The Best Father Ever Quotes & Sayings

I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had won the prize for best all-around student. Afterwards my father said to me, 'Never, ever disgrace me like that again.' When I tell my Western friends, they are aghast. But I adore my father. It didn't knock my self-esteem at all. — Amy Chua

My dad, the man I loved most in the world, a man who refused to compromise himself for anyone, the man who had showed me by example what it was like to be a true artist, was gone. We had become a loving father and son after a rocky thirty-year start. John Fante's gift to me was his ambition, his brilliance, and his pure writer's heart. He had begun life with a drunken, self-hating father, backing out of the hell of poverty and prejudice. Now he was ending it as the best example of courage and humility I had ever known. John Fante was my hero. — Dan Fante

I love Carter more than I ever thought possible, and he has proven to be the best father a woman could ever want for her son. But I swear to God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Christ's childhood friend, Biff, that if he doesn't stop waking me up at four-fifty-eight in the morning, every fucking morning, with his buzz saw snoring, I am going to go David Carradine on his ass. — Tara Sivec

I love you Rush Finlay. You are going to be the best husband and father the world has ever known. One day our son's wife will be thankful that her husband will have had you for a role model. She'll be lucky because of you. Because you will have raised our son to be the man that you are. He'll love her completely because he'll know how. — Abbi Glines

And even though he's the father of capitalism and wrote the most famous and maybe the best book ever on why some nations are rich and others are poor, Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments wrote as eloquently as anyone ever has on the futility of pursuing money with the hope of finding happiness. How do you reconcile that with the fact that no one did more than Adam Smith to make capitalism and self-interest respectable? That is a puzzle I try to unravel toward the end of this book. Besides the emptiness of excessive materialism, Smith understood the potential we have for self-deception, the danger of unintended consequences, the seductive lure of fame and power, the limitations of human reason, and the unseen sources of what makes our lives both so complex and yet at times so orderly. The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a book of observations about what makes us tick. As a bonus, almost in passing, Smith tells us how to lead the good life in the fullest sense of that phrase. — Russ Roberts

Will,
Thank you for taking on the role of father to my little boy.
Thank you for loving my daughter as much as I love her.
But most of all, thank you in advance for being the best father I could ever hope for a grandchild of mine to have. Because I know without a doubt that you will be.
Congratulations,
Julia — Colleen Hoover

John [the father] kept saying, "You have a penis. That means you're a boy." One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. "He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn't belong here. So I'm going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay. — Andrew Solomon

My mother had comforted me with tales ever since I was small. Sometimes they helped me peel a problem like an onion, or gave me ideas about what to do; other times, they calmed me so much that I would fall into a soothing sleep. My father used to say that her tales were better than the best medicine. Sighing, I burrowed into my mother's body like a child, knowing that the sound of her voice would be a balm on my heart. — Anita Amirrezvani

Boy, it sure was some strange Christmas, she told herself as she opened the living room door. And then she stopped dead. Because her present wasn't under the huge lighted Christmas tree. It was sitting on the sofa, looking toward her furiously, with a glass of whiskey in one lean hand. "Merry Christmas," Winthrop said curtly.
Her mouth flew open. He had a bow stuck on the pocket of his gray vested suit, and he looked hung over and pale and a little disheveled. But he was so handsome that her heart skipped wildly, and she looked into his dark eyes with soft dreams in her own.
"You've got a bow on your pocket," she said in a voice that sounded too high-pitched to be her own.
"Of course I've got a bow on my pocket. I'm your damned Christmas present. Didn't you listen to your father? — Diana Palmer

Don't let this[football] be the best thing that ever happens in your life. Maybe it'll be the best sports event, but don't let it be the best thing. Make sure you're a better father than this today. Make sure you're a better husband than this today. Because this goes away ... It's a game. — Mack Brown

He began quietly, "You recall, of course, that I won the Smallwood spelling contest every year I was there?" "Yes, Mr. Weston," she replied evenly, eyes remaining on the portrait. "And you might also recall that your father declared my handwriting the best he'd ever had the privilege to read?" "Yes, Mr. Weston." He looked at her composed profile and felt admiration fill him. When she said no more, he slowly shook his head, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "Well done, Miss Smallwood." He started to turn away but paused to add, "He did admire you, you know. He just didn't know how to show it." She gave him an incredulous look. "Mr. Pugsworth?" "Yes," Henry said, then walked away, thinking, Him too. — Julie Klassen

