My dad's a firefighter, so I know what it's like for policemen and firefighters to be on their own on Christmas Day.
Growing up, my father was a financial analyst for an oil company. He was just a regular dad. And when I would say, 'Hey, come see my play,' he'd say, 'Sure.' He'd see one, 'Oh, good play' - you know, very typical dad reaction.
I came from a working-class family. My dad was in a union. I never forgot what it was like to be a private.
My dad was quite an extreme man.
My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.
My dad taught me true words you have to use in every relationship. Yes, baby.
The real reason we ended up getting into that type of music was our dad worked for an oil company so we spent a year overseas when we were young kids. Because of that, it was all Spanish TV and radio so we ended up having these '50s and '60s tapes, tapes of that music.
My dad has been a big influence on me, because he's always had his own business. He really taught me business sense and how to be a focused individual, but also how to have fun and make everyone around you have fun.
My dad was great. He was very droll, very dry.
My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again.
I was taken out of school by my dad when I was 11 and lived in Mexico City, then later in Paris. I went with him to excavate in Bolivia and Peru. I never finished high school. I was a straight F student anyway. My father admitted to me later that he'd thought I would come to no good.
I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television, yob newspapers, and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad, school, police, church who used to set the standards, now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live.
My dad always had huge respect for the British Army. He always thought it was one of the best. And I think it changed his life - those seven years in that Army.
I think about where I grew up and how I grew up: my dad was making $25,000 a year. Taking a chance wasn't really taking a chance. It was like you were going for something better. To me, there wasn't that much risk involved.
Definitely for me, my personality, having children was a definite sea change. I found it very, very hard to balance show business and being a dad. The narcissism of show business and the complete, total focus of it was very difficult.
My mum and dad are pretty amazing chefs and they spent most of my childhood cooking really extravagant things for my sister and me.
My mum was a dancer when she was a kid. Then my parents met and eventually had an art gallery; my dad taught himself how to frame pictures, and then he was a curator at an art gallery in the city I'm from. I'm an only child.
I wanted to be a forest ranger or a coal man. At a very early age, I knew I didn't want to do what my dad did, which was work in an office.
I loved Dad more for treating the biological reality as trivial, irrelevant. He loved me no less than his other three children.
My views about God come from my dad. Dad told me that he believed Nature, which to him included humankind, to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that there had to be something behind it all.
I remember my very first training session. It was raining hard. It was cold, and I went home. I couldn't train. I stayed for ten minutes then told my dad to take me home.
My dad taught me never to be afraid of what's on the other side of the mountain.
My mother died when I was 12, and right after, my dad died in a car crash. I was 15 and had no family. The court sent me to live with my uncle and aunt in Missouri.
I think my love of music comes from my dad. I was born with an ear for music, like him, and started with the piano when I was 4 but fell in love with the drums. My dad always has music playing.
I have a mug that actually verifies that I'm the world's best dad. That's a mug. That's not me talking. You can't just buy those.
My - I grew up in - I grew up in public housing. My dad, for most of my life, worked for the post office, which was a terrific job to get because you couldn't lose your job.
I think when you are the parents of a gifted athlete, the best thing in the world you can do is to encourage them, in my opinion. My dad didn't push me and I didn't push my children in athletics.
Dad was in the British Army and my mom was in the Royal Air Force, so both of my parents believed in discipline.
It would be nice if I did have a good relationship with my family, and yes, part of me longs to have a mum and dad who love and accept me for who I am. But if they never do, it's OK.
My dad never blew anything up, but he probably had friends who did. He and my mom have always preached that the pen is mightier than a Molotov cocktail.
My dad took on every job he could get. He worked like mad. But then, at some point, he had saved up enough to open his first pub.
I had a dream that my dad passed away and that Jesus came into the room and he was basically knocking on my door, saying, 'Hey, you need to find out more about me.' So that Sunday morning I ended up going to church, and that's when I got saved.
My favorite memories were with my dad, throwing a football around when he came home from work. As long as kids are having fun, that's the biggest deal at the end of the day.
Dad loved computer games, and I would sit beside him for hours with graph paper, drawing out plans to try and forecast the moves he should make while he worked the computer controller.
I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he had a great record collection. He had - it was all - these were the songs. So I heard a lot of these songs, like, my whole life, so for me it was easy. I already knew what I was going to sing.
I never mind talking about my dad. I'm proud of who he is, and being his son is one of the things I'm most proud of. To be constantly compared to someone so brilliant, who happens to be your dad, is cool.
