Theo Paphitis Quotes

I guess I probably took New York for granted. Growing up, playing in the street, going down to the Avenue to the record store and to the grocery store and stuff like that.

I grew up in a little cul-de-sac in the suburbs and went to public school. I went to Costco on the weekends.

We went to church twice a week. My parents were employed in ministry; we prayed before dinner. We rollerbladed in the summer. We were allowed to watch the 'Simpsons.' I fought with my younger brother over Legos.

I love going to the local market and seeing friends that I grew up with... and having conversations. I love the community of Bayonne.

If I look back, my mother was always out. I can remember the perfume and her scarlet chiffon dress and crystal beads, going to a party. She used to play her violin at restaurants later on in life and at old people's homes. She loved the races, which she used to take me to as a child: our carpets were bought with her winnings. Loved her chickens.

My earliest memories are of watching 'Star Trek' and 'MASH' while my parents barbecued chicken in the back yard. I was an American kid, through and through.

I had an amazing childhood.

That image is a couple different people's homes that I knew growing up.

Harlem is a very family-oriented neighborhood, and it always has been.

I'm from a big family; I have four younger siblings. My parents are still happily married together. I grew up moving around a lot, and my family was certainly not affluent.

I lived in Meadowbrook. I went to church at Meadowbrook United Methodist Church. I went to school at Meadowbrook Elementary School and then Meadowbrook Middle School. I learned to dance at Meadowbrook Country Club. All those things grounded me in one place and I think most of Fort Worth is just like the area I grew up in.

I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, north Beverly. It was cool, everybody's cool on the block.

Just in general as a person, not necessarily as a songwriter, being in cities wasn't the right fit. I couldn't escape and be in the woods in 10 minutes if I needed to. I like that in Eau Claire, I can walk to a bar or a coffee shop, and there's city-ish things, but I can also drive and in eight minutes be at my parents' land outside of town.

I'm a really nostalgic person. I love taking photos and video and having memories. I remember all my childhood videos that my dad used to take. I think that's really what life is about - especially when you start a family of your own.

My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else.

I loved growing up in Tulsa.

All the stories I'll ever need are right here on Main Street.

I look back to a happy childhood.

I did grow up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, around a lot of my mom's family. I had a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles around me, and my sisters and my brother. Probably the most formative part of it was that we grew up on the edge of a forest. It wasn't a big forest, but it was enough. When you're a kid, it feels gigantic.

I can't divorce myself from my childhood. I try to write as much fiction as I possibly can, but there are so many things that are touchstones of my childhood like being on the swim team and playing soccer and the particularities of sports season and environments that make their way into my books.

Growing up in Boston and dancing in the streets, you see a lot of things.

For my own children, I do want for them to look back and remember that it was me in the kitchen, that I was doing the packed lunches, that we were there on the school run, that we did take a bus. I want them to remember those things, because those are the things that I remember from my own childhood and that have been incredibly important to me.

When I was seven and we lived in New York, I ran away. I took my dog and started out across the Brooklyn Bridge... I didn't get very far... It's rather difficult to run away in your mother's high heels.

We all knew each other in the neighborhood. I loved living in El Paso. I had a wonderful childhood there.

The walls of our upstairs hallway testify that we once had photogenic children. There are rows of framed pictures that show them playing baseball, basketball, holding a toad, and smiling in the sunlight at their eager parents. Everything is orderly and bright.