The Quote Garden ™

 I dig old books. ™

 Est. 1998

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My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." ~Harmon Killebrew, 1984


He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland, "It's Fun Being a Father," 1927


Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father! ~Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836


...none deserve so well of the world as good parents. There is no task so unselfish, so necessarily without return, though the heart is well rewarded, as the nurture of the children who are to make the world for one another when we are gone. ~Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887, 1888


One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters. ~Outlandish Proverbs, selected by George Herbert (1593–1633)


Father! to God himself we cannot give
A holier name!...
~William Wordsworth


Henry James once defined life as that predicament which precedes death, and certainly nobody owes you a debt of honor or gratitude for getting him into that predicament. But a child does owe his father a debt, if Dad, having gotten him into this peck of trouble, takes off his coat and buckles down to the job of showing his son how best to crash through it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland, "It's Fun Being a Father," 1927


A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again. ~Enid Bagnold, 1969


Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria Naylor, Mama Day, 1988


But no matter what's said, there's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. ~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994


Not flesh and blood, but the heart makes us fathers and sons. ~Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), The Robbers, 1781, translated by Christopher Wharton Mann, 1842


It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams, 1990


Children are a great comfort in your old age — and they help you reach it faster, too. ~Lionel M. Kaufman


That's what I always want you to be,
Without any frills, just Dad to me:
A sort of a pal, and the best of friends,
Someone to point where the roadway wends;
Someone to smile when my heart is sad,
The kind of a friend I need, just Dad.
~W. Dayton Wegefarth (1885–1973), "Just Dad," Rainbow Verse: A Book of Helpful Sunny Philosophy, 1919


Fatherhood is… pretending that the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. ~Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, 1986


Insanity is hereditary. You can get it from your children. ~Sam Levenson


I don't know why, but Father's Day never seems to loom as large as other holidays. It's like Mother's Day after taxes. ~Robert Orben, 2400 Jokes to Brighten Your Speeches, 1984


I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich. ~Dan Wilcox and Thad Mumford, "Identity Crisis," M*A*S*H, 1981


For there we loved, and where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts...
~Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894), "Homesick in Heaven," 1872


And in that moment Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps, love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987


Now that... my kids are grown, I understand how much work and love it takes to raise and to keep a family together. The example of your strength, devotion, and patience is now rippling through the generations. Thank you! ~Forest Houtenschil, c.1980  [This was actually written for Mother's Day, but it applies to fathers too. —tg]


In time of test, family is best. ~Burmese proverb


Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age. ~William Feather, The Business of Life, 1949


The family is one of nature's masterpieces. ~George Santayana


A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless. ~May Sarton


Unselfish and noble actions are the most radiant pages in the biography of souls. ~David Thomas, as quoted in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891


Gratitude is the memory of the heart. ~Jean Massieu (1772–1846)

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