Summer Sanders Quotes

I hate the cliche of 'just have fun,' but what I've seen in today's sports, especially with parents, is they put so much pressure on the kids.

Mother set impossibly high standards for us, creating tremendous pressures and undermining our ability to accomplish whatever modest aims we may have set for ourselves.

They very seldom let me lose my cool. They made me like I was Polly Perfect, which was ridiculous so that when I bump into kids on the street they'd say 'I wish my Mom were like you.'

Kids are very sensitive to the value system of their parents, and I just felt my parents were attaching too much importance, too much meaning, to things.

I didn't want to raise my kids in this weird, sycophantic society. If you have celebrity parents, it's not a good recipe for the kids, or anyone at any age.

I didn't want to bash young people. I don't want to bash a kid for dreaming or wanting something or being slightly ambitious - that's not the problem. The actual problem is with the culture surrounding him.

I can see why there's a misconception that it's easier when your parents are actors, but it doesn't work out at all. In fact, it's the reverse.

I went to almost all of the agencies in New York when I first visited. A lot of them wanted to sign me but also kind of indirectly were telling me that I needed to change in some way. Some directly told me that I wouldn't be a model unless I changed the way that my body looked.

Barbie ruined my life! It's a really bad image for women. For a long time I thought I was deformed - because my heels didn't touch the ground. I was walking around on tiptoes. What's up with that? I think that it's a bad thing for a woman to try to emulate.

My parents were not perfect, but no one's parents are. As childhoods go, mine was pretty comfortable and good in a lot of ways, and yet I still ended up with anxiety.

My dad's been responsible for a lot of my issues.

I was an only child for 16 years. I didn't realize it at the time, but that experience definitely turned me into a people pleaser. I always tried to do what was expected of me, and I constantly sought reassurance from the adults around me that I was doing a good job.

I always knew I was the center of my parents.

Only recently - about five minutes ago, relative to the long-running human comedy - have parents been driving themselves to distraction by taking too seriously the idea that 'as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.'

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.

I remember feeling enormous pressure because I didn't want to be Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple was Shirley Temple, and I didn't ever feel like I could live up to that.

When you look at magazines, you feel so inadequate and so small and you feel really imperfect, when you're constantly seeing these images.

Men are taught that if we are not the ultimate provider, we are a complete failure. We have to be number one in everything we do. There is nothing more delusional or paralysing than what I have just described.

My dad was very critical and had very high expectations without a lot of the details filled in. It was, 'I expect you to achieve greatness in grades, in athletics, in whatever you do.'

I never really thought about modelling. It wasn't something I ever wanted to do. I used to always be so angry about modelling.

I think a lot of my shyness and non-athleticism came because I didn't have a father to instill those in me.

For some reason, people imagine that dramatic things happen to people who don't look beautiful.

With one or two children at home, I feel that parents concentrate too much on them and hence children lose touch with reality. They get whatever they desire and fail to understand that in real life you may or may not get what you wish for.

Maybe I don't have an accurate view of myself. For instance, I keep getting cast as 'The Beautiful Girl,' but I don't happen to think I'm beautiful.

People are so influenced by the media that they really believe a 38-24-45 plastic-surgery body is normal, and they can't understand why a body would possibly have cellulite or bumps.