Quotes from Craig T. Nelson

Being a father of three children and grandfather to nine, I do think that this thing called 'parenting' is becoming increasingly difficult.

No one is accountable anymore for anything. No one did anything wrong. Well, you're to blame. That's to blame. This is to blame.

I want to see my kids grow up in a world that I grew up in, which was it had imagination and it had hope. And all of a sudden, I see that being dissolved, and I see, as a country, as a people, we are a republic. We are a democracy.

I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No. No.

What it takes just to earn a living - working two or three jobs - is driving a wedge in families that shouldn't be there.

I really want to drive a Porsche GT1 car - also a McLaren, if I could fit. I want to do LeMans badly. I want to do Spa, a European series with World SportsCars.

I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No. They gave me hope, and they gave me encouragement, and they gave me a vision. That came from my education.

If people are going to watch TV, let's give them something coherent with actual dialogue.

I mean, a lot of my family are teachers.

I lost my parents when I was fairly young.

Most projects that I've done are really not about the project. They're about what's going on inside and around, that journey that we're all on, and what I can do to help that journey further itself and be of encouragement to somebody.

Sometimes you're encouraged, and other times disappointed. It's a matter of going in and precluding all that with, 'This is what I do, not who I am.' I need to be who I am in the process of doing what I do. I need to stay true to what it is I'm really here for. And that's the hardest thing, the biggest challenge.

Education to me is the most important thing that we've got going in this country. I mean, a lot of my family are teachers. I was the recipient of a great public education, and I see that's one of the first things that we're going to go, 'What are we going to raise?' The ignorant masses.

When there's that forgiveness present and compassion, it just helps you live so much easier.

The beauty of 'Parenthood' is that it's a blue-collar working family, and it reflects attitudinal shifts that occur within people and families.

My youngest son is a writer. He wrote for 'The District' and 'CSI: NY.'

Lance Armstrong is the guy that I would put up there as one of my heroes. He's done something that no one else has done and when you put into it what he overcame, it's absolutely unbelievable.

The super power that I would choose would be compassion. Because that's what I think it takes to make it through life-an understanding, a give and take. It saves an awful lot of resentment.

When you're doing Sebring in the back straight at 185 or 187, and the car's moving, you gotta know what to do with it, how to read it. Just the science of understanding shocks - forget spring rates - is mind-boggling.

I worry about making work more important than what I know to be the truth. Throughout all areas of life, we're told how to look, how to act, what to speak, what to wear, what we should have and other people don't have, and we know none of that means anything. Yet these other messages never stop coming.

I had a '56 Ford, and my first car was a '49 Chevy. I converted it to a stick and used to race with the other high school kids down along the river.

I love going to work.

No one is accountable anymore for anything.

When there's that forgiveness present and compassion, it just helps you live so much easier.