Simon Armitage Quotes

My dad moved to London in his early 20s and didn't really go back. So the irony is I've spent lots and lots of time in Ireland, but not with my dad. I've shot films in Belfast, where he's from. And I've shot in Dun Laoghaire. Which is great. And I've shot in Dublin.

My dad is from Panama; he came to the U.S. in 1971. He came to study chemical engineering at the University of Delaware. He thought he would go back, and then he met my mom here. I was born and mostly raised in Delaware.

My memories are of my dad taking me to football on Saturday mornings, and my mum taking me swimming. Those are the things I remember from my childhood, not sitting around the table debating capitalism and the profit squeeze.

I'd seen my dad on stage, and that was fine, but the real excitement was - that was my dad. Even now, when I see his films, he's always my favourite person in the movie.

When I was little, I grew up in a place called Hertfordshire, which is just near London, but out in the country, and I visited Pakistan in the summers to go and see my family on my dad's side.

When I told my mom I was going to audition for 'The Hobbit,' she said, 'Well, you've always loved Tolkien.' And she was right.

My favorite place in the world is my dad's house in Montauk.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

The only pleasure in redecorating or moving house comes from stumbling across books that I'd almost forgotten I owned.

My dad took me to my first movie. It was 'The Greatest Show on Earth' in 1952, a movie of such scale it was actually a traumatic experience.

Sending a handwritten letter is becoming such an anomaly. It's disappearing. My mom is the only one who still writes me letters. And there's something visceral about opening a letter - I see her on the page. I see her in her handwriting.

I'm a California Angels fan because that's the first game my dad took me to see, and they stuck with me.

My father's mother was from Liverpool and she had this very beautiful English china. I only wanted to drink my cocoa out of my grandmother's cup and saucer.

When I was really young, Dad wasn't that well known. I don't remember when I realised he was a writer, but I do remember him leaving his full-time job at the Central Electrical Generating Board to concentrate on books.

We would go back and maybe not say that thing to our dad that we said, or maybe be a little nicer to someone who we cared about and had a relationship with when we were young. You know, they're subtle things, but we carry those with us forever. And I think that regret and time travel are intrinsically linked to me.

I grew up in the GOP sandbox. My dad took me, age 7, to meet Herbert Hoover, in his apartment at the Waldorf Towers. He gave me a silver dollar. Being a young Republican, I spent it on comic books.

My dad had a small suitcase stuffed with photos, mementoes from wherever he'd traveled as a Royal Navy gunner. Not that he gunned very much, as it turned out. I'd haul it out and go through it time and time again.

I didn't want to travel. I didn't want to leave my family. I heard all these stories from Dad about not having Edward around when he was young, and I didn't want that to happen.

My first trip to Mexico was with my dad because of his Spanish records. That was back in 1958. I found a picture of me when I was eight dressed as a little senorita.

My parents used to bring me to Radio City when I was a little girl, so performing there 50 years later was absolutely surreal - especially with my parents in the audience!

I was actually born in Baltimore! Although I moved away when I was quite young and consider Chicago to be my hometown, Baltimore is sentimental to me, and I still keep in touch with family friends I knew as a little girl.

I spent some special years in my hometown of El Paso.

I spent a whole year in New York without going back to France. And I always came back because my mother was living in New York since I was 13. So I went to summer camps, hang out at the Roxy, go to class for ballet, so I always had part of my life in New York.

I grew up in Wahpeton, N.D., and I didn't leave until I was 18, and I've kept going back.

Bihar has always drawn me, ever since I was a child, brought up on the stories about my grandfather Babasaheb Soman.