My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that was exactly what was happening all around us.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Related My father died when I was 7. I was his favorite child, and he was my beloved father. I brought him a... P. L. TRAVERS We all have a limit. What we’re willing to put up with before we break. When I married your father... COLLEEN HOOVER I was a Yankee fan in Brooklyn because my father was a Yankee fan. And my father was required to liv... RUDY GIULIANI With my father and uncle so involved in racing, it was the only thing I ever knew, so I'm sure t... JACQUES VILLENEUVE My father was 40 when he had me, so he was more a grandparent than a parent. KARAN JOHAR He was not a runner, my father, but he was quick. I always remember it was very difficult to escape ... HAILE GEBRSELASSIE The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt ve... CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG I grew up looking at my father as to how to behave. In watching him I grasped so many things. His ow... SACHIN TENDULKAR It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that ... DAWN FRENCH My father resented that I was paid so much more than he was. DAVID HOLT I first learned that there were black people living in some place called other than the United State... HENRY LOUIS GATES I was angry about the fact that my father would beat my mother on a daily basis, that my mother woul... RICK JAMES My uncle was a hero, Lewis Roundtree. He was not even related to me really, but he was always called... ED BRADLEY My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parent... BEVERLY SILLS It was a messy situation. I think David felt extremely betrayed. David told me that he felt of Lou a... NIKKI SYMINGTON As a warning to parents, I mention that my father preferred me to my brother, which was very injurio... GEORGE MULLER My father was a brew master. He was the one who I was very close to, he influenced me in many many w... KIRAN MAZUMDAR-SHAW So my father was a person who never lied to me. If I had a question, he answered it. I knew a lot of... NICK CANNON I missed my father so much when he died that writing about his life and mine was a way of bringing h... DAN HILL Although it was her who took his breath away, the father away she was, the more he suffocated. SAMUEL H. LOWE My father was frightened of his mother. I was frightened of my father and I am damned well going to ... KING GEORGE V When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." M... KIRAN DESAI We are a total of our sum parts, right? I came from a family of very strong women - black women. And... OMARI HARDWICK my father...there was never any mistaking his love for me. When I walked into the room, his eyes lit... ERIC RIPERT I could feel his whole body trying to claim me, want me, own me in lust, and it made me feel so valu... FIONA THRUST Well people often ask me how I felt growing up with a father who was a politician and who was often ... ALEXANDER DOWNER My family is part Creole, and we're Indian, and we're also very, very black. My father was s... MERRY CLAYTON Tell me,” Isabelle said.“Who it was. That my father had the affair with. CASSANDRA CLARE It felt natural. That is what I remember most about becoming a father halfway through my 20s. As if ... TONY PARSONS When I was six years old, my parents told me that we were moving back home to Armenia. I didn't ... HENRIKH MKHITARYAN My father could be very strict, but very fair. His father was the same. We all respected my grandfat... AZZEDINE ALAIA Because of this, my son is left without a father. If he felt his life was in danger, he has no busin... LUZ MARTINEZ The more I grow as an artist, the more I think I become like my father as an artist. The more I dive... ZIGGY MARLEY I have lots of memories of my father. He was an incredible father. We all loved him to death. He'... PARIS-MICHAEL KATHERINE JACKSON I believe very deeply in my soul that God paired me and my father purposely and that he knew that my... MAYSOON ZAYID "Who hates his neighbor has not the rights of a child." And not only has he no rights as a child, he... SØREN KIERKEGAARD My father was not going to let me take over the business just because I was his son. MICHAEL ERIC DYSON My father was a schoolteacher, and so I had the advantage of both western educational instruction in... WOLE SOYINKA I made friends with a boy who was a communist when I was 13 and that broadened my political views, b... VINCE CABLE My other brother, the Lord Lucas, who was heir to my father's estate, and as it were the father ... MARGARET CAVENDISH My mother told me Homer Ditto was not my father. Nope. Mom had had a fling with some other guy who w... BETH DITTO I asked [my father] what there was to make doctoring more disgusting than nursing, which women were ... ELIZABETH ANDERSON I asked [my father] what there was to make doctoring more disgusting than nursing, which women were ... ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON My father was a successful real estate developer, and he was a very tough man but a good man. My fat... DONALD TRUMP Johnny U. was the father of modern football, so all of us, including my father, who enjoyed particip... ART MODELL My father taught me things about body language that psychologists have been catching up with ever si... RICHARD GRIFFITHS When I was younger, I was a bit of a feisty fighter type of guy. That's something my father told... NATE ROBINSON My father was Catholic, my mother was Protestant, and because of that I got Christened in both churc... MICKEY SPILLANE My name is Jidenna, which means 'to hold or embrace the father' in Igbo. It was my father wh... JIDENNA Prior to my father's death, I was having a hard time committing to a career as an artist, but th... KIKI SMITH I was just studying with my father, a very difficult task for me since he was a great, great Qawwali... NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1991, I asked him if he had any regrets, and he... MICHELLE PAVER I still remember how my father used to wake me up at 4 A.M. and make me study. He also used to take ... MOUNI ROY I didn't feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy child... LISA LUTZ When I was 5, my father was very much my hero. And he ran for political office in a very thankless c... HOWARD WARREN BUFFETT One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with whic... BEN OKRI My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was tryi... TYLER PERRY So the first job that I got - my father got it for me - he had his clerical collar on, was a gay bar... TORI AMOS I don't know if Marcus knows how important that moment was to me. How much he actually saved me from... CECELIA AHERN Before I was born my father disowned me. You know those ones who get the females pregnant, and then ... DREXEL DEAL I had a Jewish grandfather. We managed to hide this fact from the authorities by falsifying document... HELMUT SCHMIDT I knew Sinatra for 38 years. He was like my father. Frank Sinatra was my 'dad.' He treated m... TRINI LOPEZ I was sent to a school because my father was already aware that his days were numbered, and he was a... SIGRID UNDSET ...My father muttered something to me, and I responded with a mumbled "What". He shouted, "You heard... STEVE MARTIN My father was very energetic; my mother was very energetic. He lived to a very old age, and so did m... DONALD TRUMP What I saw when I was a child was my father who was a pilot, and because of circumstances was thrown... RAHUL GANDHI My dad picked me up and rocked me in the chair. I felt small and weak and I wanted to hold him back ... BENJAMIN ALIRE SáENZ My father never kissed me, hugged me or told me that he loved me. As my only living parent, he becam... IYANLA VANZANT My father was never around. It was almost as if he didn't exist. I would tell my friends he was ... DANNY AIELLO The rise of King Crimson was so fast that, to me, it felt as if it was going out of control. And it ... MICHAEL GILES I'm used to very strong women because my mother was particularly strong, and my father was away ... RIDLEY SCOTT When I was a teenager, my stern and meticulous father, whom I regarded as well-spirited of his disce... JECON B. NADELA My childhood was defined by my father's absence. His presence looms so large. Up until the age o... SAID SAYRAFIEZADEH But for a mother who was submissive to the degree my mother was, it was OK to kill girls. For a fath... SOUAD I was so scared. I was very afraid. He pulled my hair and forced me and locked me in the bathroom. ERIKA CRUZ And I never felt more alive, until I spread my wings and flew away. Flew away with the ravens. It wa... THE RED RAVEN My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my fathe... JOHNNY CASH It's very sad, very sad, ... He was just as close to me as if he was my own grandson, and I felt tha... ROSA PARKS My father was a very good Boy Scout. He was very skilled with knots, and he showed me how to tie a b... BILL NYE I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to ... AMY TAN Even before I could vote, I was involved in the political arena. My father was an admirer of Adlai S... GEORGE TAKEI But then Mikhail told us something that stunned us even more - the reason the picture was so importa... BOB LAY I used to say that my own father was dead, because he might as well have been. He was in Argentina a... OLIVIA HUSSEY I worked with my son when he was much younger; we did L.A. Law together, where I played his father a... RENE AUBERJONOIS I did it because he wasn't fair to you. Because you deserve credit for what you've done. Because he ... RICHELLE MEAD What made me want to go into doing comics was I was working as a laborer with my father, a gardener. DAN DECARLO My father's life was so decimated by his earliest experiences. His mother died when he was 7 yea... WALTER MOSLEY I think that my father would find it so confusing that people want to imitate him. Not because he di... PATTI DAVIS When I was a little child, my parents taught me by example to pray. I began with a picture in my min... HENRY B. EYRING At the age of 16 I started performing with a dance band in the evenings and began earning more money... JACK BRUCE My father was a doctor, but he was what I would call an intellectual - very well-read and very inter... SHIRIN NESHAT My father was the role model I looked up to. My dad was an entertainer, too. I patterned my life aft... TRACY MORGAN My most vivid memory of my father centers on the day he left. It was warm, and my mother was especia... DEVAL PATRICK I had a very distant relationship with my father. It was always just me and my mother. It was a shat... JOAN LINGARD My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my f... KATE DICAMILLO My father was murdered when I was two. Duane, even though he was only a year and 18 days my elder, h... GREGG ALLMAN Tony talked to me a fair bit about that movie, which I hadn't seen. Campbell felt compelled to do wh... ROGER DONALDSON I'm sure he knows this, but my father passed away this summer and (Davis is) like a father figure to... ROBERT VADEN My father's very public life as Famous Amos was the opposite of that of his ex-wife, my mother S... SHAWN AMOS When I was in the ring at the Olympics, it was my father's words that I was hearing, not the coa... FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates
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