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Fatherhood Quotes


"The new father finally hangs up the phone, laughing at absolutely nothing. "Congratulations," I say, when what I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in stars so that she never, ever does to him what I have done to my parents."


"Fathers are - The teeth on a saw, The head of a nail, The blades on a mower. Fathers are - The grit in a tumbler, The cement in the pit, The coin for the machine. Fathers are - The air in the tires, The spring in the suspension, The key to the ignition. Fathers are... the confidence in a dare, The energy of a command, The boots for the trail. Tis true you might make things work without them, but not at all like they were meant to."


"If a father does not altogether embrace a life of uncompromised sacrifice as the core of all principles by which he nurtures his children, he is a father by birth only and no power on earth can ever or will ever make that sufficient."


"Every man, who desires to become a true father, has to look continually to the Lord, that he might learn of Him how to relate to his own children."


"The greatest lessons I learned from my father didn't come from lectures or discipline or even time spent together. What has stuck with me is his example. From watching, I chose whether to be or not to be like him."


"Fathers...Rise at dawn.Stand up strong.Fix and build.Plow the field.Carry the weight.Work 'til late.Encourage our dreams.Provide the means.Fight with might.Defend what's right.Protect the home.Refuse to roam.Forge the way.Take time to play.Spoil our moms.Keep homelife calm.And all becauseof selfless love."


"A 'good' father will tenderly cultivate his children. But a 'good' father who is also a 'brave' father will let the children without cultivate the child within."


"The disgraced Usurer Yankel D took the baby girl home that evening... He made a bed of crumpled newspaper in a deep baking pan and gently tucked it in the oven, so that she wouldn't be disturbed by the noise of the small falls outside... When he pulled her out to feed her or just hold her, her body was tattooed with the newsprint... Sometimes he would rock her to sleep in his arms, and read her left to right, and know everything he needed to know about the world. If it wasn't written on her, it wasn't important to him."


"To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away."
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