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Quotes From Dad--Share your dad's favorite quote. If you email me at norman@understandingdad.com and put "quote" in the subject line, I'll make sure your dad's favorite quote is posted to our Quotes From Dad page for all to read and benefit.

When you have lemons, make lemonade.
Irwin Lieberman

You can't fit 10lbs of sh-- in a 5 lb bag.
Favorite quote from Sharla Price's dad

Nothing beats the satisfaction of helping other people find their way and succeed.

by Francis McCarthy father of Ken McCarthy

My dad, Anthony Bencivenga, won so many contests, he became known for a time as Brooklyn's King of Slogans. He loved to win not so much for the prizes or money, but for the honor of knowing he could top the competition. This was probably because, while he had the soul and verbal facility of a poet, he had only an eighth grade education,having dropped out of school to help support his family before 1920. But he read voraciously and was a wizard with words.

But in the 1930s through the early 1960s, Brooklyn's King of Slogans won many, many contests. Most of them were for local, New York-area merchants. His most famous was Snap, Crackle & Pop for Kellogg's Rice Krispies. It is important to note that he did not invent the cartoon characters. He just wrote his entry in response to the typical"50-words-or-less" contest. As he told the story, when he learned of the contest, he bought a box of the cereal, poured out a bowl full, added milk,and then just observed. What he noticed was a static-like sound the cereal was making in the milk. So he wrote his entry, saying, "I like Kellogg's Rice Krispies because it's the only cereal with that SNAP, CRACKLE and POP!" He always capitalized his word plays and puns, and pecked out his entries on an old, rickety Royal typewriter with the slap return bar.

For Gimble's department store: "From pianos to thimbles, you'll find it at Gimble's."

AND....

"If it's Borden's, it's got to be good," two other well known verses from my father.

His best idea: the wisdom he repeatedly shared with me, all through my high school years, that I was not on this earth to fulfill anyone else's expectations, not his, not my mother's, nobody's. Rather, my most important mission in school and in life was to discover the work I love, for then every day would be my play and I would automatically become one of the best in my field, because I would always be thinking about better ways to do my work and would eagerly anticipate each new day upon arising, happy to get back to doing what I love. That's the way to live, he said. In fact, those are virtually his exact words,repeated countless times to me when I was young.

To this day, I have never come across a better prescription for lasting happiness, which is the greatest gift any parent can give a child. At critical times in my career, when I had to make tough choices about what to do with my life, his words were my guiding light. They have brought me more happiness than he could ever know. On second thought, maybe he did know after all. He was truly gifted, and I am most grateful for inheriting some of his genes.

--Gary Bencivenga proud son of Anthony Bencivenga