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Family Quotes
"To know what should be going on in a household: spend a few minutes with the wife, or, the husband. To know what's really going on: spend a few minutes with their kid(s)."
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"The son needs the father to have access to his source, and the father needs the son to have access to the future and the infinite."
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"I wonder Pa went so easy. I wonder Grampa didn' kill nobody. Nobody never tol' Grampa where to put his feet. An' Ma ain't nobody you can push aroun' neither. I seen her beat the hell out of a tin peddler with a live chicken one time 'cause he give her a argument. She had the chicken in one han', an' the ax in the other, about to cut its head off. She aimed to go for that peddler with the ax, but she forgot which hand was which, an' she takes after him with the chicken. Couldn' even eat that chicken when she got done. They wasn't nothing but a pair of legs in her han'. Grampa throwed his hip outa joint laughin'."
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"Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives.Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like that Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did.The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with God.I'll stay right with Achilles. I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough to go out on my own."
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"I lead Paco through the house. We pass Shelley in the family room looking at some magazine. 'Shelley, this is Paco. He's Alex's friend. Paco, this is my sister, Shelley.'At the mention of Alex's name, Shelley gives a happy squeal.'Hey, Shelley,' Paco says.Shelley smiles wide.'Shell-bell, I need you to do me a favor.' Shelley bobs her head in response as I whisper, 'I need you to keep Mom occupied while I talk to Paco.'Shelley grins, and I know my sister will come through for me."
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"Itsumademo ai shiteru, Yuki. I love you forever, my daughter."
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"Mothers are supposed to listen and, afterward, to respond with some wisdom and perspective, but these things were not my mother's strong suit."
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"Gilbert put his arm about them. 'Oh, you mothers!' he said. 'You mothers! God knew what He was about when He made you."
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"If you want kids, choose your girlfriend like your future child has the deciding vote."
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"When you look into your mother's eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth."
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"Scorned and torn, former love mates aim and shoot childish devastating daggers that penetrate beyond target to pierce the heart of their offspring."
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"When I wake up on Sunday Mornings - late, you always let me sleep in - I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but they glow for you."
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"Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as robberies of the deserving."
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"But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down."
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"The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child."
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"I don't think there are enough words in the world that exist to express exactly just how much I love my son! He's right there in the front of my soul, he can turn me into an eagle, a lioness, a tigress, a swan! A goof or a queen! There's no underestimating just how much I love him; I surround him like the ocean surrounds the ships! I never wanted to change the world, until he came along and showed me that he deserves a better world to live in!"
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"My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight."
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"But a mother-son relationship is not a coequal one, is it? He is lonely with only you just as you are lonely with only him."
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"A parent who cannot provide the basic needs of two children, must not even bear one."
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"What thumbsuckers we all are...when it comes to mothers."
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"Children don't understand, when things aren't given. The single parent struggling to provide; how they sacrifice themselves, by sweeping their dreams and goals under the table, just to bring bread and beans on the table."
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"If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it."
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"O, never from the memory of my heartYour dear, paternal image shall depart,Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,Taught me how mortals are immortalized;How grateful am I for that patient careAll my life long my language shall declare."
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"He always believed he loved his daughter, but the fear of rabies obliged the Marquis to admit to himself that this was a lie for the sake of convenience. Bernarda, on the other hand, did not even ask herself the question, for she knew very well she did not love the girl and the girl did not love her, and both things seemed fitting. A good part of the hatred each of them felt for Sierva Maria was caused by the other's qualities in her."
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"I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought feeling after feeling action after action had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an harrow to the string then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead through to H. I set out on one of them. But now there's an impassable frontier-post across it. So many roads once now so many culs de sac."
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"On the day the tree bloomed in the fall, when its white apple blossoms fell and covered the ground like snow, it was tradition for the Waverleys to gather in the garden like survivors of some great catastrophe, hugging one another, laughing as they touched faces and arms, making sure they were all okay, grateful to have gotten through it."
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"It is painful to watch children trying to show off for parents who are engrossed in their cell phones. Children are nostalgic for the 'good old days' when parents used to read to them without the cell phone by their side or watch football games or Disney movies without having the BlackBerry handy."
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"Parents were the only ones obligated to love you from the rest of the world you had to earn it."
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"Rejecting your gay or transgender child won't make them straight. It will only mean you will lose them."
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"Maybe mothers - consciously or subconsciously - repelled their daughters in different ways."
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"Andrew said you were the best person he ever knew.""He reached that conclusion before he saw me raise three barbarian children to adulthood. I understand your mother has six.""Right.""And you're the oldest.""Yes.""That's too bad. Parents always make their worst mistakes with the oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right."
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"His mind floated in the amniotic fluid of memory, listening for echoes of the past. His father, meanwhile, had no idea that such a vivid scene was burned into Tengo's brain or that, like a cow in the meadow, Tengo was endlessly regurgitating fragments of the scene to chew on, a cud from which he obtained essential nutrients. Father and son: each was locked in a deep, dark embrace with his secrets."
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