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0beacb9 Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation. motherhood mothering parenting mother Robert A. Heinlein
a08651b "Can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?" Harry shook his head. "Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help." Harry thought. Then he said slowly, "It shows us what we want... whatever we want..." "Yes and no," said Dumbledore quietly. "It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. "The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed." harry-potter mirror-of-erised invisibility-cloak james lily ron-weasley mother father J.K. Rowling
b387443 What's your heart telling you to do? I don't know.' Maybe, you're trying too hard to hear it. son mother Nicholas Sparks
2168e70 Children are knives, my mother once said. They don't mean to, but they cut. And yet we cling to them, don't we, we clasp them until the blood flows. knives hurt mother Joanne Harris
e97e948 My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you. too-much the-bell-jar sylvia-plath worse think yourself mother thinking Sylvia Plath
7fcfa0e The best love in the world, is the love of a man. The love of a man who came from your womb, the love of your son! I don't have a daughter, but maybe the love of a daughter is the best, too. I am first and foremost me, but right after that, I am a mother. The best thing that I can ever be, is me. But the best gift that I will ever have, is being a mother. motherhood sons-and-mothers the-best-gift the-greatest-gift the-love-of-a-son true-love inspirational-quotes inspiring love inspirational mothers-and-sons real-love mothers mother C. JoyBell C.
689a2bb I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day. death-and-dying love death-of-a-loved-one mother Mitch Albom
088c0c7 I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know. truth mother Mitch Albom
bcf58b9 He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. mother J.K. Rowling
1f34730 By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp. sun mother Cormac McCarthy
5fda45f Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will f--- you up, every time. snuff palahniuk parent mother father Chuck Palahniuk
ed61b78 Maybe it's just a daughter's job to piss off her mother. family mother Chuck Palahniuk
f9e45c5 "It's come at last," she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them - I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them from." winter futility maternal nihilism mother Betty Smith
d17cf81 For , literally translated, 'Since it must be so,' of all the good-bys I have heard is the most beautiful. Unlike the and , it does not try to cheat itself by any bravado 'Till we meet again,' any sedative to postpone the pain of separation. It does not evade the issue like the sturdy blinking . is a father's . It is - 'Go out in the world and do well, my son.' It is encouragement and admonition. It is hope and faith. But it passes over the significance of the moment; of parting it says nothing. It hides its emotion. It says too little. While ('God be with you') and say too much. They try to bridge the distance, almost to deny it. is a prayer, a ringing cry. 'You must not go - I cannot bear to have you go! But you shall not go alone, unwatched. God will be with you. God's hand will over you' and even - underneath, hidden, but it is there, incorrigible - 'I will be with you; I will watch you - always.' It is a mother's . But says neither too much nor too little. It is a simple acceptance of fact. All understanding of life lies in its limits. All emotion, smoldering, is banked up behind it. But it says nothing. It is really the unspoken good-by, the pressure of a hand, 'Sayonara. spanish emotion god japanese goodbyes german farewell english french mother father Anne Morrow Lindbergh
f2eb64f Behind all your stories is always your mother's story. Because hers is where yours begin. mother Mitch Albom
20eeae3 "What-what do you want?" Annabeth asked, trying to maintain a tone of confidence. The voice cackled maliciously. times thousand the mother-night of house annabeth-chase percy-jackson hades chase jackson percy mother night Rick Riordan
825b6d7 Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness. motherhood women family family-life catholicism womanhood mother women-s-strength G.K. Chesterton
d0e21ce When you're pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again, yet after having given birth you realize that the biggest part of you is now somehow external, subject to all sorts of dangers and disappearance, so you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to keep it close enough for comfort. That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one. motherhood pregnancy parents mother Jodi Picoult
17fff35 You're the kind of man my mother warned me about. warn mother Christine Feehan
37d319a I love you every day, Mom love mother Mitch Albom
0cd7492 Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it. siblings mother Aimee Bender
059a179 one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive. loss happiness love time-traveling childhood-memory mother memory Audrey Niffenegger
7fe1ef1 There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding. mother Jhumpa Lahiri
5916a4d I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out. loss happiness love mother memory Audrey Niffenegger
b8107f6 wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into darkness and dissolve. Her eyes looking back do not reflect anything. I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore. relationship mother Amy Tan