My father once told me of a trick question he used in a college class on forest fire control. If there was a fire coming from a certain direction and wind was coming from another, what was the best thing to do? The right answer was, "Run like hell and pray for rain," but few students ever got it. So allow yourself the freedom of knowing there are times to bail out, quit, run, leave the struggle, and have more time for joy. — Charlotte Sophia Kasl

My father used to say, 'Well, Ann, maybe the best thing you'll ever do, you haven't even thought of yet.' — Ann Curry

I tell my kids, 'I'm your father, not your friend - but I'm also the best friend you're ever going to have because no one is going to care for you the way I care about you.' — Steve Schirripa

Your father was the best friend I ever had, and he was a good person. A — J.K. Rowling

I think that I was raised by two of the best people ever. My mother and father are just the definition of hard work, like what hard work brings to you. They've taught me and my brothers and sisters to set your goals high and to give everything to reach them. — Josie Loren

To pastors and teachers
Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention.
Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms ... you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language ...
A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Before I met your father I thought that love and peace would change the whole world, but looking into your eyes, I knew all I had to do was let you be whoever it was that you wanted to be, and to love you, and that would be the best and closest thing I could ever do to change the world for the better.
"You are going to be brilliant," I told you. "You are going to be clever, and funny. Brave and strong. You're going to be a feminist, and a peace campaigner and a dancer. And one day you are going to be a mother yourself. You are going to fall in love and have adventures and do things I can't even imagine. You, little Claire Armstrong, you are going to be the most wonderful woman, and you are going to have the most amazing life: a life that no one will ever forget. — Jojo Moyes

It was that reader that she'd found in Mama's trunk. At the schoolhouse they had McGuffey, good lessons about good boys and girls. But Meggie had found the worn, faded book of fairy tales. They had been much more interesting than the stern admonitions of McGuffey. And her imagination had taken flight. Fanciful, that's what her father had called it. And when she'd read about Rapunzel, she'd decided that none of the local boys would ever do. A real prince was coming up the mountain for Meggie Best someday. She was sure of it. Unfortunately, this morning she'd thought that he'd arrived. — Pamela Morsi

I think my father is probably the best coach ever because if we talk about numbers, he's got a lot and he's only had two players. — Serena Williams

Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance - but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? 29-32 What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself. — Eugene H. Peterson

The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends. — Joel Osteen

It was exceedingly improbable that he would ever see the men again, but, as my father said, you never knew. Always worth approaching every man you met as if he might become your best friend in the world. — Jonathan Franzen

I'm not Dead-Eye Dan. I gave up chasin' bounties and don't plan on ever goin' back. I ain't a dime-novel hero, but I'm steady, I work hard, and I'll do my best to give you the life you deserve." Etta opened her mouth, but he shook his head at her, needing to get everything said at once. "I know I'm a good deal older than you, twelve years by my count, and most young ladies would probably wish for someone younger, less tarnished. I've seen a lot of ugliness in this life, Etta. I won't lie to you about that. I'm rather set in my ways and opinionated about how things oughta be done, but I'd like to think that God gave me some wisdom over the years, too. Wisdom that will help me be the husband and father I want to be, one who will lead his family in a way that honors the Lord." Dan — Karen Witemeyer

My father always told me that in this world we are going to make a truckload of mistakes, but the best mistake we can ever make is to err on the side of mercy — Joan Bauer

I have learned a great deal in my life, and DeMolay helped me to learn that character and integrity should be cornerstones in your life. As a Senior DeMolay, as a father, the best advice I could ever give would be to take the high road in life, and you will be able to build trusting relationships. — Larry Wilcox

I've made a few nice dishes in my time, but this must be the best I've ever made. — Jamie Oliver

Whether meeting with leaders and parents concerned about drugs in Bonn, Lisbon, or with the Holy Father at the Vatican, or doing a pretty fair flamenco in Madrid, I think Nancy's one of the best ambassadors America's ever had. — Ronald Reagan

The Bible talks about how God uses difficult situations to develop our character and get us stronger. The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends. But out of that darkness, out of that disappointment in my life, that's what God used to push me into another level of victory or another level of ministry that I never knew I had. — Joel Osteen

The best money advice ever given me was from my father. When I was a little girl, he told me, 'Don't spend anything unless you have to.' — Dinah Shore

As he rose to leave, Jack was crushed by the realization that while his father considered himself to be a great man, in his father's eyes the best Jack could ever hope to be was useful. — Leslye Walton

You can have this as the best Christmas ever as much as you gaze into your Father's face and receive His gift. — Ann Voskamp

