James Nesbitt Quotes

I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact, I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared, but I never was. I was much more terrified by my own family and real life, you know?

My first recollection of performing was shortly after my parents split up, so the logical conclusion to draw is that that affected me.

For the first five years of my life, things felt pretty good. A lot went wrong after that, family-wise.

Well, I was about six or seven, and my mother and father separated.

My father was out of my life when I was pretty young - when I was 7 years old, he was gone. I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood.

'House' was such a special part of my life.

I probably only cried five or six times in my life and I think four of those times was from my daddy kicking my butt.

I lived with my mother all my life until she died, and I don't really think I knew her, because I was always using her as my mother, if you know what I mean.

I can distinctly remember being the only boy in my class whose parents had separated.

I definitely didn't want children, because my childhood was not a very happy time.

My parents split before my fifth birthday, and I moved with Mom and my three siblings to her native Oahu.

As a kid, watching your dad leave, that's pretty powerful.

When I saw the scene in 'Close Encounters,' and Richard Dreyfuss's son is screaming at him - that's a heartbreaking scene. And I remember being devastated by 'E.T.' Or when E.T. started to get sick. That broke me up a little bit.

Before I moved to the Isle of Wight, I lived in the suburbs of London and saw 'Fantasia,' and it scared the living daylights out of me. And I didn't go back to the movies until many years later to see a Lasse Hallstrom film.

It's so crazy: my mom and dad divorced when I was 11, and my fondest memories are in the Philippines and being raised by my mom. It's such a big part of my life.

One day my dad said, "If you guys ever stop singing, I'll drop you like a hot potato." That's what he said. It hurt me. You don't say that to children and I never forgot it.

I'm writing a memoir. I'm four pages in. I start with my first memory, which is kicking my uncle in the balls. I was four.

My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

I don't really remember much before was eight, but I do remember that my dad brought me to drop me off at my grandmother's house, and he was a very emotional guy, but that was the first time I really saw him cry, cos I knew it killed him to have to give me up, but he knew I needed some family structure. That was the last time I'd see him or talk to him when he was sober for the next 10 years.

I get sick of that old rationalization, "We're staying together because of the children." Kids couldn't be more miserable living with parents who can't stand each other. They're far better off if there's an honest, clean divorce.

That earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think.

I have more pictures of my children than my father ever looked at me.

When I was a kid, I never went to Disneyland. My ol' man told me Mickey Mouse died in a cancer experiment.

I was sent to sleepover camp since I was 6, and you know, it's a recipe for disaster.

Our children are the only people on whom we can safely take revenge for what was done to us.