Quotes About Family

People always tell me I'm going to regret not having kids. But what if I have one and then I regret having it? Has anyone thought of that option?

Rhoda, my mother, was what the neighbors euphemistically termed a difficult woman. Her misery was like Texas oil: You could drill anywhere and find some.

Enough, I say. Our guests will be arriving shortly, and I would as lief they were left in the dark about this particular strain of insanity in the family that makes you two revert to childhood at the drop of a napkin.

He was his mother's son, kind and gentle. She was her father's daughter, quick of mind, fascinated by intrigue and all that went with it. But

What about the motorcycle parts? Those belong to my sort-of boyfriend. He's in Italy right now, visiting his family, and I like to have the mess around to remind me of him. Oh. So that's why Dante in Italian. She blushed and looked away. No. That's why the Italian boyfriend.

If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.

She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

Get down,' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.)

T]he parent-child relationship was one way, you gave them all your love and they were under no obligation to pay a penny back. Of course, if they did love you then that was the icing on the cake with cherries on top. And chocolate shavings and those little silver balls that cracked your fillings.

What a good husband you are,' Nancy said afterward, 'always taking your wife's side rather than your mother's.' 'It's the side of reason I am on,' Teddy said. 'It just so happens that that's where you're always to be found and my mother rarely.

Later, when she understood that it was the last time they would all be together, she wished she had paid more attention.

If he hadn't been the father of her children, Viola might have admired Dominic for the way he was so easily able to absolve himself of all obligation simply by asserting his right to self-fulfilment.

She'd had a glimpse of a possible future-the pretty cottage, the garden full of flowers and vegetables, bread in the oven, a bowl of strawberries on the table, the happy baby hitched on her hip while she threw corn to the chickens. It would be like a Hardy novel before it all goes wrong.

The kid looked up from her wampum and stared inscrutably at her and then, for the first time since Tracy bought her, Courtney smiled. A beatific sunbeam of a smile. Tracy beamed back, a bubble-burst of mixed emotion – ecstasy and agony in equal, confusing measure inside her – rising in her chest. Jesus. How did parents manage with this kind of stuff on a daily basis? She found herself blinking back tears.

No one ever warned you about how ferocious mother love could be, let's face it, no one warned you about anything.

Oh, how he missed his sister. Out of everyone, the legions of the dead, the numberless infinities of souls who had gone before, it was the loss of Ursula that had left him with the sorest heart.

The last place he intended to end up in was the place he had started from, the place where his entire family lay restlessly in the earth.

Not his real home, his real home, the one he never named any more, was the dark and sooty chamber in his heart that contained his sister and his brother and, because it was an accommodating kind of space, the entire filthy history of the industrial revolution.

After Marlee was born they rented videos and fell asleep in front of them. Now, like so much else in Jackson's world, videos were obsolete.

After he was born, the midwife said, "Boys wreck your house, girls wreck your head." Archie seemed intent on doing both.

She remembered holding Pamela's babies – remembered Teddy and Jimmy, too – how overwhelming the feelings of love and terror, the desperate desire to protect. How much stronger would those feelings be if it were her own child? Perhaps too strong to bear. Over

Ursula tried to remember what her own last words to her father had been. A nonchalant 'See you later,' she concluded. The final irony. 'We never know when it will be the last time,' she said...

Sylvie's children really only came into focus for her when in isolation. Together, they were an unwieldy flock, singly they had character.

I met Patricia Neal, John Houseman. But I loved my grandfather because he was this kind, talented man.