Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
I don't know who my parents were. I know nothing about my inheritance. I could be Jewish; I could be part Negro; I could be Irish; I could be Russian. I am spiritually a mix anyway, but I did have a solid childhood fortunately, because of some wonderful women who brought me up. I never had a father or a man in the house, and that was a loss, but you live with that loss.
Your friends may influence your decisions even more than your parents will.
I wanted to be an actor. My parents were not too keen on that.
It's all about loving your parents.
My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter's life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of the rationale behind us staying married for 30 years.
Before, I guess, mum and dad were everything, but now, in my case, I had two new girls and all of a sudden they're completely dependent on you and there's a third generation. It's a funny shift all of a sudden. You have the babies, you have yourself and then you have your parents.
When I was a kid, you would tune in to "The Tonight Show" before you went to sleep. Johnny Carson. A big treat. I know it's a privilege of mine to be able to be in people's homes. So I hope I make everyone proud, including my parents, and do a good job in this.
Before, I used to ask permission to my parents to leave the house. Now it's - I ask permission to my children to leave the house. They own the house.
There's a natural tendency for children to, in some sense, inherit the cultural values of their parents. I'm not against that, that's fine, that's wonderful. What I am against is labelling. Nobody ever labels a child a cricketer because his father is a cricketer, but they do label a child a Catholic because his parents are Catholic. I think it's more or less unique. Nobody ever labels a child a socialist or a conservative or a liberal because that's what their parents are.
Most parents don’t know really their children.
My parents wished peace upon their firstborn child.
Sometimes maybe children also fulfill their parents' secrets desire.
Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother 'worked' at anything besides raising her children.
Needy and boring parents tend to have needy and bored children.
My parents didn't treat me as if there was anything in the world I couldn't do, except be unkind.
There are a lot of things that you don't realize that your parents are going through when you're a kid.
If your parents never had children, chances are. . . neither will you.
So actually, there could be parents-of-the-parents-of-the-parents-of-the parents?
Nothing will have more impact on the future of the world than for each of us to find out why we were born and to do it. Human beings tend to do this when parents, teachers and other mentors invite us to it.