65 Father Quotes

Nothing bonds people quite like the love and wisdom imparted by a father. Whether they're offering sage advice, sharing a heartfelt moment, or simply being a steadfast presence in our lives, fathers play a pivotal role in shaping who we become. To celebrate these incredible men, we've curated a collection of the top 65 father quotes. These quotes capture the essence of fatherhood—its joys, challenges, and profound impact. So delve into these timeless words and be reminded of the invaluable role fathers play in our lives.

1. “What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars.” - Jodi Picoult

2. “Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.” - Simone de Beauvoir

3. “His large earsHear everythingA hermit wakesAnd sleeps in a hutUnderneathHis gaunt cheeks.His eyes blue, alert,Disappointed,And suspicious,Complain IDo not bring himThe same sort ofJokes the nursesDo. He is a birdWaiting to be fed,—Mostly beak— an eagleOr a vulture, orThe Pharoah's servantJust before death.My arm on the bedrailRests there, relaxed,With new love. AllI know of the TroubadoursI bring to this bed.I do not wantOr need to be shamed By him any longer.The general of shameHas dischargedHim, and left himIn this small provincialEgyptian town.If I do not wishTo shame him, thenWhy not love him?His long hands,Large, veined,Capable, can stillRetain hold of whatHe wanted. ButIs that what heDesireed? SomePowerful engineOf desire goes onTurning inside his body.He never phrasedWhat he desired,And I amhis son.” - Robert Bly

4. “Sundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love's austere and lonely offices?” - Robert Hayden

5. “I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that.” - John Green

6. “I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?” - Jodi Picoult

7. “Weston: Look at my outlook. You don't envy it, right?Wesley: No.Weston: That's because it's full of poison. Infected. And you recognize poison, right? You recognize it when you see it?Wesley: Yes.Weston: Yes, you do. I can see that you do. My poison scares you.Wesley: Doesn't scare me.Weston: No?Wesley: No.Weston: Good. You're growing up. I never saw my old man's poison until I was much older than you. Much older. And then you know how I recognized it?Wesley: How?Weston: Because I saw myself infected with it. That's how. I saw me carrying it around. His poison in my body.” - Sam Shepard

8. “Sometimes I'd see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. A futon. A bed. But I never did. If I let him inside I would become him, the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up. The slogan on the side of a moving company truck read TOGETHER WE ARE GOING PLACES--modified by a vandal or a disgruntled employee to read TOGETHER WE ARE GOING DOWN. If I went to the drowning man the drowning man would pull me under. I couldn't be his life raft.” - Nick Flynn

9. “Hey Jade?' He called out holding two packages of maxi pads.I shook my head violently to stop Dad from talking, but from where he stood, I doubted he could see I was talking to a boy. A mildly annoying, but nonetheless cute boy.'Do you want wings or no wings?'It was official.This was shaping up to be the Most. Embarrassing. Day. Ever.” - Helene Boudreau

10. “Well, it doesn't look good. Makes me look like one of those unloved latchkey children they make after-school specials about.""Don't sell yourself short. You're more Masterpiece Theatre.” - Marisha Pessl

11. “Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don't misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence” - Wm. Paul Young

12. “I was eleven when my father left, so neither of us really knew our fathers. I’d met mine of course, but then I only knew my dad as a child knows a parent, as a sort of crude outline filled in with one or two colors. I’d never seen my father scared or cry. I’d never heard him admit to any wrongdoing. I have no idea what he dreamed of. And once I’d seen a smile pinned to one cheek and darkness to the other when my mum had yelled at him. Now he was gone, and I was left with just an impression—one of male warmth, big arms, and loud laughter.” - Lloyd Jones

13. “Spiritual fathers have influence over the lives of individuals. Patriarchs have influence over families. The devil has been able to destroy families because there is a lack of spiritual fathers and patriarchs.” - Sherry K. White

14. “As he grew older, which was mostly in my absence, my firstborn son, Alexander, became ever more humorous and courageous. There came a time, as the confrontation with the enemies of our civilization became more acute, when he sent off various applications to enlist in the armed forces. I didn't want to be involved in this decision either way, especially since I was being regularly taunted for not having 'sent' any of my children to fight in the wars of resistance that I supported. (As if I could 'send' anybody, let alone a grown-up and tough and smart young man: what moral imbeciles the 'anti-war' people have become.)” - Christopher Hitchens

15. “Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of one's own end, and affords an unobstructed view of the undug but awaiting grave that says 'you're next.' Unfilial as this may seem, that was not at all so in my own case. It was only when I watched Alexander [my own son] being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly, but quite unmistakably, stepped onto the stage. I was surprised by how calmly I took this, but also by how reluctant I was to mention it to my male contemporaries.” - Christopher Hitchens

