My dad was born in Chicago in 1908… his parents came from Russia. They settled in Chicago, where they lived in a little tiny grocery store with eight or nine children – in the backroom all together – and my grandmother got the idea to go into the movie business. – Bob Balaban

My dad was the baby. When he was born they were already successful. They sent him to business school – he probably would have loved to have been a poet or a writer or something, and he was very creative. – Bob Balaban