My views about God come from my dad. Dad told me that he believed Nature, which to him included humankind, to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that there had to be something behind it all.
1992 was the worst year of my life, to watch my dad lose. It was a painful experience. Yet when I became president, it was so much easier to be president.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddling, stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.
I was 12 or 13, and I had seen a demo about origami at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. My dad, my step-mom, and I were at the Japan pavilion of Epcot, and my dad was going to get me an origami book. They had these really sick origami books with an overleaf, but those packs can sometimes blow, because they give you, like, eight sheets.
My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.
My dad challenged every president from President [Dwight] Eisenhower and Vice President [Richard] Nixon to President [J.F] Kennedy, Vice President [Lindon] Johnson to President Johnson and Vice President [Hubert] Humphrey. It`s challenging the administrations to do the right thing.
I don't know what I'd have become if I hadn't been a footballer; I wrote down 'dustbin man' on a careers questionnaire at school till my dad made me change it to 'joiner'.
My parents didn't make a lot of money. My dad was not a high school graduate - he didn't have a career as such; he was a printing salesman essentially for most of his working life.
I choose to ignore hell in my life. When I was a little kid I asked my Dad "Am I going to go to hell?" because I'd heard about hell. And he said, "Nothing you're gonna do will get you into hell." And so I got to ignore it.
I spoke to my dad, and he said it took close to 90 dollars to raise me. But that was me and my sister, and my sister moved out when she was 16, so sometimes it can knock you up to triple digits to raise a kid.
To me, my Dad's the greatest guy - next to Jesus Christ - who ever walked this planet. He's been that outstanding male role model in my life. And he's still the same guy I grew up around, very conscious of the image he sets forth. As he would say, 'Wouldn't do anything behind your back that I wouldn't do to your face.'