Mahershala Ali Quotes

Maybe if I ever come to write about my teens and adulthood - and I can't imagine I will - but if I do, then maybe I will want to say a bit more about the ways in which my parents' relationship with one another impacted on me in later years.

My mindset at this stage, especially after having a daughter... it's just changed my whole outlook.

What I love about my daughter is that she is going to definitely allow me and force me to change my life and slow down and make it more about the real things in the world.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then I had this really extraordinary, different life than my parents.

Having children changes you forever, as a writer and as a human being. I hope it's for the better on both counts, but I guess we'll see.

People often say that having a family makes you make safer choices. It's been the total opposite for me. It's really made me want to make bolder choices.

A father's disappointment can be a very powerful tool.

I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.

I was raised mostly by my mom.

Definitely, life changes as it goes on a little bit, for sure.

I'm way more influenced by my children than I was by my parents.

The songs I write and the way I see the world have been affected a certain amount since I became a father.

Money and success haven't really changed my beliefs or opinions over the years. When I was growing up, my mum and dad split when I was 13 or 14, during the early-Nineties recession. At that time, my dad went bankrupt, and it played a huge part in it all at home.

My early comics are really reflective of being kind of a befuddled, single loser in the Bay Area, and I think having kids has been by far the most profound impact on me as a person and as an artist.

Being a mother impacts every aspect of your life. It's a rite of passage which gives you an entirely different outlook on things.

I didn't get interested in education until I had kids.

My parents did their best - that earns a lot of forgiveness. But they say children grow up in spite of their parents, and I think I did.

When I hear the deepest truths I speak coming out of my mouth sounding like my mother's, even remembering how I fought against her, I have to reassess both our relationship as well as the sources of my knowing.

Having kids had a big effect on me, but nothing more than when they started to get older- that really made me realize how fleeting each moment is.

The adolescent does not develop her identity and individuality by moving outside her family. She is not triggered by some magic unconscious dynamic whereby she rejects her family in favour of her peers or of a larger society.... She continues to develop in relation to her parents. Her mother continues to have more influence over her than either her father or her friends.

You grow up to become living proof of your parents' limitations. Their less-than masterpiece.

Self-acceptance begins in infancy, with the influence of your parents and siblings and other important people.

Our father presents an optional set of rhythms and responses for us to connect to. As a second home base, he makes it safer to roam. With him as an ally--a love--it is safer, too, to show that we're mad when we're mad at our mother. We can hate and not be abandoned, hate and still love.

I think that growing up is something that you should do gradually.