Quotes from Alan Thicke

If I could have grown up to be Robin Thicke, I would have. But I'm glad somebody in the family did.

We look for opportunities to play together including basketball, tennis, swimming, riding bikes and touch football. I try to provide a loving environment where we can play. I think that's good on so many levels - emotionally, for family interactions and, of course, physically.

It's always been said that comedy comes mostly out of the dark side anyway.

I have some realistic humility which comes from my first career as a writer. I wrote for other people for ten years. I saw some incredible egos not based on any reality. They were great when they were on top and awful when they weren't. I learned a lot about how to treat people.

I did write a lot of TV themes - I wrote about 45 of them, and a couple of which are still reference and popular today, like 'Diff'rent Strokes' and 'Facts of Life.' But I was a limited musician.

My advice, it's get involved in any and every aspect of the business that affords itself to you.

So there was a constant flow and a thin line there between reality and television and yes, much of what I was experiencing in my real life was also what was going on in the television show to the extent that I had to take writers' advice and from the counselors around.

Family involvement is a valuable thing and playing together actively can be the '90s version of it. Instead of just watching, you can do it together... something we don't spend enough time on. We can motivate and excite each other about fitness.

If one tends to be a humorous person and you have a sense of humor the rest of your life then you can certainly lighten the load, I think, by bringing that to your trials and tribulations. It's easy to have a sense of humor when everything is going well.

In 'The Goods,' I'm Ed Helms' dad, and I was known all those years as Kirk Cameron's father, and now I'm known as Robin Thicke's father, so I find myself playing myself a lot and, frankly, living up to expectations of what the public's image of me is.

People talk about, 'Well, why don't they bring 'Growing Pains' back?' No, it belongs in the time capsule exactly where it was. It would probably look corny and dated if they tried to redo that. But I think, for its time, it was meaningful.

My advice to Robin is listen to your heart, do what you feel. Follow your heart in love and marriage as you would in careers, and you'll be fine. Robin has a great heart. He's a fabulous father.

My priority is to turn people - especially kids - on to sports and being active so they don't even have to think about it being good for their health. If people participate for the fun of it, and believe me - it is fun, then fitness programs will be much more successful.

I'm not doing anything Jack Nicholson turned down. Any part that required a character distanced from myself would have been a reach. But the one thing I've always done well at, and I'm most devoted to, is my children.

On a selfish basis, I really enjoy sports and activity.

I wouldn't call myself a standup in the presence of Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock, but I do my share of it and it has been and remains part of my activity and I like it.

There is no doubt in my mind Bill Cosby was a bad boy.

Part of the mystique of shows like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' is the idea that they begin with a couple of plot lines, and then a bunch of geniuses improvise dialogue. It's not quite that unstructured and loose. It makes for a good urban myth, but everything's a little more tightly scripted and programmed than that.

If a director can find the exact combination between the written word as a guideline and improvisational input from his actors, I think that's where you'll find the most successful work being done.

If it is a first offense, you ground them and have a talk. The second offense would call for counseling.

As a father, my first priority is to help my sons set and attain personal goals so they will develop self-confidence and individual strength. Engaging in regular fitness activities with my children helps me fulfill those responsibilities.

The way I was parented did affect my parenting - probably in the reverse. My dad was pretty strict, and the next generation probably wants to be less strict.

There's not much that I haven't done in my life, but there's lots of things that I'd like to do better. The variety of my career has been the fun of it, and I can thank Canada for that.