Quotes About Family

I believe that many modern women, my mother included, carry within them a whole secret New England cemetery, wherein they have quietly buried- in neat little rows- the personal dreams they have given up for their families

Everything falls apart. The only thing in life that is permanent is family.

Your father only has one foot on this earth. And really, really long legs . . .

I also know that I won't go forth and have children just in case I might regret missing it later in life; I don't think this is a strong enough motivation to bring more babies onto the earth.

There's plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of this family, and so I will never exclude you from our activities, but still—your suggestions will never be followed. You're allowed to have a seat, and you're allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote.

He became as close to me as my own, beautiful, random, and real family. Love like that is a deep well, with steep sides. Once you fall in, that's it—you will love that person always

Back off, Jack-I got four brothers protecting my ass,' and I just rode on by him

I was struck - not for the first time in my years of travel - by how isolating contemporary American society can seem by comparison. Where I came from, we have shriveled down the notion of what constitutes 'a family unit' to such a tiny scale that it would probably be unrecognizable as a family to anybody in one of these big, loose, enveloping Hmong clans. You almost need an electron microscope to study the modern Western family these days.

When she was pregnant with her second child, a midwife asked if Catherine had any unspoken fears about anything that could go wrong with the baby - such as genetic defects or complications during the birth. My sister said, 'My only fear is that he might grow up to become a Republican.

Dessutom kunde jag inte glömma vad min syster en gång hade sagt till mig medan hon ammade: ''Att skaffa barn är som att skaffa sig en tatuering i ansiktet. Man måste vara bergsäker på att det är så man vill ha det innan man sätter igång.

The fact that this was a fairly accurate portrait of my own mother is a quick indicator of how difficult it once was for me to tell the difference between myself and the powerful woman who had raised me.

Though I suppose people do reproduce sometimes for that reason—for insurance against later regret.

I used to think the 109th bead was an emergency spare. Like the extra button on a fancy sweater, or the youngest son in a royal family.

That's right, you never cared about money, Billy, Olive said. Certainly not to the extent that those of us who forgot to be born into wealthy families care about it.

Alma learned that her father drank out of bottles in the evening, and that those bottles sometimes contained danger (raised voices; banishment), but could also contain miracles—such

Able to exist without regular doses of romance or flattery from my solitary farmer of a father. Able to cheerfully plant gardens of daisies among the inexplicable stone walls of silence that my dad sometimes builds up around himself.

I kept waiting to want to have a baby, but it didn't happen. And I know what it feels like to want something, believe me. I well know what desire feels like. But it wasn't there. Moreover, I couldn't stop thinking about what my sister had said to me once, as she was breast-feeding her firstborn: "Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.

It also never occurred to me to go ask an authority figure for permission to become a writer. I'd never seen anybody in my family ask anyone for permission to do anything. They just made stuff. So that's what I decided to do: I decided to just go make stuff.

The most urgent war is always the one fought at home.

As for Alma's father—Henry Whittaker, the gentleman of the estate—he was pleased with his child.

And with me and Rosella—things were never bad. We just lived separate lives. What you gotta understand about South Brooklyn, is that the neighborhood itself is a family. You can't break up that family. Really, my wife is married to the neighborhood. It was the neighborhood who took care of her while I was in the service. The neighborhood still takes care of her now—and Angela, too.

It was a decision that left nobody happy- which is what my father might have called a successful business negotiation.

as the years pass—there comes to be a terrible shortage of your people. The ones you loved. The ones who knew the people that you both loved. The ones who know your whole history.

No outbreak of jealousy or malice has ever been welcomed in God's eyes." Beatrix continued, "nor shall such an outbreak ever be welcomed in the eyes of your family. If you have sentiments within you that are unpleasant or uncharitable, let them fall stillborn to the ground.