Ryan Murphy Quotes

I think Dad didn't really treat us like children; he treated us more like little adults. We were good kids.

Listen, everything I did in my childhood was competitive. Everything we did my dad made it into a game to win. We used to drive my mum nuts.

Many children work hard to please their parents, but what I truly longed for was good times that were about us, not about me. That is the real hole the Dodgers filled in my life.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

Since the beginning of time, every child on the planet has endeavored to please their parents.

I was 6, and I was in the opera 'Carmen.' My dad sang opera and got me into the children's chorus. I was super fat at the time and didn't make eye contact with anyone. I knew I loved acting ever since.

My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.

My father was my god. His approval was so valuable to me.

I'm obsessed with my parents.

No one, however powerful and successful, can function as an adult if his parents are not satisfied with him.

Like, my mother would have company over, and I would sing so they'd pay attention to me.

I think maybe even one of the reasons I became an actor was actually to hide. I mean, it sounds paradoxical because, of course, people are standing up in a public place and encouraging other people to look at them. So that's not the conventional definition of hiding.

Some people found it difficult to understand my relationship with my father, but that may have been because they couldn't get beyond their relationship with their own parents.

My dad was in my life, and he was actually a very positive influence on me in my life. He was always there. He was a great dad. But my parents divorced when I was 5, so I grew up in a single-parent home.

I actually participated in a Little Miss Orange Blossom Contest when was I was seven or eight years old. I remember standing up on the stage and thinking, 'Oh boy, I should not be here.' Obviously, I didn't win.

I was still afraid to sing in front of people before 'Glee.'

I had a tough childhood after my father died when I was five, and I had a very difficult stepfather. I want to give my children what I didn't have - a good role model.

As a child singer, I never sang a single track for my father or uncle.

I'm pretty shy. I'm so bad at public speaking. I can answer questions in front of a crowd, that seems to be fine, but standing up there by myself and delivering some kind of speech, I'm the worst. I hate it.

Singing in public makes me very uncomfortable.

I like jokes and one-liners. I enjoy entertaining and making people laugh, being the funny man. But when I'm launched into unfamiliar environments I shut down, and as I relax then my character emerges.

Anyone who has a parent can relate to this idea of not quite understanding who your parents are or making up stories about them.

Just to talk in front of people is scary. And now you gotta learn how to be funny, and now you gotta learn how to make people laugh at what you think is funny. That's not easy.

I have a big persona onstage sometimes, but offstage, I'm super shy. Like, I don't want to perform for people - I'd rather die than sing in a room for someone.

You're basically getting on stage and asking people, 'Do you guys like me? Do you like who I am?' But you grow pretty thick skinned. And the less scared you seem, the more people like you anyway.