50 Quotes About Dads For Fathers’ Day

1. “If your dad is anything like mine, then you have no clue what to buy him for Father’s Day. The only Father’s Day tradition in my family is the annual conversation he and I have where I say, ‘Hey, Dad, what do you want for Father’s Day this year?’ and he says, ‘Nothing.’ Then I ask my mom what I should get him and she says, ‘He likes sandalwood soap, dangly jewelry and Chanel No. 5 perfume.’” – Michael Showalter

2. “There are three stages of a man’s life: He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus.” – Author Unknown

3. “Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later… that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.” – Tom Wolfe

4. “My father was often angry when I was most like him.” – Lillian Hellman

5. “It doesn’t matter who my father was. It matters who I remember he was.” – Anne Sexton

6. “Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.” – Bill Cosby

7. “Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.” – Jack Handey

8. “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain

9. “A father carries pictures where his money used to be.” – Anonymous

10. “I’m so ugly my father carries around a picture of the kid who came with his wallet” – Rodney Dangerfield

11. “It’s only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home. It’s only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love.” – Margaret Truman

12. “Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.” – Martin Mull

13. “Why are men reluctant to become fathers? They aren’t through being children.” – Cindy Garner

14. “My father can not finish a sentence. When we were kids he would go, ‘Girls the most important thing in life to remember is…’ ‘Daddy, what is it?’ ‘What’s what, honey?’ ‘The most important thing in life to remember.’ ‘Oh, what’s that?’” – Caroline Rhea

15. “One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” – George Herbert

16. “Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.” – P.J. O’Rourke

17. “A man knows he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

18. “My dad always used to tell me that if they challenge you to an after-school fight, tell them you won’t wait. You can kick their ass right now.” – Cameron Diaz

19. “Those who trust us educate us.” – T.S. Eliot

20. “The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother’s always a democrat.” – Robert Frost

21. “My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived, and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland

22. “Be a dad. Don’t be ‘Mom’s assistant.’ That’s depressing, just waiting for her to write you a list, walk around a store staring at it, calling her from the cereal aisle to make sure you got the right thing. Be a man. Make your own list. Fathers have skills that they never use at home. You run a landscaping business and you can’t dress and feed a 4-year-old? Take it on. Spend time with your kids and have your own ideas about what they need. It won’t take away your manhood; it will give it to you. I did that. I spent more time with my kids. And I found out that I’m a pretty bad father. I make a lot of mistakes and I don’t know what I’m doing. But my kids love me. Go figure.” – Louis C.K.

23. “The kind of man who thinks that helping with the dishes is beneath him will also think that helping with the baby is beneath him, and then he certainly is not going to be a very successful father.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

24. “Love and fear. Everything the father of a family says must inspire one or the other.” – Joseph Joubert

25. “My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.” – Quentin Crisp

26. “Having children is like living in a frat house – nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.” – Ray Romano

27. “Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers and fathering is a very important stage in their development.” – David Gottesman

28. “There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids and doing the right thing as a father, and how come that’s not as newsworthy?” – WIll Smith

29. “Don’t confuse [Father’s Day] with Valentine’s Day, and here’s why. Boy, will you creep him out. I can just tell you from last year, uh, even if they do like chocolate, they don’t want it from their son.” – Jon Stewart

30. “Becoming a father, I think it inevitably changes your perspective of life. I don’t get nearly enough sleep. And the simplest things in life are completely satisfying. I find you don’t have to do as much, like you don’t go on as many outings.” – Hugh Jackman

31. “I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.” – Imelda Marcos

32. “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.” – Jim Valvano

33. ”When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, ‘Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?’ He answered, ‘If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.’” – Jerry Lewis

34. “Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.” – Red Buttons

35. “Far too often, we fathers avoid the subject because it’s so awkward. The subject I am referring to is: buying gifts for women. This is an area where many men do not have a clue. Exhibit A was my father, who was a very thoughtful man, but who once gave my mother, on their anniversary, the following token of his love, his commitment, and–yes–his passion for her: an electric blanket.” – Dave Barry

36. “My father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic.” – Spike Milligan

37. “Becoming a father is easy enough, but being one can be very rough.” – Wilhelm Busch

38. “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.” – Ernest Hemingway

39. ”It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping”. – John Sinor

40. “Children are a great comfort in your old age. And they help you reach it faster too.” – Lionel Kauffman

41. “My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.” – Bob Dylan

42. “I have always had the feeling I could do anything and my dad told me I could. I was in college before I found out he might be wrong.” – Ann Richards

43. “There should be a children’s song: ‘If you’re happy and you know it, keep it to yourself and let your dad sleep.’” – Jim Gaffigan

44. “My father hated radio and he could not wait for television to be invented so that he could hate that too.” – Peter De Vries

45.“The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.” – Garrison Keillor

46. “Dad taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, he didn’t teach me everything he knows.” – Al Unser, Jr.

47. “Every dad, if he takes time out of his busy life to reflect upon his fatherhood, can learn ways to become an even better dad.” – Jack Baker

48. I wrote a letter to my dad. I was going to write ‘I really enjoyed being here’, but I accidentally wrote ‘rarely’ instead of ‘really’. But I wanted to use it, I didn’t want to cross it out, so I wrote ‘I rarely drive steamboats, Dad. There’s a lot of sh*t you don’t know about me. Quit trying to act like I’m a steamboat operator.’ I know this letter took a harsh turn right away. – Mitch Hedberg

49. “If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right.” – Bill Cosby

50. “Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow.” – Reed Markham

Get invited to exclusive parties in your area. Join the Patron Social Club.

Want to write for Thought Catalog? Email Nico Lang at nico@thoughtcatalog.com.