Quotes About Family

You think terrible things happened on the battlefields, but terrible things happened in ordinary suburban homes.

Your child was a little stranger, constantly changing, disappearing and reintroducing himself to you

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. Cecilia would rather hammer nails into her forehead than go fishing.) Silence didn't come naturally to her. Cecilia was a talker.

Jesus. She even knew Liam's name. How was that possible? She'd forgotten her very existence until thirty seconds ago. Liam looked over, aimed his stick straight at Cecilia and pulled the imaginary trigger. "Liam!" said Tess at the same time as Cecilia groaned, clutched her chest and buckled at the knees. She did it so well, for an awful moment Tess worried that she really was collapsing. Liam held the stick up to his mouth, blew on it and grinned, delighted.

Now, for one day every month, she had to fake everything: her basic humanity, her love for her children, her love for Ed. She'd once been appalled to hear of women claiming PMS as a defense for murder. Now she understood. She could happily murder someone today!

The time will come, my darling, we'll get frail and sick and stubborn and your stomach will twist with love and terror each time we call, but plenty of time, don't get ahead of yourself, we're not there yet.

Those we love don't go away, they sit beside us every day. (plaque dedication on a park bench)

because she was a woman, and women know that babies and husbands and sick parents can derail your dreams, at any moment they can drag you from your bed, they can forestall your career, they can lift you from your prized seat at Wimbledon from a match later described as 'epic'. She thought she'd need to call an ambulance or take him to a hospital. She was thinking about travel insurance and telling the children, and how would they transport his body home?

Every conversation with her mother was fraught with danger. It was as if they were former players from competing teams who shared a long and violent history.

When you divorce someone, you divorce the whole family.

You okay, Mum?" said Rob. "I'm fine," said Rachel. She went to reach for her cup of coffee and found that she didn't have the energy to even lift her arm.

Ruby is the littler one, right?" said Erika's mother in her regular voice. "How old is she? Two?" "Yes," said Clementine. "What happened? Nobody saw her fall in? Where was her mother? What was Clementine doing?

you have children you think your life has changed forever, and it's true, to an extent, but it's nothing compared to how your life changes after you lose a child.

No one will ever love me as fiercely as my mother did.

she was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law, 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.

Tess had seen exactly how Will had managed to keep this thing with Felicity a secret for so long. Family life, even with just one little boy, had its own familiar rhythms, and it was perfectly possible to keep right on dancing like you always have, even when your mind is somewhere else.

maybe wishes do come true because this is family, this is what she never had, never knew, never dreamed, this is a moment so perfect and funny and this is her life now, just a string of perfect, funny moments one after the other, like a string of beads that will go on forever.

Grandchildren would be her second chance to get it right. Now she had the time and the eggs to spare, and she would be present with her grandchildren. When she looked at photos of her children when they were little, she sometimes thought, Did I notice how beautiful they were? Was I actually there? Did I just skim the surface of my entire damned life?)

I'm an orphan now, thought Charlotte. No matter how old you are, when your parents are gone, you are alone - an orphan.

If Christianity has really come from heaven, it must renew the whole life of man; it must govern the life of nations no less than that of individuals; it must control a Christian when acting in his public and political capacity as completely as when he is engaged in the duties which belong to him as a member of a family circle.

I feel that today the importance of grandparents' role within the family is not fully appreciated; children do not usually have the opportunity to be enriched by close proximity to and strong relationships with their grandparents. I know how important those relationships were in my life, and how a lot of the basic understanding I have of life and its values is rooted in my relationship with my grandparents.

My mother is an extraordinary anchor for me. In this fast-paced and hectic new world, so many people are liberating themselves from their families, putting their loved ones in old people's homes. This is tragic, to me. Parents and grandparents are a precious commodity. You must not waste them. Make sure your children have time with them. They, too, can gain strength from them.

But no one came. My father was safe, and his family was together in a free land. We'd left virtually everything we had behind—our home, furniture, clothes, and possessions. Our lifelong friends, too. We'd left behind the fields we'd lovingly tilled, the fig and cherry trees that I cherished, and the farm animals that were once so important to us. My father had nothing to show for the business that he'd worked so hard to establish and grow.

Father's Day is like Mother's Day, except the gift is cheaper.