Quotes About Family

When I wrote The Betsy, I spent a lot of time in Detroit with the Ford family. The old man running the place had supplied me with Fords, a Mustang, that station wagon we still have…. After he read the book and I was flying home from New York the day after it was published, he made a phone call to the office on Sunset and asked for all the cars to be returned. I guess he didn't like the book.

Kids are a pain in the ass.

She's been brought up without love and has no understanding of it.

Don't let him grow up as I did. Sheltered and clothed and fed and cared for, and yet poorer in human qualities than the poorest of men. A man needs more than food and clothes and money to make him human. He needs love and kindness and affection. He needs people, a family, to give him an anchor, to give him roots in the earth, in society, to teach him the true values in the world. The

We have made the 20th century the century of the individual. For most of human history, a person was part of a family, part of a clan or tribe or neighborhood. People defined themselves on the basis of their relationships to other people, not on the basis of their individual achievements.

To be a husband or wife, to be a parent, is inevitably to be aware of so many disappointing, exasperating things about your mate or child, but at the same time to see those people in depth, to see them with both eyes, and to be reminded of why you still love them.

In our nation's popular culture, country life in the 1800s has often been portrayed as an idyllic experience, one that cultivated such quintessentially American values as self-reliance, rugged independence, a reverence for the land, a belief in the importance of hard work and self-sacrifice, and a willingness to fight when necessary for home, family, and community.

Virtually nothing is known about the early life of Andrew Philip Kehoe, the man his neighbors would later dub "the world's worst demon."1 Philip Kehoe had already sired six daughters before Andrew came into the world on February 1, 1872. As the first son, Andrew occupied a special place in the family: the "long sought" male heir who was both "enthroned" by his parents and burdened with the highest expectations of a proud, stern, and demanding father.2

Kehoe was eighteen when his mother, Mary, died from a long, progressive illness, described in contemporary reports as a "disease of the nervous system." Her obituary eulogized her as a "charitable and sympathetic neighbor as well as a generous and cheerful giver

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.

Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage. I and my children are now free.

Mothers are the most instinctive philosophers.

the Lord gives a good many things twice over, but he don't give ye a mother but once. Ye'll never see such another woman, Mas'r George—not if ye live to be a hundred years old. So, now, you hold on to her, and grow up, and be a comfort to her.

The Lord gives a good many things twice over, but he don't give ye a mother but once.

If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could you walk?

To him, it is the right of a man to be a man, and not a brute; the right to call the wife of his bosom his wife, and to protect her from lawless violence; the right to protect and educate his child; the right to have a home of his own, a religion of his own, a character of his own, unsubject to the will of another.

Deeds of heroism are wrought here more than those of romance, when, defying torture, and braving death itself, the fugitive voluntarily threads his way back to the terrors and perils of that dark land, that he may bring out his sister, or mother, or wife.

Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou art passing away; but they that love thee dearest know it not.

Papa, do buy him! it's no matter what you pay," whispered Eva, softly, getting up on a package, and putting her arm around her father's neck. "You have money enough, I know. I want him." "What for, pussy? Are you going to use him for a rattle-box, or a rocking-horse, or what? "I want to make him happy." "An original reason, certainly.

They will raise, and raise with them their mother's side.

I used to think, if there was anything in the world he did love, it was our dear little Eva; but he seems to be forgetting her very easily. I cannot ever get him to talk about her. I really did think he would show more feeling!" "Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me," said Miss Ophelia, oracularly.

You didn't give me a curl, Eva," said her father, smiling sadly. "They are all yours, papa," said she, smiling—"yours and mamma's; and you must give dear aunty as many as she wants. I only gave them to our poor people myself, because you know, papa, they might be forgotten when I am gone, and because I hoped it might help them remember. . . . You are a Christian, are you not, papa?" said Eva, doubtfully.

My daughter,' came naturally from the lips of Rachel Halliday; for hers was just the face and form that made 'mother' seem the most natural word in the world.