Quoteable Quotes!!
#7
#9
#16
Fatherhood, you might argue, is too complicated to be reduced to capsule form. But complexity only adds intrigue to the quest for guiding principles. And do we need guiding principles. After all the emotions, all the yelling, and all the laughter, I have distilled the duties and demands down to a decade of Dad dicta. Herewith, on behalf of all God's children and their male parents, the 10 Commandments of Daddy.
1. Hey, Dad, be big
In spirit, that is. Consider some of the big guys who have gone before you: Father Time, God the Father. You can't give this role a walk-through. You've got to play it. The kids expect stature from you. You're the anvil on which they hammer out their deal with the world. Be a presence in their lives-and in their minds.
2. Hey, Dad, be small
Yes, this contradicts the first tip. Don't be so big that you suck all the air out of the room. Give your kids space to move around in, to test their thoughts and strengths. Take a backseat three or four times a week. Say, "Maybe." Say, "I don't know." Now and then, tell the kids you're sorry-assuming you behaved badly. You'll feel brand new.
3. Hey, Dad, come home
Lots of fathers have two jobs. If that's your situation, God bless you, pal. You'll get no heat from me. But if you can pay the bills without working double shifts, get home when you can. Nothing good can happen until you do.
4. Bob and weave, Bubba
Stay light on your feet. Don't make too many hard-and-fast rules. Don't insist on having your way with the kids just because the rest of the world isn't always overly interested in the sound of your voice. There is a difference between authority and power. Have the first; don't abuse the second.
5. Never dance in front of their friends
Remember the cautionary legend of the father who once picked his kids up at a junior-high dance and actually went into the gym and did a few seconds of the Hully Gully with Margie Costanzo. His adult children still have embarrassment nightmares.
6. Save your money, big man
If you're not careful, the kids will send you to the poorhouse three dollars and twenty-nine cents at a time. Think college tuition. Think down payment on their starter homes. Although it's true that money can't buy happiness, it can buy lots of other stuff.
7. Spend your money, tightwad
F. Scott Fitzgerald said the sign of a first-rate mind was the ability to have two opposite opinions at the same time. You're a first-rate mind, Dad. So spring for the glowing monster trading cards. If you've got the money, pop for the musical princess crown. What are you saving your money for, pal? College? Hah! You can't possibly save enough. There is the future, and then there is now. This is it.
8. Never go on a ride with the word whirl in its name.
Especially the Space Shuttle Whirl at the Great Escape near Lake George, New York. It's tougher to be a good father when your nervous system is permanently compromised. Stay on the ground and wave.
9. Let 'em be-they're not your second chance
We become most upset with the kids when they remind us of... well, us. Help them follow their own path, not your road not taken.
10. Love their mother
Hug Mom. Often. In front of the kids. Sure, sometimes marriages end, but the obligation to a woman doesn't. Be grateful to her. Speak to her with respect. Try to make her laugh. Listen. Even if you're not married to her, figure out how to love her.
1. Hey, Dad, be big
In spirit, that is. Consider some of the big guys who have gone before you: Father Time, God the Father. You can't give this role a walk-through. You've got to play it. The kids expect stature from you. You're the anvil on which they hammer out their deal with the world. Be a presence in their lives-and in their minds.
2. Hey, Dad, be small
Yes, this contradicts the first tip. Don't be so big that you suck all the air out of the room. Give your kids space to move around in, to test their thoughts and strengths. Take a backseat three or four times a week. Say, "Maybe." Say, "I don't know." Now and then, tell the kids you're sorry-assuming you behaved badly. You'll feel brand new.
3. Hey, Dad, come home
Lots of fathers have two jobs. If that's your situation, God bless you, pal. You'll get no heat from me. But if you can pay the bills without working double shifts, get home when you can. Nothing good can happen until you do.
4. Bob and weave, Bubba
Stay light on your feet. Don't make too many hard-and-fast rules. Don't insist on having your way with the kids just because the rest of the world isn't always overly interested in the sound of your voice. There is a difference between authority and power. Have the first; don't abuse the second.
5. Never dance in front of their friends
Remember the cautionary legend of the father who once picked his kids up at a junior-high dance and actually went into the gym and did a few seconds of the Hully Gully with Margie Costanzo. His adult children still have embarrassment nightmares.
6. Save your money, big man
If you're not careful, the kids will send you to the poorhouse three dollars and twenty-nine cents at a time. Think college tuition. Think down payment on their starter homes. Although it's true that money can't buy happiness, it can buy lots of other stuff.
