It was okay for Wayne Gretzky's dad, for instance, to give him a hockey stick, or Joe Montana's dad to give him a football, or Larry Bird's dad to give him a basketball, but it wasn't okay for Gloria Connors to give her son a tennis racquet.
I never picked up a guitar as a kid, partly because my dad didn't want the noise in our little back-to-back in Sheffield.
My dad said to me growing up: 'When all is said and done, if you can count all your true friends on one hand, you're a lucky man.'
If people want to talk about Bob Dylan, I can talk about that. But my dad belongs to me and four other people exclusively. I'm very protective of that. And telling people whether he was affectionate is telling people a lot. It has so little to do wit...
To us, there was Bob Dylan, and there was dad. As for what he meant to other people, that was never glorified in our house. There were no accolades there, no gold records.
I got to watch my heroes meet him and saw how they reacted, whether it was Joe Strummer or Tom Waits. It was peculiar. I'm so stoked to meet Tom Waits, and he's so nervous to meet my dad. It's a head spin.
My parents never discouraged me. There were a couple times when my dad criticized a couple things that I did, but it was nothing. So through the bad shows, I never wanted to quit.
When my dad first started out in the police force, wearing the uniform was a sense of pride, and it was respected in the community for what the police force was all about. Unfortunately today, the uniform is a target.
I've always been a sucker for a dog called an Alaskan Malamute. It's like a little husky... my dad had one when he was younger.
I've always wanted to be a dad. I just can't wait to have a little rug rat running around. I used to want five or six kids, but maybe I've become too self-absorbed over the years. I think two would be perfect.
As much as I transferred my mother to Elizabeth Shore of The Black Dahlia, as much as her dad mutated into an obsession with crime in general, well, I have thought about other things throughout the years.
I was born and brought up in Liverpool with my clever little sister Jemma, who is 14 and wants to be a vet. My mum Jane is an administrator and my dad Peter is a taxi driver.
After graduating from flares and platforms in the early 1970s, I started drama school wearing a pair of khaki dungarees with one of my Dad's Army shirts, accessorised by a cat's basket doubling as a handbag. Very Lady Gaga.
My dad had the greatest admiration for MacArthur when they were working together in Washington before the Philippines. And Dad used to talk with absolute awe about MacArthur's brain.
It is impossible to please all the world and one's father.
And my dad drilled it in my head, you know, 'If you want it bad enough, and you're willing to make the sacrifices, you can do it. But first you have to believe in yourself.
I was into the Mets because my Dad worked at IBM where he got free Mets tickets, so I was into the Mets... then I got to 'Saturday Night Live' where my boss has unbelievable N.Y. Yankees tickets, so he invites us to the games. I'm going to all the ga...
My dad had a flock of sheep, which he used to milk, and then my mum used to make cheese and yogurt out of the sheep's milk and sell it. It was kind of an unusual upbringing, really.
When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.
I was very lucky growing up, and I got all my dad's and aunts' toys from the 1950s and 1960s and loved those old pedal cars.
My dad's passion was to teach adults to read so they could read to their kids.