a25c9e3 [My dad] didn't do much apart from the traditional winning of bread. He didn't take me to get my hair cut or my teeth cleaned; he didn't make the appointments. He didn't shop for my clothes. He didn't make my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My mom did all of those things, and nobody ever told her when she did them that it made her a good mother. parenting parent mother Michael Chabon
a77ab7e ...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard to breathe, my father stalking around with his lower jaw jutting out, giving him the look of a wounded, vengeful boxer, grinding his teeth so loud you could hear it across the room ... I'm sure he told himself: 'I never hit her'. I'm sure because of this technicality he never saw himself as an abuser. But he turned our family life into an endless road trip with bad directions and a rage-clenched driver, a vacation that never got a chance to be fun. rage silence family heartbreak love abusive-parents mental-abuse abusive broken-home heartbroken love-lost fights divorce childhood-memories malice emotional-abuse anger communication fighting parents parents-and-children mother fury fight father childhood terror parenthood scared sexism Gillian Flynn
ccb10c6 Don't be so hard on yourself, You're doing the same thing, trying to reconcile all the moms that Mom ever was - The one you wanted, the one she was when you needed her and she was there, the one she was when she didn't understand. Most of us don't live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we're a whole bunch of selves. When someone dies, they all integrate into the soul - the essence of who we are, beyond the different faces we wear throughout our lives. You're just hating the selves you've always hated, and loving the ones you've always loved. It's bound to mess you up. love-h mother soul Christopher Moore
10b5fcb I missed her so much I wanted to die: a hard, physical longing, like a craving for air underwater. Lying awake, I tried to recall all my best memories of her--to freeze her in my mind so I wouldn't forget her--but instead of birthdays and happy times I kept remembering things like how a few days before she was killed she'd stopped me halfway out the door to pick a thread off my school jacket. For some reason, it was one of the clearest memories I had of her: her knitted eyebrows, the precise gesture of her reaching out to me, everything. Several times too--drifting uneasily between dreaming and sleep--I sat up suddenly in bed at the sound of her voice speaking clearly in my head, remarks she might conceivably have made at some point but that I didn't actually remember, things like Throw me an apple, would you? and I wonder if this buttons up the front or the back? and This sofa is in a terrible state of disreputableness. loss mother Donna Tartt
b2707cb "We want Max to... breed. To produce heirs. Who will govern the world after she dies." Dead silence for quite some time. We all stared at Dr. Hans, our jaws dropped to various levels. Our lives had reached a new low of inhumanity. My face flushed. Part of me had assumed, hoped, that if Fang and I lived long enough, we would get married. Maybe have a little flock of our own. But i really hadn't planned it all out. And he was gone now, anyway. How could I possibly ever find someone... My eyes scanned Dylan's face, I saw his discomfort. "Oh, no," I said in horror. "Yes," Angel confirmed. "Freaking unbelievable." mother James Patterson
c77db65 "Mom?" Mother turned to Grandmother. "What?" "She's going to lunch with her kidnapper!" "Take a picture for me," Grandma said." -- mother Ilona Andrews
3f1380c We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out. reality melena pregnancy child wicked mother Gregory Maguire
ecaa2af What she did have, after raising two children, was the equivalent of a PhD in mothering and my undying respect. mothering mother respect Barbara Delinsky
1243109 - You look fine. - Right. I look fine. Except I don't, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust. women mother Zadie Smith
9fb2f40 remember this: When you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned...you know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. Don't anybody raise you from the way you have been raised. Know you will have to make adaptations, in love, in relationships, in friends, in society, in work, but don't let anybody change your mind. life-lessons mother Maya Angelou
e28a919 "You know who you belong to, Jack?" "Yeah." "Yourself." He's wrong, actually, I belong to Ma." mother Emma Donoghue
2e28c19 Can I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was the man who rubbed my feet at night. He praised the food that I cooked. He cried honestly when I brought out trinkets I had saved for the right day, the day he gave me my daughter, a tiger girl. How could I not love this man? But it was a love of a ghost. Arms that encircled but did not touch. A bowl full of rice but without my appetite to eat it. No hunger. No fullness. Now Saint is a ghost. He and I can now love equally. He knows the things I have been hiding all these years. Now I must tell my daughter everything. That she is a daughter of a ghost. She has no . This is my greatest shame. How can I leave this world without leaving her my spirit? So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear. And then my fierceness can come back, my golden side, my black side. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter's tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is a way a mother loves her daughter. I hear my daughter speaking to her husband downstairs. They say words that mean nothing. They sit in a room with no life in it. I know a thing before it happens. She will hear the table and vase crashing on the floor. She will come upstairs and into my room. Her eyes will see nothing in the darkness, where I am waiting between the trees. love mother Amy Tan
