Peter Sellers Quotes

My dad was not happy about my not becoming an architect like him.

My mom wanted me to be a youth pastor, and when I became a comedian, she said it was close enough.

If you asked anybody in my family, they would have very stridently proclaimed themselves middle class. My mother and father were separated, so he doesn't count.

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer.

My father wants me to be like my brother, but I can't be.

When I was a kid, my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn't think I would amount to anything. My mother also.

My father wanted me to be a pharmacist like himself. He had been a doctor, but he no longer believed in medicine; so he became a pharmacist, but he believed in that hardly more.

My mother was a sociologist and an intellectual, and my father was an industrialist with a business in copper and aluminum wire. He was very strict and he wanted me to work in the family business - for him, the worst thing was having a daughter who worked in fashion.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

My parents owned a pharmacy in Budapest, which gave us a comfortable living. As I was their only child, they wanted me to become a pharmacist. But my own preference would have been to study philosophy and mathematics.

My father, who was from a wealthy family and highly educated, a lawyer, Yale and Columbia, walked out with the benefit of a healthy push from my mother, a seventh grade graduate, who took a typing course and got a secretarial job as fast as she could.

My parents wanted me to be a lawyer.

You know, both my parents aren't really from this country, and the emphasis was really on education and studying, and TV seemed like it was not the best use of my time for my parents. So ironically, of course, I rebelled completely and now it's how I make a living.

My parents had the plan for my life from the moment my mother tested positive with me. Looking back now, I'd say the hard turn for me was when I left school after the eighth grade to play tennis full time and study some with a travelling tutor.

I think any young person who is going into the same field as their parent whose parent has been very successful, it's complicated.And it was complicated for me.

It was a given in our family that my father was a grocer so that I wouldn't have to be.

My mother and her plans for my future. She had it all worked out. I would attend a nice college, then get a job in advertising. "You'll be one of those smart-looking fellows in their Madison Avenue suits." And I rebelled against [my mother] and her values and her plans for my future at every opportunity.

I do have a son. He's out of school now. He never played football. And it had nothing to do with me. I was actually crushed that he didn't play football. I thought, 'Oh my God, this is awful.' My brothers all played football. My dad played football.

I love my dad and respect him and miss him, but I never hung around my father that much because my dad was a lawyer and engineer, and he really didn't understand what I was about. I was supposed to go to law school at UCLA - I was admitted - and instead of going to law school, I went on the road with a band.

I grew up never thinking about acting as a profession because that was what my mum did, and often, you don't want to be like your parents.

I ended up moving to Dubai and going into finance after college because of family pressure. I was trying to love it, but I just didn't.

One thing about me is that my parents didn't force me to be an athlete.

I was supposed to be the doctor in my family.

My father was in the coal and heating business, and he wanted me to take over his business, and I resented every moment of it. So I would never force my kids to do what I do.

My father was a bricklayer, and my mother was a housewife. It was complicated, obviously, because of our humble origin, but thank God we were all focused.