Quotes About Perspective

When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.

Witnessing the bond between a parent and their little ones firsthand really brought home to me how much I was missing.

Why would a lazy guy become a parent of five? Then again, why would creative people who inherently don't like change and criticism become writers, actors, or comedians? There's something about this process. I joke about it: My kids have made me a better person, and I only need, like, 34 more of them to be a really good guy.

I have less energy than I did when I was a younger parent, although I was never really a young parent.

Before you have children, you mostly think about the world in terms of yourself. And when you become a parent, the focus shifts to somebody else.

My one complaint with my father as a parent is that, not only was he not a golfer, but also he was sort of opposed to golf. I was a country club kid growing up. I should have played golf, but my father thought golf was a sport for old men.

I appreciate my journey, but I don't want that for my kid. Not any of it. It has nothing to do with whether I liked my childhood. I really did. But as a parent, that isn't the childhood that I'd provide.

My own parents were very un-neurotic, so I never thought that I had to change enormously in order to become a parent.

For some people, becoming a parent does change them, but it never changed me.

What I want is to have people's notion of adulthood no longer be so defined by being a parent. There is some kind of conventional wisdom that you're not really a mature person until you become a parent.

If you lose a parent, no matter at what age, every five or 10 years you have a different way of missing them and a different way of getting on with your life.

I think there is a moment in every parent's life where we realize that we have lost ourselves a little bit. It's a moment of looking in the mirror and going, 'I need to put on some lipstick.'

A lot of my friends in my student days complained about how their parents made them play an instrument when they were kids. I always felt compassion for them and didn't believe a parent could be so cruel, but when I check today, those complaining friends grew up to be quite successful, and many of them are now making their children play.

Ever since I became a parent, time moves far too quickly. My vision always feels like I'm wearing giant kaleidoscope-goggles.

I've had this conversation with friends who have had challenging relationships with one or another parent. The only thing I can say is what I feel: The other person isn't going to change. That is who they are.

When you're a parent, you're automatically the most uncool person that exists.

I don't consciously think of how parenthood has changed me but I'm sure it must have.

I think being a mother helps keep your feet on the ground. There's very little dignity in parenthood. It's a great leveller.

When you experience parenthood, it makes you look at the other side as well.

Parenting three children at the same time has helped me grow as a filmmaker. It taught me to be more empathetic and understand what people want from me.

Everything that happens to me in a day enhances my parenting.

I ask only child-free pals for parenting advice because they're the only ones sane and well-rested enough to have any real insight.

I set out to write an anti-parenting parenting book.

I have this blanket thing about giving parenting advice to parents, and that's: 'Don't take other people's advice on parenting.'