Jason Bonham Quotes

I was kind of smart enough when I was young, 14 or 15 years old, to realize that if you're ever going to do anything and step out of the shadow of your own dad - not only in hockey, but in life itself - you're going to have to learn you're Brett and not 'Bobby's son.'

I was pretty naive about how hard it would be to get out from under the family name. Not that I'm complaining.

I knew Henry Fonda was my father, but I didn't know who I was. They all thought of me as Henry Fonda's son. Unfortunately for them, they never got to know me.

I come from an acting family, my father was an actor, and I had to fight my way and just create my own identity.

Also, to be honest, my dad wanted me to be an athlete. And I think all sons want to prove something to their dad. So now, aged 35, I want to see what I can achieve physically.

Fighting for identity is something that is very much in my life.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

You don't wanna walk around and say, 'I'm somebody's niece, I'm somebody's cousin, I'm somebody's daughter. Who are you?' And I think that's always the challenge when you grow up in a well-known family, is ultimately, you have to face yourself in the mirror and say, 'Who are you? What have you done?'

I spent, whether consciously or unconsciously, most of my career trying to be something other than William F. Buckley's son.

I spent my life figuring out ways to make the room OK with me.

I want people to know me as a real person, that I struggle with the same things they do, that I had to teach myself how to get through life in efficient ways.

I knew every one of my father's lines in 'Glory' - I broke the VHS tape - but I hid my love of acting to make it as my own man.

I think everybody can identify, you know, with this sort of struggle to decide for yourself who you are, you know, and what your place in life is.

I am never more myself than in my self-betrayals.

You know, you always want to just do your own thing - I mean some people want to be exactly like their parents - Ibut I wanted to do my own thing and I ended up doing a kind of mix of my mom and dad.

Half voluntarily, half Winston's older brother [William] would take me in, saying, "Daddy, I think you oughta do this." And I'd say, "I think you're right, maybe I do need it." Sometimes a week later I'd leave the place; sometimes I'd stick it out for a month.

In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself. It will be a permanent Self, rooted in awareness and creativity. Once you have captured this, you have captured the world.

I have many problems in my life, but I don't think that identity is one of them.

I'm sure you think that I don't understand what you're going through, but I do. It's just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, opposed to what we want.

I think I created my particular stage persona out of my dad's life. And perhaps I even built it to suit him to some degree. I was looking for - when I was looking for a voice to mix with my voice, I put on my father's work clothes, as I say in the book, and I went to work.

I was the walrus, but now I am John. And so my friends, you'll just have to carry on. The dream is over.

I must learn more about these people―try to understand them, put myself in their place. No, instead I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is.

Become who you are by learning who you are.

I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.

If I give up the viewpoint of action, my perfect nakedness is revealed to me.