“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.”

Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.

A sail boat that sails backwards can never see the sun rise.

Suddenly, this romantic agony was enriched by a less romantic one: I had to go to the bathroom. Needless to say, I couldn’t let her know about this urge, for great lovers never did such things. The answer to Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Was not In the men’s room, Julie.

It isn’t a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that’s beautiful.

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.

People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.

Old is always fifteen years from now.

Human beings are the only creatures on earth who allow their kids to come back home.

I was’nt always black. There was this freckel that just grew and grew.

Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge.

Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.

Nobody ever says, Can I have your beets?

When you become senile, you won’t know it.

The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic.

In spite of the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to discipline a child is still a mystery to most fathers and mothers Only your grandmother and Genghis Khan know how to do it.

Nothing I’ve ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a father to my children.

If men had to have babies, they would only ever have one each.

Wisdom leads us back to childhood.

Don’t force your kids into sports. I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters, not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Fun. Keep it fun.

I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and feel that I am needed. I want to do, not just to be.

As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.

I’ve always treated my children as beings in their own right. I respect their feelings and aspirations entirely.

My kid is not going to wear a flat bill.

As a mother you are only as happy as your saddest child