A Quote by Matt Damon

Part of the American ethos is that you want to leave something better for your kids than you had and I know that my parents felt that way and I know that my grandparents felt that way and everybody worked hard so that their kids had a better chance. I just don't want to be the first generation that doesn't do that.

Matt Damon

Quote Topics

American Be The First Better Better Chance Chance Ethos Everybody Felt First First Generation Generation Grandparents Had Hard Just Kids Know Leave Parents Part Something Something Better Than Want Way Worked Your

Quote Author

Matt Damon
American - Actor
Born: October 8, 1970

There’s a belief now that the problem with our schools is parents, that if we just had better parents we would have better performing kids and, therefore, we wouldn’t have a problem at all. But what’s missing in that equation is that you do have a lot of parents in this country who are very involved in their children’s education and who do want something better. They want to see better for their kids. They know that they’re in schools that aren’t performing particularly well and if you look at how we treat those parents, it is quite poorly.

Michelle Rhee

I would say basically the commonplace observation that kids aren't going to earn as much as their parents is now is a coin flip at this point. Are you going to do better than your parents? It's a 50-50 chance, whereas if you were born in the 1940s or 1950s, you had more than a 90 percent chance you were going to do better than your parents. So basically almost a guarantee for most kids that you were going to achieve the American Dream of doing better than your parents did. Today, that's certainly no longer the case.

Raj Chetty

I want to be the best role model I can be for my family. I want my husband and I to be the ones our kids look to for guidance, to be the great role models that I had with my parents growing up, so for as hard as we work, I want our kids to see us having fun. I want our kids to know that we have to feel our bodies. And nutrition is a huge part of that.

Kerri Walsh

I felt cheated by the way grown-ups told me that the future of the world was bleak when I became a teenager in the 1970s. The pollution explosion was unstoppable. Global famine was inevitable. I genuinely want the next generation, my own kids, to know that actually it's possible that the future might be better than the past.

Matt Ridley

My three daughters are all going to go to college, and it's not even a question. When I was applying to college, my parents were hoping that I would just go somewhere. Today, they look at their grandkids, and they know those kids will have a chance to build this country in bigger and better ways than my parents ever had a chance.

Xavier Becerra

I didn't like what was on TV in terms of sitcoms?it had nothing to do with the color of them?I just didn't like any of them. I saw little kids, let's say 6 or 7 years old, white kids, black kids. And the way they were addressing the father or the mother, the writers had turned things around, so the little children were smarter than the parent or the caregiver. They were just not funny to me. I felt that it was manipulative and the audience was looking at something that had no responsibility to the family.

Bill Cosby

It's like the old thing: The parents stay together for the kids, but the kids know that you don't want to be together. The kids would rather you be happy - and separate - than together and miserable. I don't want my kid to grow up around two parents who just don't work.

Jaime Pressly

So I felt like I had to become a better person, a better man when it comes to my life and everything I have done and will do. I had to figure that part out myself. When it came to the way I was thinking, it was all about, 'Oh, make this play, get these stats, get these accolades.' I felt like that's what was important, and that's never true.

Shaquill Griffin

'Our parents' generation had it a lot tougher than we did. They had to live through the Depression, World War II, and then they had to, you know, try to pick up the pieces of their lives and bring up their children. And, it was a great example for us. I guess we grew up with a certain amount of the ethics our parents had, which is, you know: work hard, make your own way, be independent.

Billy Joel

Growing up on a farm in the '70s and '80s was just idyllic, you know, but I look at the difference in the way that my kids have grown up and how I've really done so much and dedicated my life and my heart and soul to making their life as easy as possible, because we always want our children to have it better than we had it.

Sara Evans

Every third our fourth generation that comes along refuses to accept the way their parents and grandparents are living. They just don't want any part of it, and Millennials are doing that in a way. The Millennials, you talk to a lot of their parents, and they don't recognize 'em when they compare them to themselves.

Rush Limbaugh

I just want kids to know that, no matter what your circumstance is and no matter where you're from, you can always make a way. There's always a way out of or a way in to do something - that thing that you want to do.

Anthony Ramos

When we talk about something like student loans, what we should be talking about is the fact that every American wants their kids to do better than we have done. If we can get that, the other thing we'd really like is for our kids to be able to come home and raise their kids in the community where we raised them. What unites all of us, no matter where you live in the country, is we want our family to be safe, we want the next generation in our family to be more successful than us, and we would like our family to be close together.

Jason Kander

I make movies the same way other kids play tennis or go to piano lessons. I'm trying to get better at what I want to do, just like other kids are trying to get better at what they want to do.

Elle Fanning

I know you only get one chance to make a first impression in a city - and I was so disappointed in myself for how that first season in New York had gone. It felt like a blown opportunity. It felt like I'd cemented my reputation in the opposite way that I'd wanted to. Selfish. Not a leader. Not a winning player.