Edward Young Quotes

A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be.

Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.

Years later, when I asked my father, I said 'Pop, why were you so much harder on me than my younger brothers?' he said, son, you plum wore me out.

If I did not have for him the warm affection a son feels toward a less austere and preoccupied father, I at least had an immense respect for him, and a great admiration.

I think in any father-son relationship, there's going to be times you say, 'Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.'

Each father wants their sons to be just like them, really.

Not every father gets a chance to start his son off in his own footsteps.

When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him, that I didn't have with my father.

Few sons are like their fathers - many are worse, few better.

The only result my father got for his money was the certainty that his son had laid faultlessly the foundation of a system of heavy drinking and could be always relied upon to make a break of at least twenty-five even with a bad cue.

My father and I were never intimate in the sense of my coming to him with confidences or seeking advice. Our relationship was rather that of host and guest. Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.

I was also an only child and my father really wanted a son - he's from that generation - it was always about kung-fu theater on Sundays and boxing games on the weekend.

The truth is, my father stopped bothering me after Stigmata, because I got to play a priest. That fulfilled his dream. The cop thing was a little overdone to him because my brother was already a police officer.

But children, hark! Your mother would rather, When you arrived, have been your father.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.

Fathers have a lot to do to make up for having sons.

I was interested in the idea of succession - showing a father and a son both in their own time and drawing a contrast

I finally made friends with my father when I entered my twenties. We had so little in common when I was a boy, and I am certain I had been a disappointment to him. He did not ask for a child with a book, off in its own world. He wanted a son who did what he had done; swam and boxed and played rugby, and drove cars at speed with abandon and joy, but that was not what he wound up with.

Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes.

I calculated the amount of time I spent with my father during my entire life... the total amount of time I had with him, if you add up the hours, was about two months. My father was a busy man... we had very few opportunities to really sit down and talk as father and son.

Why do men like me want sons? he wondered. It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance at life; like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone.

Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.

The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge which would be of more advantage to them than an hundred rebukes or chidings.

Fiorito has all the right stuff. His splendid memoir about his relationship with his dying father belongs on that small shelf with Philip Roth's Patrimony and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes.

A son is a promise that time makes to a man,the guarantee every father receives that whatever he holds dear will someday be considered foolish, and that person he loves best in the world will misunderstand him.