16. “To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.” - Christopher Hitchens

17. “Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.” - Markus Zusak

18. “Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones. Papa was an accordion! But his bellows were all empty. Nothing went in and nothing came out.” - Markus Zusak

19. “We are not called to fight the battles of our fathers with a blind faith. We are called to examine their wars, and moreover, to discern whether their actions were sinful or just. Furthermore, we are called to decide whether to correct the errors of our fathers battles through either peace, war, or some combination of the two. We are not bonded to our fathers' fate, but rather called to build on their trespasses or triumphs for a better future.” - Cristina Marrero

20. “Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.” - Lydia Maria Child

21. “There is nothing that moves a loving father's soul quite like his child's cry.” - Joni Eareckson Tada

22. “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” - Umberto Eco

23. “They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father's affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could provide no more luxuriously for his family; but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never would, in his heart he disliked her.” - W. Somerset Maugham

24. “That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.” - Markus Zusak

25. “I wondered what my father had looked like that day, how he had felt, marrying the lively and beautiful girl who was my mother. I wondered what his life was like now. Did he ever think of us? I wanted to hate him, but I couldn't; I didn't know him well enough. Instead, I wondered about him occasionally, with a confused kind of longing. There was a place inside me carved out for him; I didn't want it to be there, but it was. Once, at the hardware store, Brooks had shown me how to use a drill. I'd made a tiny hole that went deep. The place for my father was like that.” - Elizabeth Berg

26. “America used to live by the motto "Father Knows Best." Now we're lucky if "Father Knows He Has Children." We've become a nation of sperm donors and baby daddies.” - Stephen Colbert

27. “Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.” - Don DeLillo

28. “The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.” - Prevost Abbe

29. “Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.” - Roman Payne

30. “She serves me a piece of it a few minutesout of the oven. A little steam risesfrom the slits on top. Sugar and spice -cinnamon - burned into the crust.But she's wearing these dark glassesin the kitchen at ten o'clockin the morning - everything nice -as she watches me break offa piece, bring it to my mouth,and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen,in winter. I fork the pie inand tell myself to stay out of it.She says she loves him. No waycould it be worse.” - Raymond Carver

31. “And what could my father possibly want with another child, when he hardly bothered to talk to the one he already had?” - Polly Shulman

32. “He's an artist in London. We don't see him much."Tom gave him one of his quick, considering glances and asked, "Doesn't he live with you?""No," said Indigo, finally saying out loud what he had known now for a long, long time. "Not really. Not anymore.” - Hilary McKay

33. “When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?” - kiran desai

34. “When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment.” - Jane Smiley

35. “Well, Betsy," he said, "your mother tells me that you are going to use Uncle Keith's trunk for a desk. That's fine. You need a desk. I've often noticed how much you like to write. The way you eat up those advertising tablets from the store! I never saw anything like it. I can't understand it though. I never write anything but checks myself. ""Bob!" said Mrs. Ray. "You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry.""Cry, eh?" said Mr. Ray, grinning. "In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you're going to be a writer."Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed."But if you're going to be a writer," he went on, "you've got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics.” - Maud Hart Lovelace

36. “He made a good salary but he did not flaunt it. He’d been raised in Chicago proper by a Lithuanian Jewish mother who had grown up in poverty, telling stories, often, of extending a chicken to its fullest capacity, so as soon as a restaurant served his dish, he would promptly cut it in half and ask for a to-go container. Portions are too big anyway, he’d grumble, patting his waistline. He’d only give away his food if the corners were cleanly cut, as he believed a homeless person would just feel worse eating food with ragged bitemarks at the edges – as if, he said, they are dogs, or bacteria. Dignity, he said, lifting his half-lasagna into its box, is no detail.” - Aimee Bender

37. “You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.” - Marilynne Robinson

38. “Dad had once said, Trust your mind, Rob. If it smells like shit but has writing across it that says Happy Birthday and a candle stuck down in it, what is it?Is there icing on it? he'd said.Dad had done that thing of squinting his eyes when an answer was not quite there yet.” - George Saunders

39. “Father! My father knows the proper way The nation should be run;He tells us children every dayJust what should now be done.He knows the way to fix the trusts,He has a simple plan;But if the furnace needs repairs,We have to hire a man.My father, in a day or twoCould land big thieves in jail;There's nothing that he cannot do,He knows no word like "fail.""Our confidence" he would restore,Of that there is no doubt;But if there is a chair to mend,We have to send it out.All public questions that arise,He settles on the spot;He waits not till the tumult dies,But grabs it while it's hot.In matters of finance he canTell Congress what to do;But, O, he finds it hard to meetHis bills as they fall due.It almost makes him sick to readThe things law-makers say;Why, father's just the man they need,He never goes astray.All wars he'd very quickly end,As fast as I can write it;But when a neighbor starts a fuss,'Tis mother has to fight it.In conversation father canDo many wondrous things;He's built upon a wiser planThan presidents or kings.He knows the ins and outs of eachAnd every deep transaction;We look to him for theories,But look to ma for action” - Edgar Albert Guest