2f67f86 . . . I do not tell you often enough, dear Mother, how very grateful I am that I am yours. It is a rare parent who would offer a child such latitude and understanding. It is an even rarer one who calls a daughter friend. I do love you, dear Mama. mother Julia Quinn
15941b5 "Me acorde de lo que me habia dicho mi madre: "Alla me oiras mejor. Estare mas cerca de ti. Encontraras mas cercana la voz de mis recuerdos que la de mi muerte, si es que alguna vez la muerte ha tenido alguna voz." Mi madre... La viva." mother Juan Rulfo
558175f "It has been a week since Ami died and this morning I woke suddenly hours before dawn, indeed the same hour as when my mother died. It was not a dream that woke me, but a thought. And with that thought I could swear I heard Ami's voice. But I am not frightened. I am joyous. Joyous with realization. For I cannot help but think what a lucky person I am. Imagine that in all the eons of time, in all the possible universes of which Dara speaks, of all the stars in the heavens, Ami and I came together for one brief and shining sliver of time. I stop. I think. time gratitude death love space mother Kathryn Lasky
2a99ee2 Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues -- faith and hope. hope love mother pride Charles Dickens
a19fff0 To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her. gone-with-the-wind scarlett-o-hara mother Margaret Mitchell
1b83f20 ...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them. sleep suicide earth escape depression sorrow fear mother misery terror horror Fyodor Dostoyevsky
257b78f Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves it's own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. harry-potter love sorcerer-s-stone jk-rowling rowling mother J.K.Rowling
d20ca99 When someone mattered like that, you didn't lose her at death. You lost her as you kept living. mother Barbara Kingsolver
2a9e520 The way Mom saw it, women should let menfolk do the work because it made them feel more manly. That notion only made sense if you had a strong man willing to step up and get things done, and between Dad's gimp, Buster's elaborate excuses, and Apache's tendency to disappear, it was often up to me to keep the place from falling apart. But even when everyone was pitching in, we never got out from under all the work. I loved that ranch, though sometimes it did seem that instead of us owning the place, the place owned us. ranch work farming common-sense daughter mother Jeannette Walls
eb0444c What made more sense was that the bargain she was bound to was to go on living as she had been doing. The bargain was already in force. Days and years and feelings much the same, except that the children would grow up, and there might be one or two more of them and they too would grow up, and she and Brendan would grow older and then old. It was not until now, not until this moment, that she had seen so clearly that she was counting on something happening, something which would change her life. She had accepted her marriage as one big change, but not as the last one. So, nothing now but what she or anybody else could sensibly foresee. That was to be her happiness, that was what she had bargained for, nothing secret, or strange. Pay attention to this, she thought. She had a dramatic notion of getting down on her knees. This is serious... It was a long time ago that this happened. In North Vancouver, when they lived in the Post and Beam house. When she was twenty-four years old and new to bargaining. marriage wife mother Alice Munro
aa427b0 My mother's gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin. motherhood family education inspirational-love upbringing mother Maya Angelou
97f44f6 I think maybe, when I was very young, I witnessed a chaste cheek kiss between the two when it was impossible to avoid. Christmas, birthdays. Dry lips. On their best married days, their communications were entirely transactional: 'We're out of milk again.' (I'll get some today.) 'I need this ironed properly.' (I'll do that today.) 'How hard is it to buy milk?' (Silence.) 'You forgot to call the plumber.' (Sigh.) 'Goddammit, put on your coat, right now, and go out and get some goddamn milk. Now.' These messages and orders brought to you by my father, a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. silence depression relationship family heartbreak love abusive-relationship bad-parenting abusive broken-home love-lost fights divorce childhood-memories abusive-relationships communication fighting parents parents-and-children mother fight father childhood parenthood sexism Gillian Flynn
5959d28 "Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS. "What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door. "You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day." I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me. "I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!" Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy. My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak." back-pain bedside-manner doctor-patient-relationship excruciating family-relation prescriptions pain listening-skills threats daughter doctors mother Laurie Notaro
f38a5b5 Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older or Cam either. These two she would have liked to keep for ever just as the way they were, demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into long-legged monsters. motherhood mother Virginia Woolf
53067d7 Catelyn wanted to run to him, to kiss his sweet brow, to wrap him in her arms so tightly that he would never come to harm.... mothers-love robb starks catelyn-stark son mother George R.R. Martin
d79b5df "Pudge/Colonel: "I am sorry that I have not talked to you before. I am not staying for graduation. I leave for Japan tomorrow morning. For a long time, I was mad at you. The way you cut me out of everything hurt me, and so I kept what I knew to myself. But then even after I wasn't mad anymore, I still didn't say anything, and I don't even really know why. Pudge had that kiss, I guess. And I had this secret. You've mostly figured this out, but the truth is that I saw her that night, I'd stayed up late with Lara and some people, and then I was falling asleep and I heard her crying outside my back window. It was like 3:15 that morning, maybe, amd I walked out there and saw her walking through the soccer field. I tried to talk to her, but she was in a hurry. She told me that her mother was dead eight years that day, and that she always put flowers on her mother's grave on the anniversary but she forgot that year. She was out there looking for flowers, but it was too early-too wintry. That's how I knew about January 10. I still have no idea whether it was suicide. She was so sad, and I didn't know what to say or do. I think she counted on me to be the one person who would always say and do the right things to help her, but I couldn"t. I just thought she was looking for flowers. I didn't know she was going to go. She was drunk just trashed drunk, and I really didn't think she would drive or anything. I thought she would just cry herself to sleep and then drive to visit her mom the next day or something. She walked away, and then I heard a car start. I don't know what I was thinking. So I let her go too. And I'm sorry. I know you loved her. It was hard not to." Takumi" secret anniversary-death love-alaska-young mother-s-death pudge-colonel takumi truth-and-lies letter girlfriend mother John Green
420cacc I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room loss happiness love mother memory Audrey Niffenegger
d00d434 Out loud I said I had two children. Silently I said three. I always felt like apologizing to her for that. mother Alice Sebold
3da6b45 "Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing." mixed-feelings strong-willed-child daughter determination mother Jeannette Walls
4c011c9 "What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?... motherhood words mother-and-daughter mother Amy Tan
c5bb37d In half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldn't: my past. past mother Jodi Picoult
4f01807 But a mother-son relationship is not a coequal one, is it? He is lonely with only you just as you are lonely with only him. son mother Mary Balogh
a0d5526 There is entirely too much tut-tutting in this realm, if you ask me. All these kings would do a deal better if they put down their swords and listened to their mothers. olenna-tyrell queen-of-thorns parenting mother George R.R. Martin
810d50b a mother who loses her child can no longer believe in God recluse mother Victor Hugo
719b9d0 "He hesitated for a moment. Then he said softly, "I love you, Mother." He took my hand and kissed it, and folded my fingers round the stem of the rose. He had stripped it of its thorns." rose son mother Elizabeth Peters
77e2900 "You're very impatient," Violet said, facing the door. "You always have been." "I know," Eloise said, wondering if this was a scolding, and if so, why was her mother choosing to do it now? "I always loved that about you," Violet said. "I always loved everything about you, of course, but for some reason I always found your impatience especially charming. It was never because you wanted more, it was because you wanted everything." Eloise wasn't so sure that sounded like such a good trait. "You wanted everything for everyone, and you wanted to know it all and learn it all, and . . ." For a moment Eloise thought her mother might be done, but then Violet turned around and added, "You've never been satisfied with second-best, and that's good, Eloise. I'm glad you never married any of those men who proposed in London. None of them would have made you happy. Content, maybe, but not happy." Eloise felt her eyes widen with surprise. "But don't let your impatience become all that you are," Violet said softly. "Because it isn't, you know. There's a great deal more to you, but I think sometimes you forget that." She smiled, the gentle, wise smile of a mother saying goodbye to her daughter." love mother Julia Quinn
ef24e83 What do you know about somebody not being good enough for somebody else? And since when did you care whether Corinthians stood up or fell down? You've been laughing at us all your life. Corinthians. Mama. Me. Using us, ordering us, and judging us: how we cook your food; how we keep your house. But now, all of a sudden, you have Corinthians' welfare at heart and break her up from a man you don't approve of. Who are you to approve or disapprove anybody or anything? I was breathing air in the world thirteen years before your lungs were even formed. Corinthians, twelve. . . . but now you know what's best for the very woman who wiped the dribble from your chin because you were too young to know how to spit. Our girlhood was spent like a found nickel on you. When you slept, we were quiet; when you were hungry, we cooked; when you wanted to play, we entertained you; and when you got grown enough to know the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford, everything in this house stopped for you. You have yet to . . . move a fleck of your dirt from one place to another. And to this day, you have never asked one of us if we were tired, or sad, or wanted a cup of coffee. . . . Where do you get the RIGHT to decide our lives? . . . I'll tell you where. From that hog's gut that hangs down between your legs. . . . I didn't go to college because of him. Because I was afraid of what he might do to Mama. You think because you hit him once that we all believe you were protecting her. Taking her side. It's a lie. You were taking over, letting us know you had the right to tell her and all of us what to do. . . . I don't make roses anymore, and you have pissed your last in this house. feminism women feminist song-of-solomon male-privilege brother son mother father Toni Morrison
