I was with my father at his end, as he was with me at my beginning. In the thirty-three years we shared together, he raised me, taught me, corrected me, comforted me, encouraged me, and supported me in all things.
I was raised well. My parents are from Nigeria; their culture is respectful. Very respectful. But I learnt that you have to be determined. It's not violence or aggression. It's sheer determination.
I still remember how my father used to wake me up at 4 A.M. and make me study. He also used to take me for a walk and then always dropped me to school. I was very disciplined, as my father inculcated those values in me. Now that my father is no more, I understand that you should not take your parents for granted.
I think losing my father was OK in the sense that it's cool for me not to have a father; it's normal. I'm supposed to bury my father. But what I didn't realize was that my father was my best friend, and that still gets me... that still irritates me a lot.
If people want to get to know me better, they've got to know my parents and the values my parents instilled in me, and the fact that I was raised in West Texas, in the middle of the desert, a long way away from anywhere, hardly. There's a certain set of values you learn in that experience.
My parents loved me. My father used to carry me around on my shoulders. I know my father loved me. All families love their children, and we were good boys.
I don't know if I came to this life with it or if it's something that came to me in my childhood, but I do feel that some of the things my parents said to me and how they raised me really stuck with me.
My mother was okay with me not playing it safe. She made an agreement with my father that I was going to be raised differently than my brother and sister were. My parents went through the whole sixties rebellion with my brother and sister. But I didn't feel like I had to rebel because I didn't have anyone telling me I couldn't do something. I never went into that parents-as-enemies stage.
I said I wanted to be a model when I was in middle school. Everyone close to me raised doubts except for my parents. My parents trusted me and gave me full support.
My father raised me from the time I was 12 years old. And it would never occur to me that I wouldn't be strong - I wasn't raised like that.
I think I really scored with my parents. All of my friends pretty much came from broken homes, and my parents are still together, but not only that, they're still in love and still write together.
My father was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. His family is from Spain. My father never taught me how to speak Spanish when I was little. That's very disappointing to me. I'm still planning on learning it on my own. I really want to travel to Spain and immerse myself in the culture and learn it on my own.
I didn't feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy childhood. My mother was overly sensitive; my father, ascetic. I was neither. I felt as if I were living with complete strangers. I suspect that my parents felt the same way.
My father said it himself in an interview many years ago: 'Husband and wife failed, but mother and father didn't.' I've got a life that really matters to me, and that's because of the way I was raised. My ethics are high because my parents did a great job.
I was raised by a mother who was a Sunday school teacher and a father who worked hard. Together they taught me to give back.
[Caine] "Interesting. Me, I've always wanted to know who my real parents were." [Sam] "Let me guess: you're secretly a wizard who was raised by muggles.