Quotes About Legacy

For the old people in my family—Mummy, the aunties, Granddad—the accumulation of beautiful objects is a life goal. Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. Wins what? is what I'd like to know. I used to be a person who liked pretty things. Like Mummy does, like all the Sinclairs do. But that's not me anymore.

My head and shoulders melted first, followed by my hips and knees. Before long I was a puddle, soaking into the pretty cotton prints. I drenched the quilt she never finished, rusted the metal parts of her sewing machine. I was pure liquid loss, then, for an hour or two. My grandmother, my grandmother. Gone forever, though I could smell her Chanel perfume on the fabrics.

It is not glamorous that I can't drive a car. It is not mysterious to be home on a Saturday night, reading a novel in a pile of smelly golden retrievers. However, I am not immune to the feeling of being viewed as a mystery, as a Sinclair, as part of a privileged clan of special people, and as part of a magical, important narrative, just because I am part of this clan. My mother is not immune to it, either. This is who we have been brought up to be. Sinclairs. Sinclairs.

I do not love my father's way of thinking, but much of it has become mine.

PENNY, CARRIE, AND Bess are the daughters of Tipper and Harris Sinclair. Harris came into his money at twenty-one after Harvard

I mean, when I die, throw my ashes in the water of the tiny beach. Then when you miss me, you can climb up here, look down, and think how awesome I was.

I am the eldest Sinclair grandchild. Heiress to the island, the fortune, and the expectations. Well, probably.

So lie. Tell him the ones from the Boston house. The cream ones with the embroidery." It was easiest to tell her I would. And later, I told her I had. But Bess has asked Mirren to do the same thing, and neither one of us begged Granddad for the fucking tablecloths.

There's nothing in our whole house that says he ever lived with us, except me. Why are you allowed to erase my father and I'm not allowed to " "Erase yourself?" Mummy says.

For the old people in my family—Mummy, the aunties, Granddad—the accumulation of beautiful objects is a life goal. Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. Wins what? is what I'd like to know.

It seemed simple to them: Leave the old country behind and reinvent your life. And if you couldn't quite live the American dream, then your children would do it for you.

She wanted him to know his children and grandchildren were still around him, strong and merry as ever. It was important, she said; it was kind; it was best. Don't cause distress, she said. Don't remind people of a loss. "Do you understand, Cady? Silence is a protective coating over pain.

For the old people in my family (...) the accumulation of beautiful objects is a life goal. Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. Wins what? is what I'd like to know.

and neither one of us begged grandad for the fucking tablecloths.

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

The volume of their past must be restored to its shelf, and here, here was the place, amid darkness and perishing flowers. He owed it to Alec also. He could suffer no mixing of the old in the new.

the FBI pursued Dalitz for 50 years, but he was never convicted of anything.

When Winston Churchill's father died, he was 60,000 pounds in debt to Natty Rothschild. By forgiving Randolph's debt, Natty Rothschild made his son Winston a pawn of Jewish interests, a fact which led indirectly to World War

The French never allow a distinguished son of France to lack a statue.

I'd always wanted to believe that my ancestors were better people than they probably were. - Princess Emma

Father, it's Wistala. Wistala." Father grimaced. "You're a star, Wistala — I saw you twinkling beneath dear Irelia last night. You, Auron, and Jizara all in a row. I'll be up there soon. Wait.

the elves and dwarves were considered the greater races, the humans and blighters the lesser ones. He said the shorter-lived races would be thriving when the others were gone and just legends. In his mind, the great races think only of themselves, the lesser live and build for their children and grandchildren's world.

But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.

I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's.