Quotes About Family

The Giver hugged him. "I love you, Jonas," he said. "But I have another place to go. When my work here is finished, I want to be with my daughter.

disoriented. It was our house. He had stood on a porch and taken the snapshot through a window. I recognized the fireplace and its graceful mantel. And the chandelier! We had dined each evening at seven, the family together, discussing our day—we could have

They were arranged by their original numbers, the numbers they had been given at birth. The numbers were rarely used after the Naming. But each child knew his number, of course. Sometimes parents used them in irritation at a child's misbehavior, indicating that mischief made one unworthy of a name. Jonas always chuckled when he heard a parent, exasperated, call sharply to a whining toddler, ''That's enough, Twenty-three!

He knew that his parents cringed a little, as he did, when Fritz

You can't rely on anything. First my father was a respectable minister, and next thing I know he's a lovesick idiot talking baby talk to a woman who gets paid to sing at funerals and weddings. "And one day my mother is my mother, wearing an apron and high heels, and next time I look, she has a crewcut and a necktie.

somehow the first little Caleb had wandered away unnoticed

Grandparents. It meant parents-of-the-parents, long ago.' 'Back and back and back?' Jonas began to laugh.

I think that is not true," Uncle Henrik said. "I think you are like your mama, and like your papa, and like me. Frightened, but determined, and if the time came to be brave, I am quite sure you would be very, very brave.

Danes had on their windows; the entire city had to be completely darkened at night. In a nearby tree, a bird was singing; otherwise it was quiet. It was the last night of September. "Go, now, and get into your nightgowns. It will be a long night." Annemarie and Ellen got to their feet. Papa suddenly crossed the room and put his arms around them both. He kissed the top of each head: Annemarie's blond one, which reached to his shoulder, and Ellen's dark hair, the thick

My own children grew up with a Newfoundland dog named TOsh. It is true that Newfoundlands smell of the sea. They also smell of slobber, dog food, and whatever they have rolled in most recently" (Lowry, 2016, p. 140).

Jonas began to laugh. "So actually, there could be parents-of-the-parents-of-the-parents-of-the parents?

The Hirsch family had gone somewhere. Why else would they close the shop?

From across the room, Mama watched them

eating together as always: Lily chattering away, Mother and Father making their customary

It's bye-bye to you, Gabe, in the morning," Father had said, in his sweet, sing-song voice.

Mother and Father making their customary comments (and lies, Jonas knew) about the day.

With her toddler playing on the floor by her feet, his widow now nursed her new baby on the porch of her homeplace, attended by comforting women who sat with their knitting and embroidery and spoke only of happy things.

And he had taken Gabriel, too.

Jonas looked down through the dusk at the little head against his chest. Gabriel's curly hair was matted and filthy, and there were tearstains outlined in dirt on his pale cheeks. His eyes were closed. As Jonas watched, a snowflake drifted down and was caught briefly for a moment's sparkle in the tiny fluttering eyelashes.

It was one of the rituals, the evening telling of feelings. Sometimes Jonas and his sister, Lily, argued over turns, over who would get to go first.

Mama was laughing quietly. "I remember, too," she said. "Sometimes she wet the bed in the middle of the night!" "I did not!" Kirsti said haughtily from the bedroom doorway. "I never, ever did that!

he remembered the excitement, the conversations at home, wondering about her: how she would look, who she would be, how she would fit into their established family unit.

Once, his sister whispered to him privately, after a dinner they had refused to eat, "I liked it.

Stop crying, you idiot girl," he said harshly. "Your stupid mother has sent your uncle a handkerchief.