My father was the best person i've ever known. — Warren Buffett

I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days. And when God has seemed most cruel to me he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father's wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace. Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. Fear not the storm. It brings healing in its wings and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Ever since I was little ... I have learned the hundred scrolls of thought, from my teachers. Of those teachings, I hate the 'Inactivity' path, the most. Fighting against humans, to gain stability, and fighting against the heavens, to open your own destiny. This is what I believed.
But, I finally understand ... If I hadn't fought, those that I called my father and brothers, would still be alive. At the very least, they would not have needed to lose their lives. If I hadn't fought, even if I wouldn't have been able to save my best friend. She would not have been driven to take her own life. If I hadn't fought, my friends would not have bet everything they had on me, and end up in a perilous place themselves ... I don't even know if they're alive. So this is what it means to be on the path of 'Inactivity'. — Da Xia

The best thing I ever saw was a man who loved his wife. — Paul McCartney

I hear my father; I need never fear.
I hear my mother; I shall never be lonely, or want for love.
When I am hungry it is they who provide for me; when I am in dismay, it is they who fill me with comfort.
When I am astonished or bewildered, it is they who make the weak ground firm beneath my soul: it is in them that I put my trust.
When I am sick it is they who send for the doctor; when I am well and happy, it is in their eyes that I know best that I am loved; and it is towards the shining of their smiles that I lift up my heart and in their laughter that I know my best delight.
I hear my father and my mother and they are my giants, my king and my queen, beside whom there are not others so wise or worthy or honorable or brave or beautiful in this world.
I need never fear: nor ever shall I lack for loving-kindness. — James Agee

My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers - even the answers they themselves believed. I don't know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being "politically conscious" - as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Don't you think," said Father Rothschild gently, "that perhaps it is all in some way historical? I don't think people ever want to lose their faith either in religion or anything else. I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence. I think all these divorces show that. People aren't content just to muddle along nowadays ... And this word "bogus" they all use ... They won't make the best of a bad job nowadays. My private schoolmaster used to say, "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well." My Church has taught that in different words for several centuries. But these young people have got hold of another end of the stick, and for all we know it may be the right one. They say, "If a thing's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all." It makes everything very difficult for them. — Evelyn Waugh

Last year was the best Father's Day ever, 1,000th win for Ford and to have my daughter there for her first victory lane. I'm not sure how to top that, but hopefully something spectacular will happen. Michigan is one of my favorite tracks; it's a big fast place and has lots of room to race. There is always a lot of strategy going on. Fuel mileage and pit stops are very important. — Greg Biffle

I never could have done that last one without you." Her voice was both shy and lovely. "You know ... my birth sire? He never did anything like that for me. He never ... he didn't even want me to go to the clinic. You know, even though I was hurt..." She cleared her throat. "So thank you. You're the best father ever. — J.R. Ward

My dear father; my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along the country by-ways. — Sarah Orne Jewett

Being a father is certainly a task ... but the best one that I could ever ask for. Being home, being with the family-that's what it's about. — Chris Hemsworth

I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did. — Pittacus Lore

The best advice I was ever given was on my twenty-first birthday when my father said, Son, here's a million dollars. Don't lose it. — Larry Niven

Just to be tender, just to be true, Just to be glad the whole day through, Just to be merciful, just to be mild, Just to be trustful as a child, Just to be gentle and kind and sweet, Just to be helpful with willing feet, Just to be cheery when things go wrong, Just to drive sadness away with song, Whether the hour is dark or bright, Just to be loyal to God and right Just to believe that God knows best, Just in His promise ever to rest, Just to let love be our daily key, That is God's will for you and me. Our Father and our God, You have shown me such great kindness and gentle mercy. Teach me to be gentle and kind too. Help me reach out to the lost in compassion and love to bring them gently to You through the person of Jesus Christ, through whom I pray. — Billy Graham

I love you, Savannah, and I always will," I breathed. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You were my best friend and my lover, and I dont regret a single moment of it. You made me feel alive again, and most of all, you gave me my father. I'll never forget you for that. You're always going to be the very best part of me. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but I have to leave, and you have to see your husband." As I spoke, I could feel her shaking with sobs, and I continued to hold her for a long time afterward. When we finally seperated, I knew that it would be the last time I ever held her. I backed away, my eyes holding Savannah's. "I love you, too, John," she said. "Good-bye." I raised a hand. — Nicholas Sparks

And Jazz snapped.
He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person.
Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze.
In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father).
Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am. — Barry Lyga

College is the best thing that can ever happen to you, my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking.. — David Sedaris

You know how we tell the good guys from the bad guys? The bad guys shoot at us.
Best lesson my father ever taught me. — Rick Yancey