Quotes About Family

I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents' wishes, but I would not forget myself.

See the gold metal I can now wear. I gave birth to your brothers and then your father gave me these two bracelets. Then I had you. And every few years, when I have a little extra money, I buy another bracelet. I know what I'm worth. They're always twenty-four carats, all genuine.

And in my family, there were two pillars of beliefs: Christian faith on my father's side, Chinese fate on my mother's. Picture these two ideologies as you might the goalposts of a soccer field, faith at one end, fate at the other, and me running between them trying to duck whatever dangerous missile had been launched in the air.

Y me hice una promesa: siempre recordaría los deseos de mis padres, pero jamas me olvidaría de mi misma.

It doesn't matter, I say, and I start to pick up the broken glass shards. I knew it would happen. Then why you don't stop it? asks my mother. And it's such a simple question.

My father put his life in God's hands, and he encouraged us, his children, to believe that if we had absolute faith, God would take care of the rest. Miracles would happen.

Most of the girls were like me, the love children of suicides, singsong girls, and unmarried maidens.

And my eyes, my mother gave me my eyes, no eyelids, as if they were carved on a jack-o'-lantern with two swift cuts of a short knife. I used to push my eyes in on the sides to make them rounder. Or I'd open them very wide until I could see the white parts. But when I walked around the house like that, my father asked me why I looked so scared.

Look at that. There one family lives, kitchen is in China, bedroom is in Myanmar. In this way, this family eats in one country, sleeps in other. I think this house been standing there for many centuries, yes, long time, before anyone decided where one country stops, the other starts

Believe me, daughter, there is nothing worse than having your own family member out for revenge.

My thinking is this: Her original mother, she did what she must. I, her in-between mother, I did what I must. That Japanese couple, they also did what they must. One day, this little girl will grow up, and she will be doing what she must. So you see, we all do what we must

I could finally see what was there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

And then I realized what the first word must have been: ma, the sound of a baby smacking its lips in search of her mother's breast. For a long time, that was the only word the baby needed. Ma, ma, ma. Then the mother decided that was her name and she began to speak, too. She taught the baby to be careful: sky, fire, tiger. A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.

When Allendy says, "I am cold and grey," I sense the obscure, buried, sunken, eclipsed man who was stifled by his mother. No one was ever born without that light or flame of life. Some event, some person stifles or drowns it altogether.

Compassion for our parents is the true sign of maturity.

If in a dream I could break down and sob so bitterly when I meet my daughter it is only because I know, even in the dream, that I cannot really have her. When one lets so many years intervene one gets only ghosts.

My mother won't live any longer in the house of a person capable of writing such a "dirty" book as my study of Lawrence.

I know why familles were created, with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.

If you needed anything, all you had to do was say, 'Mom, I need this,' and my mom would be at my house with it," she says, crying. "And now it's like, if I need something, who do I call?

Remember, whenever money is involved it brings out horrific things in people. It has the power not only to split families apart but to destroy the foundation of one's life. Never lose sight of this. Take time and be certain you place your trust in those whose interest and goals mirror your own.

The money I inherited never belonged to me.

I began going through dozens of boxes stored away in her apartment and her art studio. They were filled with journals, and documents, and letters. She saved everything. Handwritten notes from her aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and schoolbooks my grandfather Reginald Vanderbilt doodled in as a child. I found old wills and financial records, and as I read the contents of these files stained by time and mold, I began to hear the voices of those people I never knew.

When we're young we all waste so much time being reserved or embarrassed with our parents, resenting them or wishing they and we were entirely different people. This

I also want you to know that since the moment I set eyes on you—you have brought me nothing but Joy—and I will remember everything about you forever. Have a marvelous time. —Mom.