My father assigned me to keep his scrapbooks. At first I was interested in reading only his rave notices, but I got interested in reading what the critics were saying about whether the play was good or not.
Fathering makes a man, whatever his standing in the eyes of the world, feel strong and good and important, just as he makes his child feel loved and valued.
My father was weaned on books. I'm halfway between being weaned on books and weaned on television. And if you're weaned on television, you're not as good a writer as if you were weaned on books.
My father was a very good craftsman. He made furniture, he made silverware and he had an incredible gift in terms of how you can make something yourself.
I was quite the spoiled brat. I have quite a temper, obviously inherited from my father, and I became very good at ordering everyone around. I was the princess; the staff were absolutely terrified of me.
What my father especially taught me was to not always take the safe road, the easy road. If you are going to do good work, you have to risk failing badly.
All human beings are inherently good, so when someone goes off the rails, there must be some mitigating factor - he was bullied, was a loner, had an abusive father, or a domineering mother, etc.
Sometimes, because of my success, I am afraid that I was not a good father. With the first two I was too strong, and with the other three I was too weak.
If you're not getting work, make your own work. I think that's a good mentality. I suppose I take my drive from my mother and my practicality from my father.
Although sometimes I might sound sometimes idealist or too optimistic but I think my father used to say to me in everything bad there's something good that is going to come out of it and there will always be a tomorrow.
My father went to work every day, and it's my job to go to work, too. Some days will be good, some won't be so good, but I have to go to work.
I was three. My father in jest said that he'd tell the doctor to give me a shot if I didn't behave. Good heavens, I have a mental picture of the living room and the doctor approaching the door. I was terrified.
Certainly for my father, there were great times, good times, not-so-good times. He might be shooting a Fellini film for six months, then not working for two months. I'm used to that dynamic.
Elvis and I were very good friends. We were such good friends that, on the day that he passed, I was the first one his father called, to let me know what had happened.
I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem's a nickname; it's a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.
My mother's father drank and her mother was an unhappy, neurotic woman, and I think she has lived all her life afraid of anyone who drinks for fear something like that might happen to her.
When I left university I was working for a documentary film company for six or seven years to the great relief of my father whose greatest waking fear was that I would become an actor.
I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in 'Singin' In The Rain.'
I grew up with the one of the most famous fathers in the world in the 1960s and '70s. He passed away in 1984, and as time went on, people didn't know him. That blew me away.
My mother was a piano teacher, my father an inventor. He invented the reflective paint they still use on airstrips. They had faith in my ambition, and I think that made all the difference.
What the world needs today more than anything else is an implicit faith in God, our Father, and in Jesus Christ, His Son, as the Redeemer of the world.
