You can't live your life blaming your failures on your parents and what they did or didn't do for you. You're dealt the cards that you're dealt. I realised it was a waste of time to be angry at my parents and feel sorry for myself.
I think you can totally be a totally normal kid from the suburbs of Chicago and go off and play shows. It's one of those things that when you go home, you're still the nerd you were when you left, and your parents still get to yell at you about cleaning up your room, and your girlfriend still drags you to the pet store.
I'm born and raised in the Northeast. My parents are Irish immigrants. So our tendency is to shy away from the big yellow ball that comes up in the sky every once in a while.
Both my parents were amateur badminton players. My father is a scientist and wanted me to be a doctor. But my mom was very aggressive and loved badminton. She pushed me right from the age of nine to take up the sport.
My parents both are physicians, and my grandfathers were both physicians.
I think the shape of our bodies has as much to do with the shape of our parents as it does with training.
I think anyone who's ever gone through adolescence and wanted something from their parents knows the basic tenets of a con.
I am a father, and I know the feel of being a father. Why wouldn't I want my gay friends to also be happy parents?
If we want parents to be discerning about what children are watching then we need to put stuff in there for them to watch, too.
My parents did not encourage romances.
My parents would say, 'Why don't you go out and play?' and I would say, 'I can't! I'm putting on my shows!'
I think, with my cartoons, the parent-like figures are kind of my own archeypes of parents, and they're taken a little bit from my parents and other people's parents, and parents I have read about, and parents I dreamed about, and parents that I made up.
Many children fully realize their parents see them as astonishing creatures and incorporate that into their daily presentations. That is, they throw their stuff on the floor because if you are truly amazing you can pretty much do what you want. Right?
I've grown up with my parents' music tastes, listening to Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones.
I remember this song by Clay Walker that came out in the '90s called 'This Woman and This Man,' and it was about breaking up, loss, the pain of moving on, and my parents were just getting divorced at the time, so I listened to it over and over again.
From a certain age, I sort of accepted myself for what I was. And although to other people it was like nothing ever goes right, I had a really nice attitude that I'd inherited from my parents, and especially from my dad.
I've always wanted to be sure my parents approve of what I do. Even with my tattoos, my mom went with me.
I don't really remember much about Kosovo. I only remember growing up in London, where my parents had to basically start from scratch.
I would not have stayed at a university if it told me upfront that a condition for me getting tenure. my views have to be filtered through Catholic values. I would consider it a betrayal of my parents' legacy.
I guess that's one of the things about growing up in the fifties - it never occurred to me that you wouldn't be at least as successful as your parents.
My parents were no ordinary people. My mother turned Gandhian, and my father was a staunch communist. They named me after the great saint as a symbol of communal harmony.
I look up to a lot of people, but outside of my parents, I've never really had a mentor.
As a lower-class kid, I was raised to think success would be owning stuff. Having that great job, too. Now I find my parents' dream was wrong. You never really own anything. And you're never really finished as a person.
What upset me the most was not that I would die, but that I was letting down my parents. I felt very guilty for chasing this dream career of mine, at the expense of my parents.
There's a lot to live up to when three of your parents are successful in the music business.
I spend so much time with my parents. My mom and I were joined at the hip for five years. There was not one moment when I wasn't with her.
What's cool about the beatboxing is I was so afraid to sing in front of my peers, my parents, anybody. I just wouldn't do it. So in sixth grade, I would turn to beatboxing because it made me feel better. Like, I can beatbox 'Drop It Like It's Hot.' Doing that a bunch of times eventually gave me the confidence to sing in front of people.
I think of my parents as a single unit, and it's interesting because they shared so much, and they were totally opposite. My mother, a Martha Graham dancer, had a classical background; my father had a back-porch background.
When I was, like, 16 or 17, I was just finding out about this YouTube thing. Then I saved a bit and asked my parents for some help to get the recording software and equipment.
The way my parents brought me up to see the world is still absolutely key to what I am about. The beliefs I was raised with - to respect animals and to be aware of nature, to understand that we share this planet with other creatures - have had a huge impact on me.
My parents were enthusiastic fans of 'Sammy's Hill.' But they think 'Sammy's House' is a better book.
I don't know a single person who doesn't regret the things that they did to hurt their parents, or the things they didn't say to them.
I envision presenting parents with a marketplace of school choices - public, private, parochial, charter, virtual, blended, and home education. They then can choose the model that best equips their children for success.
I remember being a young boy in Spain and watching my parents cook. We didn't go to a lot of restaurants because we didn't always have the money, so cooking at home was just what we did.
We are all somebody's children, and when we're in pain, we regress, instinctively looking to our parents to make everything better.
I think my generation has had an unbelievably easy time profiting from the world that was made for us by our parents and grandparents. We are essentially a rather frivolous generation. The Blair government was my generation's shot at power. It had some good things, but it had some flaws.
