KIDS. They know a BRIBE when they see one. They want a PARENT, not a PAY-OFF. They don’t care if you’re Jack-King-Rodeo or Mister-You-Own-New-York. All they understand is time spent WITH YOU or WITHOUT YOU. It’s that SIMPLE.
What good is an “I LOVE YOU” If said only when you have to? What good is it to ride a horse if you cannot gallop? What good is it to believe in someone if you doubt your own belief?
Becoming a man means doing the right thing even though it may be hard or difficult. Boys do what is easiest. A man does what is right, whether easy or not.
Take off my clothes and there becomes a man. Take off my skin and there becomes my bones. Break all my bones and there becomes my heart. Smash my heart and there becomes my soul. And that you cannot take.
Love your kids and just be there for them. You don't have to eyeball their every moment or to orchestrate all their comings and goings. They know this. They know that's too much. All they want is to be assured that there's a home fire cooking, that t...
Who will you be, my Little Ones? Will you dance for the fires of your youth and run at midnight to water’s edge, diving into summer’s heat? Will you ride a wild mare to any thought or dream or love of your making? Will you seek the artistry of yo...
You haven't seen a thing until you've seen this man fight. My sword is sharp. My heart strong. My spirit ferocious - and I am going to live. Let the swords clash. Let the fight begin.
In reality, Little Ones, there are two winters. One made for kids; the other for adults. The one made for adults is always too cold and always too long. The one made for kids is always perfect. A kid winter is an endless and wild snow carnival where ...
I want to remember warming your two a.m. bottle, clipping your locks, watching you be baptized, bathing you in the big porcelain sink… how I often laid you against my chest and felt the cradlesong of your tiny breaths as you fell asleep . . .
When do you become a man? Becoming a man means doing the right thing even though it may be hard or difficult. Boys do what is easiest. A man does what is right, whether easy or not.
A Good Man. Every night, like a question-and-answer prayer, my son and I recite...What are you going to be? And he says...An honest man. A fair man. A courageous man. And a good man. That's the most important thing, Papa. And my job is finally done. ...
I want to remember...Smelling your newness upon this earth. The baby-Jesus smell as Grandma used to put it. Pure. Unsullied. Like the imagined smell in the twirling air of eiderdown feathers spin-floating around the yard on a new spring day.
Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid ... to whose glorious insipidity, I owe the happiest moments of my life, let me fall prostrate.
The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making an...
...because you are not trying simply to complete a set of books or toys or Weetabix cards, you are trying to complete yourself, to get back to the whole person you were before, as a child, before the obstructions and compromises of adulthood got in t...
A tired man lay down his head in a dusty room so dim, and for so long his wife did shake and yell to waken him. Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir of sandy, red bullfights, of powder-blasts in the air and carnival delights. Yet still his wi...
I hope I can never trust my wife. If I trust her it means I know her. If I know her it means I understand her. If I understand her it means I can control her, and if I can control her it would make her boring and uninteresting… Dear god I hope I ca...
[Maximus looks at images of his wife and son] Juba: Can they hear you? Maximus: Who? Juba: Your family. In the afterlife. Maximus: Oh yes. Juba: What do you say to them? Maximus: To my son - I tell him I will see him again soon. To keep his heels dow...
Sherlock Holmes: And chambermaids were once such a liberal breed. Constable Clark: My wife's a chambermaid, sir. [uncomfortable silence] Constable Clark: Anyhow, it's a good thing she was offended, sir. Otherwise we'd never have found you. Sherlock H...
Colonel Frank Fitts: Where's your wife? Lester Burnham: Uh, I dunno. Probably out fucking that dorky, prince-of-real-estate asshole. And you know what? I don't care. Colonel Frank Fitts: Your wife is with another man and you don't care? Lester Burnha...
Felicia: I mean who is the fish that runs this bloody hotel in the middle of nowhere, anyway? Your mother? Tick: No, my wife. Felicia: Ooh, don't tell me you've got an ex-boyfriend tucked away out here somewhere. Tick: No, my wife! I'm married. [the ...