Charles Dickens

Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.

[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay.

Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.

Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.

A few years after my first son was born, he wanted to know how we chose his name, so I began reading him the story of Noah’s Ark.

I’m convinced that what kids need today are parents – not buddies. They need someone who will exercise mature judgment.

[On his mother’s adversity] She had a very difficult beginning… All of my mothers family were killed… and she came to America at the time of the depression. It was not an easy life at all.

Having a sister is like having a best friend you can’t get rid of. You know whatever you do, they’ll still be there.

I pay my mama’s bills, I ain’t got no time to chill.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

I have not been a good father, but no father has loved his children more. Like my father, I decided the best thing I could do for my kids was work and provide. Fortunately, I’ve been able to do that. Unfortunately, my work was on the road, and that’s meant a life of one-nighters.

I learned more from my mother than from all the art historians and curators who have informed me about technical aspects of art history and art appreciation over the years.

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.

I was loved dearly by my father but I was never so precious that he didn’t think that I could be in there right at the table.

People say: “Oh yeah, jobs for the boys”. I wish. You’ve got to fight even harder with a family like mine.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them.

I believed in raising my children as I had been raised.

I’ve known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that’s as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I’ve known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began – out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don’t necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.