Anne Roiphe Quotes

How do you rebel in a family of rebels? That's the age-old question. I guess I could have by not going into the arts, but the thing is, I couldn't do anything else.

My father was in the ad business, and he wanted to be a painter.

Whenever I write about motherhood - and I write about it a lot - I am drawing on my experiences as a mother and also my experiences as a daughter.

I love art. My sister is an artist and my mother is a painter, so it is very much in the family. I haven't ever wanted to be a fine artist myself - my sister robbed me of my artistic talent, I think.

My dad was an actor and a writer; my mum was a drama teacher. My grandma was an actress. My aunt is an actress. My granddad was a cameraman. They would've been surprised if I wanted to be a dentist or something like that.

I don't have actors in my family, but everyone is pretty artistic.

My parents were very artistic, but busy.

I'd want to read the stories that I'd written, I'd want to show the drawings that I made. That was just purely natural. So I knew I wanted to go into the arts in some way and that I'd want to show that work in some way.

My father's parents were carpenters. They were also builders partly. They were painters. And several of them were very, active in the theatre and all such nonsense, you know.

My parents were both actors; my dad sort of quite early on. My mother acted for a while, and now she's a painter.

People say, 'Oh, to be the daughter of Picasso!' But it's not as extravagant as it seems. He was very special, very vibrant, but he was my father. I didn't have another.

I come from a family rooted in the arts, so I think I naturally gravitated towards performing from an early age.

I have a lot of relatives that were dancers and musicians and artists. They basically came out of the womb doing it.

My parents were artists, so my salvation was to make pretty things - and ultimately delicious things at the same time.

I try to be a friend to my boys just the way my dad was with me. Subconsciously that reflects in my writing.

My mum was very interested in art and liked to write, and my dad was a hobbyist photographer.

My mother is an artist, my father an entrepreneur.

I don't come from a family of artists.

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 grew up the son of a businessman. And I didn't get into music to be a businessman.

How my relationship with my parents influenced my writing, really not at all. My dad was a mechanic, my mom a nurse.

I am my mother's daughter,... I am her only novel.

How many of the people I know - sons and daughters - have intricate abstract expressionist paintings of their mothers, created out of their own emotions, attitudes, hands. And how many have only Polaroid pictures of their fathers.

Every father is given the opportunity to corrupt his daughter's nature, and the educator, husband, or psychiatrist then has to face the music. For what has been spoiled by the father can only be made good by a father, just as what has been spoiled by the mother can only be repaired by a mother. The disastrous repetition of the family pattern could be described as the psychological original sin, or as the curse of the Atrides running through the generations.

Half condemn him and write him off as useless like him dad. The other half just shrug and indulge him and say, ‘Well, that’s Adrian.