My childhood was kind of complicated. I have an older sister, but my father, my mother's husband, died when I was four years old. So I only had my mum and sister, really.
I was the oldest of four children, and the atmosphere was volatile for all of us. My father and mother were in constant conflict, making divorce seem like the only possible outcome.
I always thought, 'Will I go into the business, or will I not go into the business?' But when my father got arrested, I really didn't have a choice. I was the oldest son, and it was something that had to be done.
In 1962, I had an entry-level reporter's job at an Omaha television station. I had bargained to get a salary of $100 dollars a week because I didn't feel I could tell Meredith's doctor father I was making less.
I grew up as an only child with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif.
Mr. Burns is a father symbol to me, and you can omit the word symbol.
God the Father and God the Son cannot be everywhere present; indeed they cannot be even in two places at the same instant: but God the Holy Spirit is omnipresent - it extends through all space, with all other matter.
I've never read one book about my father.
One minute, you're dropping your teenage son off to a festival, and the next, you're changing a nappy, but I love the versatility and challenge of being a father.
My father was a small business owner. When I was growing up, he ran a one-hour photo store - back when there were one-hour photo stores.
I was 28 when my father died, and I was an only child.
My father was a promoter of Fresh Fest, and they needed an opening act. He got me a slot as a dancer. We tried it out the first time in Atlanta and the crowd went crazy. I was the opening clown.
Babe Ruth didn't become her father until 18 months after he married her mother, Claire, on April 17, 1929, Opening Day of the baseball season. Julia was 12 years old.
The trials my father went through were things most young black males have to go through. There was nothing he shielded from me, because it doesn't matter how you grow up, those who oppress will oppress. It's all completely relatable; everyone feels NWA.
The reason I'm not more political is because I have music. And from a young age, I needed it. After prison, my father came to America, joined the Army, fought in Vietnam - and was exposed to Agent Orange. He died a slow, horrible death. Music was my escape.
I was conscious of being wordy as a child. I was a terrible talker. I memorised the Latin names of flowers at five; I was shown off as a freak. My father encouraged me to be wordier than I was: he'd been a street orator at the time of Mosley, and his ideal primary concert speech was Henry V's speech before Harfleur.
My earliest memory is dreamlike: in a small orchard or garden I am carried on the arm, I believe, of my father; there was a group of grown-ups, my mother among them, and the group was slowly walking in the orchard, it seems toward the house.
My father gave me an old Olympia portable when I was in fourth grade. Our ancestors came from Ireland. Our family stories of immigration helped me understand more about my characters in 'The Lemon Orchard.'
I expected to be a farmer like my father and brothers. Life seemed pleasant and orderly.
The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.
