"Since graduating from HMS my greatest satisfaction has unequivocally been my family. My main disappointment is that I have wasted too much time in personal pursuits and been less of an influence for good than I might have been."

"At the age of 12 I won the school prize for Best English Essay. The prize was a copy of Somerset Maugham's 'Introduction To Modern English And American Literature.' To this day I keep it on the shelf between my collection of Forester's works and the little urn that contains my mother's ashes."

"He still had the power to stagger her at timessimply the fact that he was breathing that all his organs were in their proper places that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small sturdy limbs. He was her flesh and blood her mother had told her in the hospital the day Akash was born."

"I think once I fail enough as a dad, I'll be looking for help wherever I can get it. I just need enough time to screw things up and then I'll start looking to TV dads for advice."

"I want people to take the initiative to find veterans that need help, veterans that are suffering and in need of assistance reintegrating from combat back into society, into normal family lives and jobs. We need to take a real 'boots on the ground' approach to helping veterans in need."

"When I travel with my kids abroad, I am not myself, but I'm more a father who wants to protect them. Sometimes, I am even aggressive about certain things and get surprised seeing myself like that: for instance, when people want to take pictures of them. I am fine if they want to take my pictures, but they are not public property."

"Malin had been born and bred in an upper-class family. Was that the cause of his dissillusionment and bitterness with that way of life? The way he could have peace of mind therefore, was by detaching himself from that way of life and battling against it. Would Prince Siddharta have renounced the world if he had been born into poverty?"

"A parentologist is a person who writes a book about parenting that is very clear about answers to, 'How am I supposed to raise my child?' Some of these well-intentioned people may be a bit too sure-footed on the sometimes slippery slope of parenting."

"I want to safeguard the value of lunch. For me, it is sacred. My family and I always have lunch and dinner together. And we always sit down. Food does not taste the same if you are standing up!"

"Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street."