Quotes About Family

The younger man sitting next to her, her son perhaps, who looked to be in his forties, had a bar code tattooed on the back of his tanned neck, as if he were a supermarket product.

but really, when you didn't let a woman help, it was a way of keeping her at a distance, of letting her know that she wasn't family, of saying I don't like you enough to let you into my kitchen.

Our parents are turning into vampires," Jane's brother had said to her. "Jigsaw-playing vampires.

Was Savannah another sibling? Why wasn't she here today? Was she the family outcast? The prodigal daughter? Is that why her name seemed to land between them with such portentousness? And had anyone called her?

While most of us find it incredibly difficult to juggle career and family, some women seem to have hit up upon that elusive magical formula.

Friends are the family we chose for ourselves.

I will leave you if you ever do that again," she said after the first time, and she was deadly serious, my God she was serious. She knew exactly how she was meant to behave in a situation like this. The boys were only eight months old. Perry cried. She cried. He promised. He swore on his children's lives. He was heartbroken. He bought her the first piece of jewelry she would never wear. A week after the twins had their second birthday, it happened again. Worse than the first time.

Oh, yes, her husband was hopeless, and lost things and ran late, but he took care of his wife and daughters, in that old-fashioned, responsible, I-am-the-man-and-this-is-my-job way. Bridget was right: Cecilia ruled her world, but she'd always known that if there was a crisis—a crazed gunman, a flood, a fire—John-Paul would be the one to save their lives.

She'd learned that with her daughters. Don't say a word. Don't ask a question. Give them enough time and they'll finally tell you what's on their minds. It was like fishing. It took silence and patience. (Or so she'd heard.

It could have been so much worse. He rarely hit her face. She'd never broken a limb or needed stitches. Her bruises could always be kept secret with a turtleneck or sleeves or long pants. He would never lay a finger on the children. The boys never saw. It could be worse. Oh, so much worse. She'd read the articles about proper domestic violence victims. That was terrible. That was real. What Perry did didn't count.

A woman's relationship with her father will have a profound impact on all her future relationships with men. The fatherless daughter lacks a template. Fatherless daughters are more likely to be promiscuous—so GREAT, thanks Mum, I'm going to be a slut!!!!!!!!!! —Entry in Ellen O'Farrell's diary, written a week before her fifteenth birthday

They're pretty good at building stuff," her sister said. "Like bridges and roads. I mean, could you even build a hut? Your basic mud hut?" "I could build a hut," said Cecilia. "You probably could," groaned Bridget,

Dear Tess, she read. This is probably a silly gift for a girl. I never did know the right thing to buy you. I was trying to think of something that would help when you're feeling lost. I remember feeling lost. It was bloody awful. But I always had you. Hope you find your way, Love Dad.

guess Jack is too big for sandboxes now, although it's still there in their backyard. Sometimes, when Patrick is at work and Jack is at school, I go to the house and eat my lunch in the backyard.

Nobody ever told you that being a mother is all about making what seemed like thousands of tiny decisions. Tess had always considered herself quite a decisive person before she had Liam.

nothing truly hurts until it happens to you. Most of all, to your child.

Dear Tess", she read. "This is probably a silly gift for a girl. I never did know the right thing to buy you. I was trying to think of something that would help when you are feeling lost. I remember feeling lost. It was bloody awful. But I always had you. Hope you find your way. Love, Dad." Tess felt something rise within her chest. I guess it's quite pretty, said Lucy, taking the compass and turning it this way and that.

Nathan kissed Madeline on the cheek and shook Ed's hand enthusiastically. He took an ostentatious relish in the civility of his dealings with his ex-wife and family.

son is a son until he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter for all of her life.

He wasn't falling for the lie, she could tell. He didn't need to believe it as badly as her parents did.

When she had first held Jacob in her arms and pressed her lips to his tender, fragile scalp, it had felt as though she were being brought back to life, like a wilting plant being watered.

there was something in your children that could bring out the child in yourself. Nothing and nobody could aggravate you the way your child could aggravate you.

Why try to slot fractured families into neat little boxes in this day and age?

Cecilia did not know why her three slender daughters loved watching overweight people sweat and cry and starve.