Quotes About Family

Just like his daddy, but his daddy wants Red to be different from him. Isn't that always how it is?

What nobody understood about David, with the possible exception of Greta, was that he had suffered a very serious loss in his life. Two losses, in fact. Two very dear children: Emily and Nicholas. It was true that these days there happened to be two very dear grown-ups who were also named Emily and Nicholas, but they weren't the same people. It was just as if those children had died. He'd been in mourning ever since.

When she was a child she used to imagine that her mother might painlessly die somehow and her father would marry a lovely, serene woman who would sit at Willa's bedside when she had a bad dream and lay a cool palm on her forehead.

I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us.

So, this is how it works," she said. "This is what families do for each other—hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses.

They knew all about Jin-Ho because Jin-Ho's mother had telephoned two weeks after the babies' arrival. "I hope you don't mind my tracking you down," she'd said. "You're the only Yazdans in the book and I just couldn't resist calling you to find out how things were going." Jin-Ho, it seemed, was doing marvelously.

Who said, 'You're only ever as happy as your least happy child?' 

Oh, that," he seemed to be saying. "Never mind that. All families have their ups and downs; let's just figure the age of this poplar.

So, this is how it works," she said. "This is what families do for each other—hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses." "And little cruelties," he said. "And little cruelties," she agreed, and she swung his hand between

When Bitsy looked back on Jin-Ho's arrival, it didn't seem like a first meeting. It seemed that Jin-Ho had been traveling toward them all along and Bitsy's barrenness had been part of the plan, foreordained so that they could have their true daughter.

He thought of how it would be if his father returned some time in he future, when Cody was a man. Look at what I've accomplished, Cody would tell him. Notice where I've got to, how far I've come without you. Was it something I said? Was it something I did? Was it something I didn't do, that made you go away?

he thought now that his mother's staunch sprightliness had been braver than he had appreciated in his youth. (Last summer, laid up for a week with a wrenched back, he had suddenly wondered how Bee had endured the chronic pain of her arthritis all those years. He suspected that had taken a good deal more strength than the brief, flashy acts of valor you see in the movies.)

because a longtime family joke was how Pauline put so much stock in marking occasions with gifts. Pauline made a shooing gesture with one hand (people tended to exaggerate her character, she felt), and Karen went on. "Mom, Dad, this is from all of us. We wanted to give you something to remind you of these past thirty years." And she took the package from George

We've lost the last remaining chick in our nest! It's natural we would feel low." And she did feel low; no question about it. In many ways David was the child closest to her heart, although she'd expected to feel closer to her girls. After Alice and Lily left home it was just David and his parents, and the chaos died down and sometimes Mercy was able to hold actual brief conversations with him.

Or maybe it wasn't a quirk at all. Maybe it was just further proof that the Whitshanks were not remarkable in any way whatsoever.

Didn't it often happen, she thought, that aged parents die exactly at the moment when other people (your husband, your adolescent children) have stopped being thrilled to see you coming? But a parent is always thrilled, always dwells so lovingly on your face as you are speaking.

you don't have to bend over backwards, either, and go asking her to dinner or something. She does have a family of her own. You're supposed to take my side in this." "I thought you didn't want us to take sides." "No, no, I don't. I mean you shouldn't take her side, is what I'm trying to say.

these people are a family. See? They want to learn how families work and that's what they think these customers are. Get it?" "Got it," Willa said.

with your family, if with no one else, you have to keep on trying.

Pianists, Matthew thought, are the ones that get arthritis, and artists go blind and composers go deaf. And his mother, who pulled all the family strings by words alone, was reduced to stammering and to letting others finish her sentences.

In fact Alice was surprised to hear that her father had even noticed whether David went into the water or not, because he and Bentley liked to stand waist-deep with their arms folded across their chests and talk about sewage or something.

But my family's passing came so sudden. Left me strap-hanging in empty space, like.

Who said, 'You're only ever as happy as your least happy child?' Ã¢â'¬Â she'd asked Ree in last week's pottery class. "Socrates," Ree answered promptly. "Really? I was thinking more along the lines of Michelle Obama.

Didn't it often happen, she thought, that aged parents die exactly at the moment when other people (your husband, your adolescent children) have stopped being thrilled to see you coming? But a parent is always thrilled, always dwells so lovingly on your face as you are speaking. One of life's many ironies.