Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

My brother and I slept on the couch. I didn't get my own room until I was in college. We didn't even have a telephone until I was in college.

My life was filled with family in South Sudan. I am the seventh of nine children, and we grew up in what would be considered a middle-class family. We did not have a lot, but we did have more than a lot of other people.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.

Being a father of three children and grandfather to nine, I do think that this thing called 'parenting' is becoming increasingly difficult.

I didn't leave home until 27. I was an only child raised in Philadelphia by my mother and grandmother. My grandmother controlled the stove. She made a lot of potato meals - mashed potato, potato souffle, potato pancakes. When we didn't have electricity, we ate romantically by candlelight.

I had an older brother, an older sister and a younger brother, and though I look back fondly on my childhood, I think that when you've got four siblings sharing the same resources and a single kids' bathroom, it's going to get a little tense at times.

Family life is tough, I'll say that for it. But in my case, I've mined the family. In a sense, I've used it. I've used what happened - the different events, the births of children, birthdays. Connecting, not connecting. Regret, shame, guilt. I mean, they're all in the songs. And love, too, I hasten to add.

I am the fourth of five children, and I can't remember a time with no babies in the house.

Most kids don't get to go their parents' wedding.

My father used to be away for months at a time, and he'd never leave any money for food, so my brother and I had to go out and nick it.

This was life in the '30s. This is the way it was with children in the South. I tried to make it general, the kind of things that might happen to any child.

I'm on stage 13. I'm at that can't-be-replaced stage. The transformation I've been through personally with my wife is amazing, but having two girls and a boy, man, that's the painful stuff.

We were like any other family with the same troubles and some of the same happy moments.

Being 1 of 6 made me a weirdo in school. We were like the von Trapps, and our house was like the 'Hunger Games.' Anytime my mom would get a good, sugary cereal, I'd hide a bag from my three older brothers, who'd eat everything.

My mom got 11 kids. We struggled.

I grew up in southern Sudan, one of nine children. Our life was simple but very happy.

I remember my dad took my ice skates. One day I asked my mum: 'Where are my ice skates?' because I loved to skate in the winter. And she said through tears: 'Dad is selling them now… we don't have money for this week.'

I was reluctant to talk about my kids on the blog. I kept telling myself, "People aren't coming here for stories about your kids. They want to hear about the upcoming books, writing advice, conventions..."

I was able to draw a lot from my own childhood, my friends' childhoods as well and my daughters' friends who are like my children as well. They multiply all the time. So you can have everything and say I can get all this done and then late at night one of your kids have a freak out about school or an assignment you end up staying up til 3 in morning helping them through it. Or somebody gets sick or has a crisis.

There's a constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging. I love it. I love it. I love it. I hate it when they're gone. I hate it. Maybe it's nice to be in a hotel room for a day - 'Oh, nice, I can finally read a paper.' But then, by the next day, I miss that cacophony, all that life.

You'll see a lot of funny stuff, you'll see a lot of daddy knows best stuff, you'll see a lot of me and my wife trying to hold the family together.

My sisters and I can still recite Dad's grilling rules: Rule No. 1: Dad is in charge. Rule No. 2: Repeat Rule No. 1.

My kids really are my center. They create a beautiful chaos. It's always a nice chaos with them.

My favorite thing about being a father is just seeing my kids grow and do some of the same things that I did when I was a kid, man.

When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.