“To be a successful father … there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years.”

“My father established our relationship when I was seven years old. He looked at me and said, "You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don't make no difference to me, I'll make another one look just like you."”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

“It was the first time in years I didn’t wonder if my father was out there, looking at it too.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

“One of the absolute rules I learned in the war was, don't know anything you don't need to know, because if you ever get caught they will get it out of you.”

Abraham Pais (1918–2000) American Physicist

“If I have one final word to say, I have to quote Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, when I met him after being appointed first prime minister. He told me this, 'You look like your father, you talk like your father, but please don't be like your father'. I think, what he said summed up my father. It is enough. With such an assessment, maybe it is not even necessary to write a book on Sihanouk and on me.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

“We follow two rules in the matter of optimization:
Rule 1: Don't do it.
Rule 2 (for experts only). Don't do it yet - that is, not until you have a perfectly clear and unoptimized solution.”

Michael A. Jackson (1936) British computer scientist

“We can buy you one of those books they have for little kids 'Timmy Has Two Dads'. Except I don't think they have one called 'Timmy Has Two Dads and One of Them Was Evil'. That part you're just going to have to work through on your own.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

“A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

“I was looking for a job when I found this one
Don't need the work like you need the work done
You look like you're under pressure
I was already looking for a job two weeks ago, when I met you, remember?”

Todd Snider (1966) American singer

“You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time. You lug around books and all and do homework. They give too much homework. You shouldn't be doing homework. Nobody's interested in it. The teachers are stupid. They shouldn't have any women in there. They don't know how to teach. And they shouldn't make anyone go to school. You don't want to go, you don't go, that's all. It's ridiculous. I don't remember one thing I learned in school. I don't listen to weakies. My two and a half years in Erasmus High I wasted. I didn't like the whole thing. You have to mix with all those stupid kids. The teachers are even stupider than the kids. They talk down to the kids. Half of them are crazy. If they'd have let me, I would have quit before I was sixteen.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer