting tenure. my views have to be filtered through Catholic values. I would consider it a betrayal of my parents' legacy.

Norman Finkelstein