Fathers Quotes

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

“I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“Daddy," I whispered, feeling my own breath hitch in my throat. "I love you."
Just when I was sure he was asleep, the one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "I knew that," he murmured. "Always knew that.”
― Morgan Matson, Second Chance Summer

“The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to respect the woman that gave birth to his children. It is because of her that you have the greatest treasures in your life. You may have moved on, but your children have not. If you can’t be her soulmate, then at least be thoughtful. Whom your children love should always be someone that you acknowledge with kindness. Your children notice everything and will follow your example.”
― Shannon L. Alder, 300 Questions Lds Couples Should Ask for a More Vibrant Marriage

“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.”
― Prevost Abbe, Manon Lescaut

“Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Woman Destroyed

“I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?”
― Jodi Picoult

“Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“America used to live by the motto "Father Knows Best." Now we're lucky if "Father Knows He Has Children." We've become a nation of sperm donors and baby daddies.”
― Stephen Colbert, I Am America

“My father couldn't warm my frozen hands.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted her his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Listen, there is no way any true man is going to let children live around him in his home and not discipline and teach, fight and mold them until they know all he knows. His goal is to make them better than he is. Being their friend is a distant second to this.”
― Victor Devlin

“A wedding is for daughters and fathers. The mothers all dress up, trying to look like young women. But a wedding is for a father and daughter. They stop being married to each other on that day.”
― sarah ruhl, Eurydice

“There is nothing that moves a loving father's soul quite like his child's cry.”
― Joni Eareckson Tada

“Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.”
― Lydia Maria Child

“Dads. It’s time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It’s time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It’s time to show forgiveness and compassion. It’s time to show our children empathy. It’s time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It’s time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls “tom boys” or our boys “feminine” just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don’t matter?”
― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing

“Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes....”
― Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

“Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don't misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack

“My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. [Burnside, p. 27]”
― John Burnside, A Lie About My Father: A Memoir

“So many people think that they are not gifted because they don’t have an obvious talent that people can recognize because it doesn’t fall under the creative arts category—writing, dancing, music, acting, art or singing. Sadly, they let their real talents go undeveloped, while they chase after fame. I am grateful for the people with obscure unremarked talents because they make our lives easier---inventors, organizers, planners, peacemakers, communicators, activists, scientists, and so forth. However, there is one gift that trumps all other talents—being an excellent parent. If you can successfully raise a child in this day in age to have integrity then you have left a legacy that future generations will benefit from.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?”
― Kiran Desai

“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”
― Robert Hayden, Collected Poems

“Hadley realises that even though everything else is different, even though there's still an ocean between them, nothing really important has changed at all.

He's still her dad. The rest is just geography.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.
Papa was an accordion!
But his bellows were all empty.
Nothing went in and nothing came out.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children