Fatherhood Quotes

“The greatest lessons I learned from my father didn't come from lectures or discipline or even time spent together. What has stuck with me is his example. From watching, I chose whether to be or not to be like him.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

“Beautiful is the man who leaves a legacy that of shared love and life. It is he who transfers meaning, assigns significance and conveys in his loving touch the fine art and gentle shaping of a life. This man shall be called, Father.”
― Stella Payton

“He was a father. That’s what a father does.
Eases the burdens of those he loves.
Saves the ones he loves from painful last images that might endure for a lifetime.”
― George Saunders, Tenth of December

“He needed me to do what sons do for their fathers: bear witness that they’re substantial, that they’re not hollow, not ringing absences. That they count for something when little else seems to.”
― Richard Ford, Canada

“We never get over our fathers, and we’re not required to. (Irish Proverb)”
― Martin Sheen, Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son

“The best gift you can give to your kids is a happy marriage.”
― Ricky Shetty

“A child is not an adult, a child didn't ask to be here. Any man that doesn't take care of his responsibilities to his family and to his children, do me a favor STOP calling yourself a man..at least have the decency to admit that you're a boy. You don't know what manhood is.”
― Stephen A. Smith

“Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil’s fools.”
― Martin Luther

“It just isn't possible for you to ask me all the questions, or for me to give you all the answers.”
― José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

“My son, there may be a time when I explain these things to you, because there may be a time when I understand them.”
― Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy

“I'm not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it, I don't know when I lost it, I don't really think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job...and I don't want it!”
― Bill Cosby, Himself

“In retrospect, it seems obvious that my research about parenting was also a means to subdue my anxieties about becoming a parent.... I grew up afraid of illness and disability, inclined to avert my gaze from anyone who was too different – despite all the ways I knew myself to be different. This book helped me kill that bigoted impulse, which I had always known to be ugly. The obvious melancholy in the stories I heard should, perhaps, have made me shy away from paternity, but it had the opposite effect.”
― Andrew Solomon

“A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence.”
― Howard W. Hunter

“He was not being courageous as he bore the freezing stream for his wife and children. He simply chose between the lesser of two evils—the pain and suffering he would endure in the river, a physical pain that he could stand to bear, or the pain and suffering he would feel if he had to watch his family wade across and freeze. It was not a decision. The choice had already been made the moment Ole proposed marriage to his wife and welcomed these beautiful daughters into the world.”
― Sage Steadman, Upon Destiny's Song

“He was like my father. They each wanted me to be their audience, to hear the things they needed to express.”
― Richard Ford, Canada

“Many men have children, but not many children have 'Fathers'. Age releases to you reproductive skills. Fatherhood requires LEADERSHIP skills”
― Fela Durotoye

“For every guy who loves being a dad, there’s another who realizes too late that he’s created something his wife loves more than him.”
― Mark R. Brand, Long Live Us

“Since human fatherhood, as a reflection of the Fatherhood of God, was designed to be the pillar of the family, the disappearance of esteem for fatherhood has led to the collapse of that pillar and to the disintegration of the family.”
― Joseph A. Cirrincione, St. Joseph, Fatima and Fatherhood: Reflections on the Miracle of the Sun

“Did you have any yourself?" she said.

"Just one."

Harold thought of David, but it was too much to explain. He saw the boy as a toddler and how his face darkened in sunshine like a ripe nut. He wanted to describe the soft dimples of flesh at his knees, and the way he walked in his first pair of shoes, staring down, as if unable to credit they were still attached to his feet. He thought of him lying in hit cot, his fingers so appallingly small and perfect over his wool blanket. You could look at them and fear they might dissolve beneath your touch.

Mothering had come so naturally to Maureen. It was as if another woman had been waiting inside her all along, ready to slip out. She knew how to swing her body so that a baby slept; how to soften her voice; how to curl her hand to support his head. She knew what temperature the water should be in his bath, and when he needed to nap, and how to knit him blue wool socks. He had no idea she knew these things and he had watched with awe, like a spectator from the shadows. It both deepened his love for her and lifted her apart, so that just at the moment when he thought their marriage would intensify, it seemed to lose its way, or at least set them in different places. He peered at his baby son, with his solemn eyes, and felt consumed with fear. What if he was hungry? What if he was unhappy? What if other boys hit him when he went to school? There was so much to protect him from, Harold was overwhelmed. He wondered if other men had found the new responsibility of parenting as terrifying, or whether it had been a fault that was only in himself. It was different these days. You saw men pushing buggies and feeding babies with no worries at all.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Real Fathers make a positive impact on their generation, and so give the next generation the advantage of a better nation to live in”
― Fela Durotoye

“Do whatever you must do to protect your children and wife.”
― Andrew Galasetti, These Colors Don't Run

“Papas should be loving their children so much that they cry when they gone. That’s what papas is supposed to do.”
― Andrew Galasetti, These Colors Don't Run

“A successful father is not more successful than his children.”
― Raheel Farooq

“[Nathan] wasn't blindly obsessed with a possession. He wasn't crazy. He was a hero--a father who'd risked his life to rescue his son.”
― Randy Alcorn, Courageous

“Real Fathers are men of integrity & honour. Their word is their bond.”
― Fela Durotoye

“Real Fathers are Solution Providers and not a part of the problem to be solved.”
― Fela Durotoye

“He says that we must protect our families no matter what. No matter what we got to do to protect them.”
― Andrew Galasetti, These Colors Don't Run

“The sword of the Spirit has been muffled up and decked out with flowers and ribbons," author writes, conveying the sentiments of a Congregationist minister on men's ceding of moral and religious instruction and correction as women's work.”
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity

“When faced with first time fatherhood at the age of 49, I didn’t know whether to celebrate with champagne… or hemlock.”
― Len Filppu, PRIME TIME DADS: 45 Reasons to Embrace Midlife Fatherhood

“Two weeks ago, Aaron and Isaac, I learned your mother Laura has breast cancer. My heart feels impaled. These words, so useless and feeble. Laura is only thirty-five years old. Her next birthday will be in only three days. I write this letter to you, my sons, with the hope that one day in the future you will read it and understand what happened to our family.

Together, your mother and I have created and nurtured an unbreakable bond that has transformed us into an unlikely team. A Chicano from El Paso, Texas. A Jew from Concord, Massachusetts. I want you to know your mother. She has given me hope when I have felt none; she has offered me kindness when I have been consumed by bitterness. I believe I have taught her how to be tough and savvy and how to achieve what you want around obstacles and naysayers.

Our hope is that the therapies we are discussing with her doctors will defeat her cancer. But a great and ominous void has suddenly engulfed us at the beginning of our life as a family. This void suffocates me.”
― Sergio Troncoso, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays