Quotes About Responsibility

Ronan taught me that children do not exist to honor their parents; their parents exist to honor them. [...] Ronan was mine but he never belonged to me. This is not an issue of ownership. A child is not a couch.

The origin of my body and my mind didn't matter. I, the part of me that learned, that called on my memories, that knew I'd pulled a plant like this before, that had moved this hand to do it, was fifteen years old and innocent of evil or good. Neutral. From here forward, I was blank tape; what would be recorded there, and when, and why, was up to me.

You have failed to complete your mission. You didn't even get NEAR completing it, in fact. You deserve to be disfigured. Be ashamed.

She gets sick of things fast, it's from being an adult.

I watch his hands, they're lumpy but clever. Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents? Steppa laughs. Folks with other things to do?

Also everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.

COVER UP EACH COUGH OR SNEEZE…FOOLS AND TRAITORS SPREAD DISEASE.

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thing like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.

You must feel an almost pathological need—understandably—to stand guard between your son and the world." "Yeah, it's called being a mother." Ma nearly snarls it.

Now I feel bad I didn't give her the second quarter. Grandma says that's called having a conscience.

Wasn't it so often the girl --no matter how young-- who got blamed for having incited her molester with a look?

Better to drown in the surf than stand idly by the shore.

So much of motherhood is acting.

How could anyone bear to be a parent? Like contracting to love a werewolf.

And how will we recognise our island?' Trian wonders. 'By a sign of some kind.' Cormac realises something: the Prior doesn't know. Trian hesitates as if about to say more, but doesn't. It comes to Cormac that maybe it's their fault the boat hasn't reached the island yet, his and Trian's. We of little faith.

The thing is to take your life in your hands.

I was taught that being a good nurse means knowing when to call a doctor.

And then I woke— Then I woke up— I woke, and found that life was duty.

COUGH OR SNEEZE…FOOLS AND TRAITORS SPREAD DISEASE.

Everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults.

I thought of him, with his feet in the Chateau Marmont pool and his fork in a carrot cake. He was just a little kid. I was upset at what I had introduced him to, the records and films he didn't already know. I felt like a mother who had left syringes around the room and let her baby get hooked on hard drugs.

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

The guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that drive human beings to despair.

We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air, must guard against the tendency to fetter the future.