Augustus Y. Napier Quotes

My dad was a preacher. My relationship, for example, with my father -- very difficult, and very painful, and it took me 50 years to wipe the face of my father off the face of God.

I missed my father so much when he died that writing about his life and mine was a way of bringing him back to life and getting me to sort of understand more about him and what made him the father, the husband and the man that he was, and how that made me the man, husband and father that I am.

So many men have holes in their souls the shape of their fathers. You can pass that on to your kid, or you can do something about it, and I'm seeing a lot of men doing something about it.

I hated my father all my life but in his final days I forgave him for all the suffering he caused us. As you grow older, marry, and have children of you own, you learn and forget. I do not forget easily, but I do forgive.

I'm the kind of father I wanted my father to be. That may be the sweetest revenge.

I think my biggest focus for myself is learning how to continue to get through the trauma that my father has caused in my life.

I had lost relationships with my dad, my brother and sister and I was just like, you know what, this is definitely the time to just get it together and so that's what I did.

I didn't actually get along with my dad when I was growing up, so by the time I was in my 20s, I didn't think I was going to be a writer.

One way of reading my life is that I have been in constant search for a father.

Many of my deepest insecurities stem from my issues with my dad.

The heart of who I am as a person and as a man is forgiveness, after forgiving my father for a lot of things that were done when I was child.

It all begins with forgiveness, because to heal the world, we first have to heal ourselves. And to heal the kids, we first have to heal the child within, each and every one of us.

I see my parents as tiny children who need love. I have compassion for my parents’ childhoods. I now know that I chose them because they were perfect for what I had to learn. I forgive them and set them free, and I set myself free.

Fighting has opened the path to redemption for me.

There were things that had been weighing heavy on me for quite some time. And I went into this hole, trying to work through some of these things so that I could be a better me and be a better mom to Julez and be a better wife and a better friend and a better sister.

Shedding off one more layer of skin, Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.

Middle Age At forty-five, What next, what next? At every corner, I meet my Father, My age, still alive.

But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa!" And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.

I think we all like to see ourselves as good dads, but there's also that fear, 'Oh, I don't want to be like my father,' or, 'I hope my kid doesn't turn out like me.' You know, I have those feelings too. So the key is optimism.

Although some people will say it's a cliché, I think not having had a father when I was growing up affect me negatively because I didn't have a good role model to follow.

How sad. How frightening. To be filled with so much hate that you could not even rejoice in the healing of a child...How did anyone ever come to that point?

Someone with whom we have a lifetime's worth of lessons to learn is someone whose presence in our lives forces us to grow...those who consciously or unconsciously challenge our fearful positions. They show us our walls. Our walls are our wounds--the places where we feel we can't love any more, can't connect any more deeply, can't forgive past a certain point. We are in each other's lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.

My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge.

I try to forgive her for my father's sake. But to be honest, I'm not the forgiving type.

I was still afraid of him, I knew, but in a different way - I was no longer a child, afraid of the threat my terrifying father posed to my safety. I was a man, afraid of the threat he posed to my character, to my future, to my identity.