40. “My father couldn't warm my frozen hands.” - Tahereh Mafi

41. “His client needs him, he says. Needs him? But isn’t he needed at home?” - Beth Kephart

42. “Hadley realises that even though everything else is different, even though there's still an ocean between them, nothing really important has changed at all.He's still her dad. The rest is just geography.” - Jennifer E. Smith

43. “It was a fact generally acknowledged by all but the most contumacious spirits at the beginning of the seventeenth century that woman was the weaker vessel; weaker than man, that is. ... That was the way God had arranged Creation, sanctified in the words of the Apostle. ... Under the common law of England at the accession of King James I, no female had any rights at all (if some were allowed by custom). As an unmarried woman her rights were swallowed up in her father's, and she was his to dispose of in marriage at will. Once she was married her property became absolutely that of her husband. What of those who did not marry? Common law met that problem blandly by not recognizing it. In the words of The Lawes Resolutions [the leading 17th century compendium on women's legal status]: 'All of them are understood either married or to be married.' In 1603 England, in short, still lived in a world governed by feudal law, where a wife passed from the guardianship of her father to her husband; her husband also stood in relation to her as a feudal lord.” - Antonia Fraser

44. “There is a rustle of dead leaves. Dried sap, a branch crack, the whirring teeth of Mr. Omaru's saw. My father--my real father--is a limb that got axed off the family tree a long time ago now. My mother coughs and cleans phantom juices off her silver with a cloth doily. My sisters clench their knives.” - Karen Russell

45. “Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating...too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.” - John Wooden

46. “I should no longer define myself as the son of a father who couldn’t or hasn’t or wouldn’t or wasn’t.” - Cameron Conaway

47. “I got my dad a great father's Day present. He called to say: 'Ach. Zis present is so good I now think it vas almost vorth having children.” - Johann Hari

48. “*marissa tries to get her single, working mother's attention by suggesting something outrageous, to which mom replies:*'You're a smart girl. Use your head and avoid any guy who reminds you of your father.” - Camille Noe Pagan

49. “I will see my father in every anger.” - Courtney Summers

50. “At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.” - Salman Rushdie

51. “...[W]hen I told my dad why I was calling, he just said, 'Honey, you're so beautiful it doesn't matter what you wear.' I wondered how many dads in America were, at that very moment, giving their daughters the same useless advice mine was giving me.” - Melissa Kantor

52. “Perhaps that is what it means to be a father-to teach your child to live without you.” - Nicole Krauss

53. “It has been said that as goes the family, so goes the world. It can also be said that as goes the father, so goes the family.” - Voddie T. Baucham Jr.

54. “Daddy," I whispered, feeling my own breath hitch in my throat. "I love you."Just when I was sure he was asleep, the one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "I knew that," he murmured. "Always knew that.” - Morgan Matson

55. “Maybe not. But maybe that's how the world changes, Isaiah. One father, one child, at a time.” - Barbara Samuel

56. “A father is the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In the hour of need, when all else fails, we remember him upon whose knees we sat when children, and who soothed our sorrows; and even though he may be unable to assist us, his mere presence serves to comfort and strengthen us.” - Émile Gaboriau

57. “A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own self. Every attempt to live as if he were alone is a denial of the fact that he is actually responsible. He cannot escape the responsibility, which is his because he is a father. This reality refutes the fictitious notion that the isolated individual is the agent of all ethical behavior. It is not the isolated individual but the responsible person who is the proper agent to be considered in ethical reflection.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

58. “Dave put a lot of thought into picking out the books his dad would like least.” - Theric Jepson

59. “Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes....” - Barack Obama

60. “My father, I never knew, except for this one time when he threw a ball and told me to go fetch it."Dad," I said. "Am I a dog?""Lydia," he said. "I apologize.” - Jaclyn Moriarty

61. “My dad kept giving me "love pats." Love pats are soft punches of encouragement that are administered on the knee, shoulder, and arm.” - Stephen Chbosky

62. “Sometimes we wait too long for the forgiveness of our fathers.” - Harley King

63. “I remember his eyes. They are just like mine. Every time I look in the mirror I see him. I try not to look at my self too much.” - Ida Løkås

64. “We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.” - Jay-Z

65. “The ToysMy little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd,—His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness.” - Coventry Patmore