Dan Pena Quotes

They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.

You'll move from big brother to the adult world faster by cooking food for your younger siblings while your peers are playing video games.

The business of Mr. Bennett's life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennett's was to get them married.

When once an Indian sees that his food is secure, he does not care what the chief or any one else says.

My mother, whose interest in chemistry was rather minimal, nevertheless went to graduate school in the subject and married my father, for whom it was as important as life itself.

My brother and I had a lot of freedom growing up, and thankfully, we both turned out OK.

But most distinctly, I remember always saying to myself that when I get big, I'm not going to go to bed hungry, I'm not going to wear hand-me-down clothes.

I suppose the first big shift in my life was when, at the age of 8, my father left my mother, leaving her alone with two daughters to bring up. That taught me the importance of women being financially independent. You never know what might happen.

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout Time is 18 years.'

I have to thank my mum for kicking me out at 16 and making me stand on my own two feet - that's how I got here.

I think people like to think I'm in some way financially dependent on my family - on my dad - but the fact of the matter is I've been emancipated from my father since I was 14 years old. That's something people don't know or understand.

I'm the kind of person who, if I were living in another time, if I had to pick any time, I would probably be a pioneer. I just love the simplicity of what it means to work hard with your hands - to eat and survive.

I don't live through my kids. But I do know what will happen in life, and I just want them well prepared.

I'm me, I live from film to mouth.

It's been very hard, after being mostly a mom, to develop an adult life of my own. And not being married anymore, I have to come up with challenges.

As long as she is talented enough and passionate about doing it herself then I will be happy and support her. I think I will be sensible - my parents said I could only do it if I got my education and so I had something to fall back on.

I don't think it's a Western thing to really talk about intrinsic motivation and the drive for autonomy, mastery and purpose. You have to not be struggling for survival. For people who don't know where their next meal is coming, notions of finding inner motivation are comical.

I was going to live on my salary or go down swinging.

I'm not an example for how people should live their lives. Never in my life would I ever set out to be an example for people on how to live their lives. If you need an example for how to live, then you just shouldn't have been born. Straight up.

All I care about is providing and living every day. I don't care about world titles, being a legend, or being a hero.

I love what I do, I can't imagine doing anything else, but ultimately, my goal is to be happy and have a family. That's my life.

My goal was to always get my degree. Once I did that, I thought I could pursue any other passion because I had something to fall back on if I needed it.

There's nothing more damning in life than a child calmly and coldly saying, 'Are you aware that you're teaching me bad habits?'

When you grow up without a brother or sister, you tend to see things just through your own eyes. You have friends and everything, but you spend most of your time watching TV or sat in a room making decisions about your life on your own.

You never know how your kids are going to turn out. You can raise them with all the best intentions, and then they're own people, and they have their own inner conflicts. You just hope you've given them some good stuff to navigate with.