John Updike Quotes

A father is a thousand schoolmasters.

My father made with me one serious mistake which I see parents about me making. He got himself somehow into the awkward position of an authority; I thought he knew and was right on everything - for a while.

What you have to understand, is your father was your model for God.

Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father. I liked my father a lot, he was a swell fellow, but I didn’t see him very often because my mother was bitter about him and did everything she could to prevent me from seeing him.

The figure of my father looms large in my imagination.

A father is the template of a man Nature gives a girl

My daddy, he was somewhere between God and John Wayne.

Mother was the disciplinarian, but it was Daddy who could turn me into an angel with just one look.

Our fathers never leave us. Ever.

A girl's father is the first man in her life, and probably the most influential.

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.'

It was really important in my relationship with James Caan that I understood the relationship between the family and the father.

I've never read one book about my father.

The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman's rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father, a task usually assumed by the mother.

I thought my father was biggest, tallest, smartest, handsomest man in the world, so if he was telling me something, I was taking it really seriously.

I'm coming to that realization that I'm going to be seen as a mom to someone, and it makes you think about your own parents. You know, who were they?

It means everything to be a father. I had a father growing up, so I wanted my kids to have a father as well.

My dad, he's a great father, but he's also been one of my mentors.

My father made sure of discipline, but my mum, she was serious business.

When it comes to little girls, God the father has nothing on father, the god. It's an awesome responsibility.

What is the son but an extension of the father?

An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom. From his own father, he said, he first learned that Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe. [speaking of George MacDonald]

The first service a child doth his father is to make him foolish.

Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wished we'd had.

Fathers have a unique and irreplaceable role in the lives of children.