The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
—Mark Twain
It's interesting, on your second day of existence, to realize that your father is going to blame all the future failures of his life on you.
—Ogden Nash
It does not always follow that good men are good fathers.
—Unknown
Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.
—Unknown
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
—Unknown
Parents are never as bad as kids think they are.
—Unknown
The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.
—Joyce Maynard
When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.
—Woody Allen
Don't simply settle for what your parents had. You can go further than that. You can do more, have more, be more.
—Joel Osteen in Your Best Life Now
Loving our parents, we bring them into us. They inhabit us. For a long time I believed that I could not bear to live without Mom and Dad—I could not bear to "outlive" them—for to be a daughter without parents did not seem possible to me.
—Joyce Carol Oates in A Widow's Story
On Halloween, the parents sent their kids out looking like me.
—Rodney Dangerfield
It's been a lifelong problem of mine that those I've been closest to are the ones I've had the least influence on. My parents, my sister, my wife, even my cat—or maybe I should say especially my cat—have never really taken me seriously. That may help to explain why I finished up making a career of peddling my thoughts to the world in general. At least the world in general doesn't automatically dismiss anything coming from me, that is, so long as I say it in a neat epigram of 17 words or less.
—Ashleigh Brilliant