Many of our friends here at Plum HQ are having their first child which is obviously a momentous and quite possibly life-changing experience for all involved! In celebration of that, as well as our upcoming range of men’s alpaca knitwear, we thought we’d put together a series of quotes (from one or two fathers you may well have heard of!), talk about their experiences of fatherhood. Enjoy!

“Fatherhood is the best thing I ever did. It changes your perspective. You can write a book, you can make a movie, you can paint a painting, but having kids is really the most extraordinary thing I have taken on.”
– Brad Pitt

“What do I do well as a father? I’m there all the time. I give unconditional love. And I have a lot of skills in terms of getting them to express themselves. I’m good with handy hints — if they can tell me what their problem is — ’cos I’ve had a lot of problems in life myself. I make an effort to expose them to things. I want them to have a deep, inner feeling that it’s alright to be happy, that you don’t have to be constantly manufacturing problems that you don’t really have.”
– Jack Nicholson

“Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it’s a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realise that your heart is running around inside someone else’s body.”
– Christopher Hitchens

“I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!”
– David Bowie

“I’ve done a lot of dadding. Whoo, I tell you what — it grows you up pretty quick when that little bugger starts waking up. Suddenly, there’s this little cute ball of stuff yelling its head off — boom! Snap to! Oh, man, I better take care of this. Daughters are far easier to bring up. My first [child] was Marlon, my son, and he gave me a good fight, man. He would drag my ass sometimes, before I could talk to him and instill the wisdom of not doing that. I occasionally borrow pot from my kids. They do a little weed occasionally. ‘Here, Dad,’ or more likely, ‘Dad, have you got any?'”
– Keith Richards

“There’s something comforting in a house full of kids. It surprises me, because I usually like being alone, but I’m really loving it. Kids take you outside your comfort level because you ask yourself, How do I answer that question for them? You think back to your childhood, and it’s like: I don’t want to give them that, I want to give them this. My life is my children.”
– Patrick Dempsey

“Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time. That’s the secret to life, really – never stop learning.”
– Clint Eastwood

“The greatest mark of a father is how he treats his children when no one is looking.”
– Dan Pearce

“A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he’s in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.”
– Bill Cosby

“You’re tired? Have a baby, then come back and tell me how tired tired is. There’s no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line, civilising these raw things.”
– Gary Oldman

“By the time a man realises that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.”
– Charles Wadsworth

“Men should always change diapers. It’s a very rewarding experience. It’s mentally cleansing. It’s like washing dishes, but imagine if the dishes were your kids, so you really love the dishes.”
– Chris Martin

“I have found the very best way to advise your children is to find out what they want to do and advise them to do it.”
– President Harry Truman