The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge which would be of more advantage to them than an hundred rebukes or chidings.

Do you think Fathers do any more for their sons, except in terms of money, that Mothers do for their daughters.

man must love his father and yet be free of his father’s expectations and criticisms in order to be a free man.

Shifting our attitudes about the future of fathers requires shifting our attitudes about the way our fathers loved. Recognizing that the rigid roles of the past were not designed by men to serve only men is not unrelated to shifting our attitudes toward dad.

The challenge is shifting our appreciation: being willing to give up some of dad’s money for more of dad’s love. And, in the process, altering the psyche that makes him lovable.

“Your father,” I said. “What does he really want?”
“What any father wants,” said Oxley. “The respect of his children.”
I nearly said that not all fathers were worthy of respect, but I managed to keep my gob shut and anyway not everyone had a dad like mine.

For me, growing up when I was young, I thought everybody’s father was famous because that was my norm. But my father still writes with long hand and whenever I was with him, I type his notes and in that way you might say I was helpful. But now, it is a different kind of relationship. We talk about issues now that we are older.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Other children had fathers and mothers and honored them, and they prospered and lived to a ripe old age; but he was often bitter towards his father and mother and dishonored them in his heart. His mother had cuckolded his father, and his father had betrayed his mother, and both of them had betrayed the boy. The only consolation was that he had a Father in heaven. And yet—it would have been better to have a father on earth.

Most every man competes with his father and imitates his father, lives in fear of disappointing, and craves approval, and on the extreme ends of this potentially fraught relationship, a man often spends his entire adult life trying to be exactly like his father or nothing like him.

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he who has a great deal left to him owes to his father’s care.

Our fathers are often mysteries to us and therefore we are often mysteries to ourselves.

You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.... The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.

Although I'm good at enumerating my father's flaws, it's hard for me to sustain much anger at him. I expect this is partly because he's dead, and partly because the bar is lower for fathers than for mothers.