7. Spend your money, tightwad
F. Scott Fitzgerald said the sign of a first-rate mind was the ability to have two opposite opinions at the same time. You're a first-rate mind, Dad. So spring for the glowing monster trading cards. If you've got the money, pop for the musical princess crown. What are you saving your money for, pal? College? Hah! You can't possibly save enough. There is the future, and then there is now. This is it.
8. Never go on a ride with the word whirl in its name.
Especially the Space Shuttle Whirl at the Great Escape near Lake George, New York. It's tougher to be a good father when your nervous system is permanently compromised. Stay on the ground and wave.
9. Let 'em be-they're not your second chance
We become most upset with the kids when they remind us of... well, us. Help them follow their own path, not your road not taken.
10. Love their mother
Hug Mom. Often. In front of the kids. Sure, sometimes marriages end, but the obligation to a woman doesn't. Be grateful to her. Speak to her with respect. Try to make her laugh. Listen. Even if you're not married to her, figure out how to love her.
#17
And in contrast to my last...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'WOW What a Ride!'
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'WOW What a Ride!'
#19
Some Repeats...
"Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after."
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away."
--Unknown
"Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like no one is watching."
--Satchel Paige
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'WOW What a Ride!'"
--Unknown
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
--Mark Twain
"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it."
--Margaret Thatcher
"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."
--Reggie Leach
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."
--Steve Prefontaine
"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."
--Ovid
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."
--Vernon Sanders Law
"I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
--Thomas Jefferson
"You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing."
--Michael Pritchard
"Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can."
--Danny Kaye
"The world belongs to the energetic."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
--Mark Twain
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
--James Dean
"Never spend your money before you have it."
--Thomas Jefferson
"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth."
--Bonnie Friedman
"He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much."
--Bessie A. Stanley
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford
"You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself."
--Diana Ross
"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."
--George Jackson
"Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem."
--Henry Kissinger
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
--Walter Bagehot
"We are most alive when we're in love."
--John Updike
"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief."
--Gerry Spence
"Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it."
--Trey Parker and Matt Stone
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
--Henry David Thoreau
"Know the true value of time; ******, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."
--Lord Chesterfield
"Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others."
--Jonathan Winters
"If you cannot convince them, confuse them."
--Harry S. Truman
"You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again."
--Bonnie Prudden
"A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it isn't open."
--Frank Zappa
"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth."
--Evan Esar
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
--Aristotle
"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
--Soren Kierkegaard
"There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more."
--Woody Allen
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."
--Chinese Proverb
"You are so young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as judge of the highest matters."
--Plato
"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."
--Isaac Asimov
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
--Bill Cosby
"I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."
--George Burns
"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
--Ernest Hemingway
"Worry is a misuse of imagination."
--Dan Zadra
"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!"
--Jonathan Winters
"The wisest mind has something yet to learn."
--George Santayana
"The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself."
--Garth Brooks
"I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity."
--Tom Stoppard
"Assumptions are the termites of relationships."
--Henry Winkler
"Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong."
--Dandemis
"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day."
--John A. Wheeler
"Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt."
--George Sewell
"Nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself."
--Liberace
"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
--Frank A. Clark
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."
--Voltaire
"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."
--James Thurber
"Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will."
--Jawaharlal Nehru
"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."
--Marilyn vos Savant
"Follow the grain in your own wood."
--Howard Thurman
"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."
--Elbert Hubbard
"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it."
--Mark Twain
"For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes."
--Dag Hammarskjold
"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others."
--Samuel Johnson
"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."
--Barry LePatner
"Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening."
--Dorothy Sarnoff
"We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it."
--Lyndon B. Johnson
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
--Edgar Allan Poe
"If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances."
--Julia Sorel
"Love isn't a decision. It's a feeling. If we could decide who we loved, it would be much simpler, but much less magical."
--Trey Parker and Matt Stone
"Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict."
--William Ellery Channing
"The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
"It's never too late to be who you might have been."
--George Eliot
"A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future."
--Sidney J. Harris
"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
--Epictetus
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean."
--Christopher Reeve
"A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one's life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself."
--Louis L'Amour
"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."
--Christine Bovee
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."
--Beverly Sills
"In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends."
--John Churton Collins
"Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for."
--David Starr Jordan
"Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination."
--Roy M. Goodman
"Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."
--Sarah Bernhardt
"You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough."
--Joe E. Lewis
"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death."
--James F. Byrnes
"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything."
--Thich Nhat Hanh
"What's another word for Thesaurus?"
--Steven Wright
"If you don't risk anything you risk even more."
