My parents separated when I was 2, and my dad always lived in Chicago and my mother in L.A. I'd go back and forth and sometimes spend the summer with my dad, but L.A. was home.
I had one of the most outdoorsy childhoods you could imagine. I basically lived in the woods until I was 13. My dad and I built a huge treehouse in our backyard in Chesterfield, about 30 feet in the air. And we'd vacation on an island in Michigan, where I hunted a deer that we ate.
Within our culture, every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy, basically.
All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.
My dad was a Methodist minister.
My dad used to call me 'the dreamer.' He was right.
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.
There is too much fathering going on just now and there is no doubt about it fathers are depressing.
The world's most competitive man, my dad. Wouldn't let us win at Monopoly... he wouldn't cut any slack for his children. My sister's also very, very competitive but she is more concerned than I am with being liked. So she hides it away. I try to make my competitiveness part of my charm.
Dad correctly said to me, 'Gina, you'll rue the day if I let you take your mother's shares for the benefit of the children.' He was right.
I'm just as insufferable and useless as every other dad is. The dynamic never changes, no matter what you do for a living.
My parents split up when I was 16, and, while Mum came to a few Tests, Dad didn't make many. So I was glad he was at Lord's.
As Daddy said, life is 95 percent anticipation.
My dad got me the same mic I use on everything now - this $200 mic from Guitar Center.
I'm not going to retire until I win the NWA World Heavyweight Title, the same belt my dad had. I'm going to win that title before I hang it up.
It was my dad who encouraged me to come into films.
I've traveled all over. I've been to all 50 states. With my dad in the Navy, I lived in the Philippines from nine to 12, and I had dog, monkey, lizard, everything. Then I was in Hawaii, and I'm spear-fishing, catching octopus with my hands.
When I was 17, my dad was teaching in the States. He hired an A-Team-style van, and we drove all over. My resounding memory of it was that we saw all these wonderful places but that my sister and I were being horrible, sulky teenagers.
I grew up in Shropshire, but I was born in Wales. There was a hospital seven miles away, but my dad drove 45 miles over the Welsh border so I could play rugby for Wales. But as a skinny asthmatic, I was only ever good at swimming.
My dad taught me how to play tennis, and I owe that to him. But the better you get, the higher you climb, and the more lonely you get. I've had to sacrifice a lot of personal relationships, but that's the choice I made.
You have to be confident in who you are and what you're doing. Of course, you try to evolve. I would never tell you, 'Today is the best I will ever be.' I'm always trying to be a better chef, a better dad, a better person.
My father, he was like the rock, the guy you went to with every problem.
I know that I will never find my father in any other man who comes into my life, because it is a void in my life that can only be filled by him.
My dad was a congressman, and he taught me at a very early age, 'They voted for me, they view me as theirs, and I am.' Our family's phone in Memphis was always listed. It rang all day and all night.
I love the comic opportunities that come up in the context of a father-son relationship.
I wanted to be a forest ranger or a coal man. At a very early age, I knew I didn't want to do what my dad did, which was work in an office.
Although I grew up in London, I spent summers in Missouri, where my dad lived. It's quite a liberal town, Kansas City. You'd be surprised.
I was a mixture of being incredibly old for my age and incredibly backwards. I was born quite old, but then I stopped growing. I lived with my mum and dad till I was 30.
I think I was brought up with an innate sense of responsibility because my dad was in the Foreign Office where you were in somebody else's country, and you were aware of your behaviour. And my mum worked for the NHS, so you were aware of your responsibility to your country.
My dad was the town drunk. Most of the time that's not so bad; but New York City?
I remember reading the book 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad,' and I remember writing my goals down, and my number one goal in life was just to be a good husband and a good father someday. That was number one, as a 17-year-old kid.
I grew up on a working farm. It was small, a hundred acres, but we had cows and pigs and chickens and sheep and a vegetable garden. I spent hours pulling weeds, hoeing, feeding the horses, cleaning out the stalls. My dad was a tough taskmaster. I always worked, but we also had fun.
Rich men's sons are seldom rich men's fathers.
But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.
When my dad visited me while I was doing a play in New York City two years ago, I took him to see 'Late Show With Stephen Colbert.' Now I'm going to his house. It's surreal.
I ate supper after Dad saw the evening shift down the shaft, and I went to sleep to the ringing of a hammer on steel and the dry hiss of an arc welder at the little tipple machine shop during the hoot-owl shift.
Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.
You can't be the dad who takes your kid out after your wife has said, 'No ice cream,' buys the ice cream, and says, 'Don't tell your mother.' You teach the child to lie - and to disrespect the other parent.
My dad gave me my first bike at 16. I soon fell off and was in a wheelchair for weeks. I haven't fallen since.
I was skint, and I had to move back to my mum and dad's house, back into the room I shared with my brother when I was a kid. I kept getting people on the streets telling me that they loved me; it didn't mean anything to me because I was still borrowing tenners off my pensioner father to go and get some chicken.
Dad's funeral was standing room only; most in attendance were strangers to me. At the back, a lone Marine stood silently, then left. People told me he'd saved their life or helped them in their darkest hour.
I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.
We are a rugby family really. My dad and both granddads played rugby. Dad was good, on his way to Bath until he broke his leg. My brother Harry got an invitation to go and play for Bristol. I go and watch Sale Sharks and have been to Twickenham a few times.
My dad once told me, he was like, 'The only time you should lie is when someone's holding a gun to your head and says 'Okay, lie or I'm going to shoot you.' And that really stuck with me.
Oh, the first dish I learned to make, I think I was about 10 years old, I made my dad spaghetti and broccoli for dinner when he got home from work, and it was, like, a surprise.
There'd be days in high school where I thought I played well, my team got the win, and I'd go to the gym still in my uniform, and my dad would say, 'C'mon, let's go. We have more work to do.'
Well, my dad did a lot of Kung Fu when I was growing up, so he taught me a lot about mental toughness. Ways to slow your heart rate down, slow your breathing down to take control of your body so you can push yourself to the next limit.
I think Sam Smith's dad got a huge loan or something to help his career. Those things can help artists get attention, but I guess my song 'Say You Won't Let Go' proved it's about the song.
I am very happy to say I look just like my dad. But mothers always think their children are prettier than they really are, and mine has always told me I look like Tom Cruise.
Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.