Quotes About Family

Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they become one flesh. —Genesis 2:24

Gay men know that the way to a woman's heart is through her son.

parents are heroes already—all they have to do is start acting like it.

Smaller families also created a narrower age gap between first- and last-born children; this trend, in turn, meant that children shared more in common with one another than with their parents.

When Roseanne read the first script of mine that got into her hands without being edited by someone else she said, 'How can you write a middle-aged woman this well?' I said, 'If you met my mom you wouldn't ask'.

I came into poetry feeling as though, on some level, these words were not just mine but my grandparents', their parents'.

A family is essentially a field of stories, each intricately connected. Death does not sever the connection; rather, the story expands as it continues unwinding inter-dimensionally

I never got to wash my mother's body when she died. I return to take care of her in memory. That's how I make peace when things are left undone.

My children were slick otters of joy in these rough waters of living

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

my father staggering in drunk, beating my mother, the shame and hate in him burning, burning. Then he'd hit my brothers. And then me whom it was said he loved most. He'd save me for last, when his anger was ashes, when the fire was hottest. And then he's hold me, 'Sugar, sugar', he's croon, the tears so thick they made a lake on the linoleum floor.

WASHING MY MOTHER'S BODY I never got to wash my mother's body when she died. I return to take care of her in memory. That's how I make peace when things are left undone. I go back and open the door. I step in to make my ritual. To do what should have been done, what needs to be fixed so that my spirit can move on, So that the children and grandchildren are not caught in a knot Of regret they do not understand.

I've learned there are many genealogies. Within our family is a genealogy of rage. There is also a genealogy of justice. I would show you a map, but I am still searching the roadway for casualties.

Poet Warrior gave birth to two children And acquired more children along the way Through association, marriage, and love. There were more and more story bringers In her world. They became her fiercest teachers Of how there is no end to love And of how it plants itself Deeper than earth Or sky.

The pervasive rhythm of her mother's heartbeat is a ghostly track that follows her.

In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.

Her visits to her former hometown were infrequent and often painful. Pilgrimages fueled by the tepid oxygen of family duty, unease, guilt. The more Esther loved her parents, the more helpless she felt, as they aged, to protect them from harm. A moral coward, she kept her distance.

Only where there is life can there be home.

Where there must be a choice, a girl will choose Daddy. Even if you are Mommy, you concede that this must be so: you remember when you were a girl, too.

Because we are linked by blood and blood is memory without language.

The place where you came from ain't there any more, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out. This place you are now—inside your daddy's house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time. You know that and always did know it. You hear me?

You spared the adults in your household. You learned how if a thing is not spoken of, even those closest to you, who love you, will assume that it doesn't exist.

The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.

Truths are the last thing you learn about your family. By the time you learn, you're no longer their child.