Robert Smith Quotes

I do not think that having children - I have three teenagers - keeps you young. The reverse. It thrusts you into a full-frontal confrontation with your own all-too-obvious maturity.

To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can't do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.

Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children.

When I wrote 'Runaways,' I was a naive kid who thought that all parents were evil. Now that I'm a wise old man with children of my own, I am certain that all parents are evil.

There are illegitimate parents, but I don't believe there are any illegitimate children.

Be a father first. Don't put a priority of being a friend with your wife first, or a friend with your kids first.

There comes a moment as a parent when you realize you will no longer be the center of your child's universe.

My father once said about being a parent that it is the only thing you do that requires a very long period of learning, and at about the time that you are becoming competent, you don't need the skills anymore. Notwithstanding this modest assessment of their parenting skills, they were wonderful parents.

I regret not having had more time with my kids when they were growing up.

When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.

I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people.

You know, as any parent will say, you know, life happens.

I often find that the best parents are the ones without children.

I wasn't against becoming a dad: I'd had a good childhood, as childhoods go, and as role models, my imperfect parents were as good as or better than most.

Mothers play an important role as the heart of the home, but this in no way lessens the equally important role fathers should play, as head of the home, in nurturing, training, and loving their children.

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.

Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.

Now that I'm a father, I've forgiven my parents.

My mom sees her sons as baby boys. Well, I stopped being her baby boy a long time ago.

Father or stepfather - those are just titles to me. They don't mean anything.

All our children are grown up and have their own lives.

When you have children, your perspective on the parent-child relationship alters.

As kids, we grow up thinking our parents are perfect and flawless - well, some of us - but they're trying to do the best they can.