--Erica Jong
"It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting."
--Elizabeth Taylor
"The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark."
--Barbara Hall
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
--Will Rogers
"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."
--A. Sachs
"I dream, therefore I become."
--Cheryl Grossman
"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway."
--John Wayne
"Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome."
--Arthur Ashe
"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."
--Robert Frost
"It is better to wear out than to rust out."
--Bishop Richard Cumberland
"You don't have to be a 'person of influence' to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me."
--Scott Adams
"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
--William Jennings Bryan
"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."
--Henry Ford
"Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after."
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away."
--Unknown
"Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like no one is watching."
--Satchel Paige
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'WOW What a Ride!'"
--Unknown
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
--Mark Twain
"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it."
--Margaret Thatcher
"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."
--Reggie Leach
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."
--Steve Prefontaine
"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."
--Ovid
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."
--Vernon Sanders Law
"I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
--Thomas Jefferson
"You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing."
--Michael Pritchard
"Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can."
--Danny Kaye
"The world belongs to the energetic."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
--Mark Twain
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
--James Dean
"Never spend your money before you have it."
--Thomas Jefferson
"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth."
--Bonnie Friedman
"He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much."
--Bessie A. Stanley
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford
"You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself."
--Diana Ross
"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."
--George Jackson
"Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem."
--Henry Kissinger
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
--Walter Bagehot
"We are most alive when we're in love."
--John Updike
"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief."
--Gerry Spence
"Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it."
--Trey Parker and Matt Stone
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
--Henry David Thoreau
"Know the true value of time; ******, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."
--Lord Chesterfield
"Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others."
--Jonathan Winters
"If you cannot convince them, confuse them."
--Harry S. Truman
"You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again."
--Bonnie Prudden
"A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it isn't open."
--Frank Zappa
"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth."
--Evan Esar
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
--Aristotle
"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
--Soren Kierkegaard
"There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more."
--Woody Allen
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."
--Chinese Proverb
"You are so young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as judge of the highest matters."
--Plato
"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."
--Isaac Asimov
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
--Bill Cosby
"I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."
--George Burns
"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
--Ernest Hemingway
"Worry is a misuse of imagination."
--Dan Zadra
"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!"
--Jonathan Winters
"The wisest mind has something yet to learn."
--George Santayana
"The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself."
--Garth Brooks
"I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity."
--Tom Stoppard
"Assumptions are the termites of relationships."
--Henry Winkler
"Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong."
--Dandemis
"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day."
--John A. Wheeler
"Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt."
--George Sewell
"Nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself."
--Liberace
"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
--Frank A. Clark
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."
--Voltaire
"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."
--James Thurber
"Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will."
--Jawaharlal Nehru
"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."
--Marilyn vos Savant
"Follow the grain in your own wood."
--Howard Thurman
"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."
--Elbert Hubbard
"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it."
--Mark Twain
"For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes."
--Dag Hammarskjold
"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others."
--Samuel Johnson
"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."
--Barry LePatner
"Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening."
--Dorothy Sarnoff
"We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it."
--Lyndon B. Johnson
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
--Edgar Allan Poe
"If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances."
--Julia Sorel
"Love isn't a decision. It's a feeling. If we could decide who we loved, it would be much simpler, but much less magical."
--Trey Parker and Matt Stone
"Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict."
--William Ellery Channing
"The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
"It's never too late to be who you might have been."
--George Eliot
"A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future."
--Sidney J. Harris
"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
--Epictetus
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean."
--Christopher Reeve
"A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one's life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself."
--Louis L'Amour
"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."
--Christine Bovee
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."
--Beverly Sills
"In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends."
--John Churton Collins
"Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for."
--David Starr Jordan
"Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination."
--Roy M. Goodman
"Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."
--Sarah Bernhardt
"You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough."
--Joe E. Lewis
"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death."
--James F. Byrnes
"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything."
--Thich Nhat Hanh
"What's another word for Thesaurus?"
--Steven Wright
"If you don't risk anything you risk even more."
--Erica Jong
"It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting."
--Elizabeth Taylor
"The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark."
--Barbara Hall
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
--Will Rogers
"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."
--A. Sachs
"I dream, therefore I become."
--Cheryl Grossman
"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway."
--John Wayne
"Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome."
--Arthur Ashe
"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."
--Robert Frost
"It is better to wear out than to rust out."
--Bishop Richard Cumberland
"You don't have to be a 'person of influence' to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me."
--Scott Adams
"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
--William Jennings Bryan
"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."
--Henry Ford
#26