Dad Quotes

My mom is a nurse; my dad is a pediatrician. They were born in the 1940s, and they were both inspired to fight against injustice, whether it was the injustices of the Vietnam War or Watergate or children in poverty or oppression of African Americans in Philadelphia where I was growing up.

I get on all right with my parents. But I don't see them very much. They split up when I was eight. I stayed with my mum, but I felt it was a bit soft with her. I could do whatever I liked, and I wasn't getting nowhere, so I went to stay with my dad.

When I was a kid, I thought my dad was a little bit harsh with me at times. Sometimes I needed an arm around me instead of my dad telling me what I did wrong, but it obviously worked.

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.

My dad is my biggest fan.

My mother and dad were big animal lovers, too. I just don't know how I would have lived without animals around me. I'm fascinated by them - both domestic pets and the wild community. They just are the most interesting things in the world to me, and it's made such a difference in my lifetime.

My dad's not here, but he's watching in heaven.

My dad told me, 'If you're going to go out there and play baseball, or you're going to play basketball or football, work hard at it no matter what. I want you to have fun with your buddies, but you have to put in the time because this is your craft.' He didn't just want me to be good. He pushed me to that next level.

When my father died in my arms it had such a profound affect on me that at that very moment when my dad passed I realized that I needed to face my own fears.

My dad taught me to never be pigeonholed; to really allow yourself to reinvent characters as they reinvent you; to be bold and to be willing to play seemingly unlikeable people.

I grew up originally in Rochester. It was where I was born and a very tough neighbourhood with a lot of violence. I consider myself lucky. When I was aged 11, in 1998, Dad moved us to a suburban area from what was a ghetto area. It gave me a chance of survival.

My dad died when I was young; my mom remarried with more haste than sense to a fellow... he wasn't evil or anything, but he was worthless.

My dad's probably one of the kindest people in the world. When I was younger that's not how I was- I was a little spoiled brat.

My overwhelming memory of being a child is the huge amount of love I felt for my mum. She was my everything, because she was both my mum and my dad.

I think my parents did want me to go to university just in case, but neither my mum or dad went to uni, so they couldn't talk.

My mom was born in Jamaica and has always been around a community of black people, so she encouraged me to get out and act. My dad, on the other hand, is from suburban Massachusetts, so he had not been around a lot of black people.

My dad's uncles were illegal bookmakers who were known in the area as Peaky Blinders, that's the stories I heard.

My dad named me after Hannibal Barca, the Carthaginian general who attacked Rome. But nobody knows about him.

My dad would always play Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Anita Baker, so I fell in love with them. I would try to make my voice sound like theirs.

My dad was a laborer. And he used to get up at 5:30 every morning. He worked for 50 years of his life, in all weathers for, by showbiz standards, petty cash. I remind myself of that when I feel a little bit spoiled or hard done by.