A Quote by Leonardo DiCaprio

My parents, who were split up, were so good at keeping my environment strong and keeping everything around me not focused on the fact that we were poor. They got me culture. They took me to museums. They showed art to me. They read to me. And my mother drove two hours a day to take me to University Elementary School.
There were high school coaches such as Charles Boston that took me under his wing and taught me the fundamentals of football. And when I went to college there was Robert Hill who took me there and he showed me what hard work and determination would do if you put forth the effort and you take a little time.
It was probably my parents who inspired me most. My father was a scientist and answered my scientific questions, while my mother took me on walks and showed me birds and plants. She also took me out at night and showed me the constellations and the aurora.
I was lucky. My grandmother stepped up for me and said she would take responsibility for me and a compassionate juvenile judge took a chance and gave me one. They were getting ready to send me away to do real time, but they sent me instead to a juvenile alternative day school. And I guess that was the beginning of my turnaround.
You were my strength when I was weak; you were my voice when I couldn't speak; you were my eyes when I couldn't see; you saw the best there was in me; lifted me up when I couldn't reach, you gave me faith cuz you believed. I'm everything I am because you loved me.
My parents were very young when they had me. They were still growing up and learning themselves. They did the best they could, but my mom and dad split up when I was little... So that kind of made me stronger.
The best thing my parents did was to make me study in Chennai. I was in a school where most others around me were also from film industry families so none of us realised what our parents were.
If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I'd like to spend them, I'd reply 'Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.'
As I got older, I never considered that tons of people were watching me on television every week. I give a nod to my parents for keeping me as normal as I could be in an un-normal adult world.
Books showed me there were possibilities in life, that there were actually people like me living in a world I could not only aspire to but attain. Reading gave me hope. For me, it was the open door.
There are times when I'm super-overwhelmed, and everything feels like it's hitting me in the face at once, but I think what's keeping me calm, and who I am by staying true to myself, is my whole family being so supportive and keeping me grounded. They treat me the exact same way they treated me years and years ago.
My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back.
Anyone dying is not easy, but certainly not a mother. Me and my brother, we stuck together. The foster families were good to me, and then my nanny took me in.
Prison was a blessing. Going to prison was the greatest thing that happened to me. It showed me that I wasn't infallible. It showed me that I was just human. It showed me that I can be back with my ghetto brothers I grew up with and have a good time. It taught me to cool out. It taught me patience. It taught me that I didn't ever want to lose my freedom. It taught me that drugs bring on the devil. It taught me to grow up.
I might sound crazy about this but, years ago, my mom told me: "We almost died when you were born. Both of us." I was a Caesarean baby, and the doctor who delivered me later told me, "I opened your mother up, and you were right there. It freaked me out because everything was broken and out-there." I've thought about it a lot - could this have something to do with the fact that I'm only happy when I'm at home and alone? Maybe I was just freaking out for two weeks before I was born, feeling really insecure.
Everything just feels so empty without her. She was more a parent to me than my birth parents were. She took me in, fed, dressed me, but most importantly, she treated me with respect. She taught me that my abilities were nothing to be ashamed of, nothing I should try so hard to deny. She convinced me that what I had was a gift-not a curse- and that I shouldn't let other people's narrow minds and fears determine how I love, what I do, or how I perceive myself in the world. She actually made me believe that in no way, shape, or form did their uninformed opinions make me a freak.
I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.
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