Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.
When I was younger, my father told me not to pigeonhole the way that I perceive myself.
When I was a child, my father taught me to put up my fists like a boy and to be prepared to defend myself at all times.
I don't even know how to speak up for myself, because I don't really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.
Often when I'm trying to make tough decisions, I rely on the lessons my father taught me and ask myself, 'What Would Tony Say?'
If I'm not around, not only do I fail my sons, I fail myself. Becoming a father changed my outlook and gave me a whole other reason to be around.
The prospect of being a father made me ask myself a question. How do you know what kind of adult your child will turn out to be? And how much can you control that?
My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh.
It was a double jolt for me. The jolt of seeing my father slowly die, the jolt of knowing that I was diabetic and could meet the same fate if I didn't take care of myself.
As tough as it was for us with my father gone, my mother and sister were always pushing me. They even let me go to Brazil by myself when I was 13 to train with Sao Paulo for four months.
I would say my biggest mentor has been my father because he always has been. Actually both of my parents have always been ones to encourage me to be myself and stay true to myself and not fall into what other people want me to do.
I walked on eggshells a lot. I have a bad self-esteem problem, and my father probably facilitated it. He once looked at me very seriously when I was about 15 and had whipped cream smeared all over myself. He said, 'You'd do anything for a laugh, wouldn't you?'
The struggle through the grief was a huge growing process for me. There were gifts that came from it. I learned a lot about myself. I got into a mode very much like my father's own mode of seeking - seeking solutions, seeking teachers, seeking information - to try to alleviate my own suffering.
Elvis came along when I was 10. My father gave me a bass ukulele. I taught myself how to play from a book to play some chords, so I was laying down 'Hound Dog' and things like that when I was 10 years old in 1955. That's the way I was. My ear was glued to the radio. I knew right then what I wanted to do.
My father is an actor, so he brought me into his agency when I was young. It wasn't something I wanted to do until high school, when I started taking theater and really liked it. Then an agent found me and wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and give it a shot. I gave myself six months, but it only took me like a week to get a job.