"What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife."
— Rodney Dangerfield

"Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry."
— Bill Cosby

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."
— Emilie Buchwald

"We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

"No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal."
— Bill Cosby

"Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit."
— Bill Cosby (Fatherhood)

"I guess the real reason that my wife and I had children is the same reason that Napoleon had for invading Russia: it seemed like a good idea at the time."
— Bill Cosby

"Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?'"
— Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)

"To you who are parents, I say, show love to your children. You know you love them, but make certain they know it as well. They are so precious. Let them know. Call upon our Heavenly Father for help as you care for their needs each day and as you deal with the challenges which inevitably come with parenthood. You need more than your own wisdom in rearing them."
— Thomas S. Monson

"When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911. "
— Erma Bombeck

"Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street. "
— Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)

"I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names."
— Jodi Picoult

"Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them."
— Bill Ayers

"Having children is like living in a frat house - nobody sleeps, everything's broken, and there's a lot of throwing up."
— Ray Romano

"Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?"
— Jane Nelson

"That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents."
— Ursula Hegi

"Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

"And have your mother put my head on a stake? Do you have any notion what that would do to my handsome good looks?"
— Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts)

"In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us.... More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children."
— Martin Luther

"If you're like most members of the Baby Boom generation, you decided somewhere along the line, probably after about four margaritas, to have children. This was inevitable. Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income."
— Dave Barry

"If you can control your behavior when everything around you is out of control, you can model for your children a valuable lesson in patience and understanding...and snatch an opportunity to shape character."
— Jane Clayson Johnson (I Am a Mother)

"Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories."
— John Wilmot

"All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them. "
— Erma Bombeck

"Independence isn't doing your own thing; it's doing the right thing on your own. "
— Kim John Payne

"We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it."
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Circle of Quiet)

"If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don't make him afraid of the unknown,give him support. "
— Osho

"Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance."
— Franklin P. Adams

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
— James Baldwin

"Although it is very easy to marry a wife, it is very difficult to support her along with the children and the household. Accordingly, no one notices this faith of Jacob. Indeed, many hate fertility in a wife for the sole reason that the offspring must be supported and brought up. For this is what they commonly say: ‘Why should I marry a wife when I am a pauper and a beggar? I would rather bear the burden of poverty alone and not load myself with misery and want.’ But this blame is unjustly fastened on marriage and fruitfulness. Indeed, you are indicting your unbelief by distrusting God’s goodness, and you are bringing greater misery upon yourself by disparaging God’s blessing. For if you had trust in God’s grace and promises, you would undoubtedly be supported. But because you do not hope in the Lord, you will never prosper."
— Martin Luther (Sermons of Martin Luther, The)

"Everything depends on upbringing. "
— Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)

"One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form."
— Anne Fadiman

"Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child."
— Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)

"You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had. "
— Marshall B. Rosenberg

"One must make allowances for a parental instinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is famished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely satisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it can't tell mud cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is measurably recognizable by them as a devil before long, but a devil adopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through thick and thin."
— Mark Twain (Pudd'nhead Wilson)

"The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them."
— Frank Clark

"we can learn to trust our maternal selves and to have faith in the innate goodness and purity of our children - even when we feel overwhelmed and the kids are pushing all our buttons. we can support one another....we can be understanding of each other and easier on ourselves."
— Katrina Kenison (Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry)

"Say “no” only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.""
— Gretchen Rubin

"'Daddy, are you going to yell at us some more today?'
Neary gazed down into her clear, guileless eyes. That was how he looked to her---a yelling machine. And she was prepared to accept more yelling because she loved him."
— Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition)

""You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." "
— Dr. Charles Darwin -- to his teenage son, Charles Darwin

"I'll put you in a cage with the other monkeys."
— Bret Pehrson

"My kid, her life. I want for her what she wants for herself."
— Laura Castoro