Dan Pena Quotes

My father is the reason I am the way I am today. He's why I acted up and he's why I prayed to be the opposite of him. We made up before he died but I vowed to never raise my kids like how he raised me.

I don't want to keep talking about my upbringing because people always resort to the past and what happened when I was younger.

I definitely didn't want children, because my childhood was not a very happy time.

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.

I was so determined not to pass on to my children what I perceived to be the faults of my upbringing.

Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood.

It's a universal truth that no parent wishes to acknowledge that the fear and phobias we are in thrall to in adulthood almost invariably connect back to childhood experiences.

Stasis is something that has marked my life since I was a boy growing up in Pittsburgh with my mother. It was the natural state that we existed in. For one thing, she suffered from a debilitating depression throughout my childhood, and depression is nothing if not static.

I come personally from a broken family, divorced very early in my childhood, a family with its own share of troubles, so I think that was very influential in both me believing that someday I would consistently devote myself to my own family that I created, but I think it also really affects my view of the world.

The doctor's name was Sylvia. I told her she'd have a problem with me because Sylvia was my mother's name.

The great thing about all my siblings is we all agree we had a horrendous childhood. It's not like it doesn't affect us now; it affects us every day, in everything we do.

I think I would have had less tumult in my life if I hadn't grown up in my particular house.

Most of us have unhealthy thoughts and emotions that have either developed as a result of trauma or hardships in their childhood, or the way they were raised.

I came from a broken home, so my mom was a major influence in my life.

My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history.

I don't think I've ever come to terms with not having had a father around, and that's why I made so many mistakes with men.

I genuinely haven't really had a rebellious phase. I think it's just because of the way I was brought up. I think it's because I left home when I was ten years old.

I didn't come from a background of films. I didn't even really ever watch films. The fact is, my parents weren't into that stuff, and neither was I.

My mother died when I was two years old; that's why I have so many daddy issues. And that's why my relationship with my dad is so strong.

Many of my deepest insecurities stem from my issues with my dad.

I lived with my mom my whole life; her work ethic was ridiculous, and it hasn't changed.

I never argued with my father, and it so happened that, unfortunately, the same kind of relationship passed on with me and Ranbir.

There's nothing worse than saying the past is in the past, then dragging it into your kid's life.

My mother's childhood was complex, disjointed, and disturbing. As children, we would gather round and ask her to tell us again and again The Story of Her Childhood. It was Grimmsian, Andersenesque: a classic fairy tale replete with goodies and baddies.

I'm really the only artist in my family. I have one cousin who is a painter. I think I developed all of that from television and books - from being, essentially, an only child. I'm my mom's only child and my dad's fourth child, but separated by 14 years.