Two little girls, on their way home from Sunday school, were solemnly discussing the lesson. “Do you believe there is a devil?” asked one. “No,” said the other promptly. “It’s like Santa Claus: it’s your father.” – Nebelspalter (Zurich, Switzerland), quoted in The Literary Digest, Vol.106, 1930

Fathers represent another way of looking at life — the possibility of an alternative dialogue. – Louise J. Kaplan, Oneness and Separateness: From Infant to Individual, 1978

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering-galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity. – Jean Paul Richter

My father, when he went, made my childhood a gift of a half a century. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin