"When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into other people's weirdness in that way."

Family, People, Hope

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"When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into other people's weirdness in that way."

Exlpore more Family quotes

"Sometimes we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up."

James Dobson, American Psychologist

Family, Children, Giving, Growingup, Neglect

"Mothers care in volumes of tears and earnestness of prayers and a depth of emotion others cannot fathom."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Family, Motherhood, Love, Prayer, Emotion

"So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball."

Virginia Woolf, British Author

Family, Marriage, Life, Perception, Observation

"I always envisioned myself as traveling the ocean of life in a rowboat where my mother was one oar and my father, the other. Having two good, solid oars made rowing much easier."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Family, Life, Wisdom, Truth

"I stumble and fall.I weep and struggle to rise.My mom feels it all."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Family, Truth, Regret, Emotion, Love

"One of the strongest loves I've ever witnessed is the love a mother has for her child."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Family, Love, Motherhood, Truth, Emotion

"Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was."

Virginia Woolf, British Author

Family, Emotion, Reflection, Motherhood, Self-Worth

"Oh, how terribly backwards, and yet sadly common, it is to sit scowling at family all the day long and then quickly put on a smile for strangers who drop by."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Family, Regret, Truth, Life, Power

"You know, true love really matters, friends really matter, family really matters. Being responsible and disciplined and healthy really matters."

Courtney Thorne Smith, American Actress

Family, Love, Being, Friends

"Strip the proud nobility of their bloated estates, reduce them to a level with plain republicans, send forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the workshops or handle the plow, and you will thus humble proud traitors."

Thaddeus Stevens, American Politician

Family, Children, Labor, Nobility, Republicans

Explore more quotes by Jonathan Franzen

"If you're interested in how people behave, if you're interested in the way they talk about themselves, the way the conceive of themselves, it's very hard to ignore drugs nowadays, because that is so much part of the conversation."

People

"I voluntarily inflicted a certain level of insanity on myself."

Experience

"I was unwise enough to actually mention this in public a few times, and in fact to point out that there were two versions of the book now. One of them had somebody else's name on the cover, one had my name on the cover."

Fact

"The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life."

Life

"I feel as if I'm clearly part of a trend among writers who take themselves seriously - and I confess to taking myself as seriously as the next writer."

Writing

"I look at my father, who was in many ways an unhappy person, but who, not long before he got sick, said that the greatest source of satisfaction in his life had been going to work in the company of other workers."

Life

"I hate that word dysfunction."

Hate

"I was about 13, in some ways, when I wrote the first book. Approximately 18 when I wrote the second."

Writing

"It seems to me self-evident that if you have a life, things happen in it, and certain things do change; certain things end. People you know die."

Change

"It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?"

Work