Quotes About Family

Alas, Abdullah and Pari, Baba Ayub's days of happiness came to an end.

Mariam saw now the sacrifices a mother made. Decency was but one...Mariam wished she's been a better daughter to Nana. She wished she's understood then what she understood now about motherhood.

Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended. Our way of life.

Tidak ada kata yang terucap, tidak ada yang perlu kami katakan, inilah harta yang dimiliki oleh mereka yang menyimpan kenangan yang sama, yang saling menjadi kenangan pertama, yang menyusu dari payudara yang sama.

Exploitation to finance a beach house in Hawaii was one thing. Doing it to feed your kids was another.

So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one. Don't either of you ask me for more. It's late, and we have a long day of travel ahead of us, Pari, you and I. You will need your sleep tonight. And you too, Abdullah. I am counting on you, boy, while your sister and I are away. So is your mother. Now. One story, then. Listen, both of you, listen well. And don't interrupt.

Mammy's heart was like a pallid beach where Laila's footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed.

She wished she could visit Mariam's grave, to sit with her awhile, leave a flower or two. But Laila sees now that it doesn't matter. Mariam is never very far. She is here, in these walls they've repainted, in the trees they've planted, in the blankets that keep the children warm, in these pillows and books and pencils.

shoes: that putting them on a bed invited death into the family, that a quarrel would follow if one put on the left shoe first.

What I really wished I had was a twin, someone who'd cried next to me in the crib, slept beside me, fed from Mother's breast with me. Someone to love helplessly and totally, and in whose face I could always find myself.

After all, didn't all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons?

I dare, I dare allow myself the hope that, after you read this, you will be more charitable to me than I ever was to you. That you might find it in your heart to come and see your father. That you will knock on my door one more time and give me the chance to open it this time, to welcome you, to take you in my arms, my daughter, as I should have done all those years ago. It is a hope as weak as my heart. This I know. But I will be waiting. I will be listening for your knock. I will be hoping.

She will not plant the seed in their mind, that a parent is capable of abandoning her children, of saying to them You are not enough. For Pari, the children and Eric have always been enough. They always will be.

She would never leave her mark on Mammy's heart the way her brothers had, because Mammy's heart was like a pallid beach where Laila's footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed

I welcome you to my home as my son, as the husband of my daughter who is the noor of my eye. Your pain will be our pain, your joy our joy. I hope that you will come to see your Khala and Jamila and me as a second set of parents, and I pray for your and our lovely Soraya jan's happiness. you both have our blessings.

I watched Baba's car pull away from the curb, taking with it the person whose first spoken word had been my name.

After all, didn't all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons?

Mammy had a point. What rankled Laila was that Mammy hadn't earned the right to make it. It would have been one thing if Babi had raised this issue. But Mammy? All those years of aloofness, of cooping herself up and not caring where Laila went and whom she saw and what she thought . . . It was unfair. Laila felt like she was no better than these pots and pans, something that could go neglected, then laid claim to, at will, whenever the mood struck.

She was an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such as love, family, home..

Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything—that's how it is between people who are each other's first memories, people who have fed from the same breast.

Once, when I was little, I asked her if she'd cried when my father had fallen to his death. At the funeral? I mean, the burial? No, I did not. Because you weren't sad? Because it was nobody's business if I was.

Of course, it wouldn't have happened if Mammy had shown up like she was supposed to either. Sometimes Laila wondered why Mammy had even bothered having her. People, she believed now, shouldn't be allowed to have new children if they'd already given away all their love to their old ones. It wasn't fair.

My dear Martin, in the long summer of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfather's farmhouse outside of Homs.

Mereka bernasib naas, memiliki ayah yang lemah. Seorang pengecut yang lebih memilih melihat mereka semua mati daripada menyiksa nuraninya sendiri.