ea172d0 If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices. over-indulgence upbringing mother contempt Anne Brontë
3a16830 Dad will come back,' said Charlie quietly. When Mrs Bone turned to him, she didn't look sad at all, in fact she was smiling. 'You know, Charlie, I'm beginning to believe you,' she said. 'After what happened to Henry, I can believe almost anything. charlie-bone mr-pilgrim saddness henry missing determination impossible mother father Jenny Nimmo
4b95f0e "It's just hard now because... you're jealous. But your heart is so generous and warm, it will melt the bad feelings away." I am 100 percent positive that my mom is the wisest mother in the world." heart jealous wise mom mother Jane O'Connor
faee8b6 All those calm, adult discussions. When all she really wanted to do was scream for her momma, her sweet momma, the one person in the world who loved her better than anyone ever would or ever could. mother-s-love mother Fannie Flagg
68b1d05 We are so excited that, in the strangely illuminating phrase my mother favours, we're completely beside ourselves. phrase mother Karen Joy Fowler
a28ac7d I get out of the car, and I'm blasted by the stench of body odor. Cricket is beside me, and he's talking, but his words don't reach my ears. Because it's my mother. Smelling. On my porch. smell mother Stephanie Perkins
dc27cda "Up the narrow stairs and into the kitchen. Rosie's mother looked around and made a face as if to indicate that it did not meet her standards of hygiene, containing as it did, edible foodstuffs. "Coffee? Water?" Don't say wax fruit. "Wax fruit?" Damn." wax-fruit rosie gaiman kitchen mother Neil Gaiman
a60392c If you would really study my pleasure, mother, you must consider your own comfort and convenience a little more than you do. convenience mother pleasure Anne Brontë
19347f2 She pondered the arrangements of the paintings on a wall like a writer pondered commas. mother Jonathan Franzen
387e159 "They call me Baelon the Brave," the prince told his wife at her bedside, "but I would sooner fight a dozen battles than do what you've just done." childbirth targaryens fire-and-blood mother battle George R.R. Martin
747cdf8 "Dad was on the porch, pacing back and forth in that uneven stride he had on account of having a gimp leg. When he saw, he let out a yelp of delight and started hobbling down the steps towards us. Mom came running out of the house. She sank down on her knees, clasped her hands in front of her, and started praying up to the heavens, thanking the Lord for delivering her children from the flood. It was she who had saved us, she declared, by staying up all night praying. "You get down on your knees and thank your guardian angel," she said. "And thank me, too." Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it. I was the one who'd saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel. No one was up in that cottonwood tree except the three of us. Dad came alongside me and put his arms around my shoulders. "There weren't no guardian angel, Dad," I said. I started explaining how I'd gotten us to the cottonwood tree in time, figuring out how to switch places when our arms got tired and keeping Buster and Helen awake through the long night by quizzing them. Dad squeezed my shoulder. "Well, darling," he said, "maybe the angel was you." flash-flood religion love natural-disaster guardian-angel parents mother children Jeannette Walls
2cc4b27 I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up- as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I once folded for her was doll-sized; as if I can still see her dancing in lazy pirouettes along the lip of the sandbox. Wasn't it yesterday that her hand was only as big as the sand dollar she found on the beach? That same hand, the one that's holding a boy's; wasn't it just holding mine, tugging so that I might stop and see the spiderweb, the milkweed pod, any of a thousand moments she wanted me to freeze? Time is an optical illusion- never quite as solid or strong as we think it is. You would assume that, given everything, I saw this coming. But watching Kate watch this boy, I see I have a thousand things to learn. time-passing growing-up mother Jodi Picoult
574fae9 No matter what you do each day...or in life...doing things God's way is a matter of the heart. god heart wife christian mom mother Elizabeth George
afe6e57 "Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone," her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. "Where've you been, what've you been up to?" "Mom, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend?" Mandy asked. "No, what in the name of god are you on about?" her mom sighed in exasperation. "Remember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen?" Mandy insisted. "No, I don't remember Alecto Sydney Steele at all," said her mom all too quickly." family friendship imaginary-companion imaginary-playmate invisible-friend pretend-friend sydney-tar-ponds imaginary-friend cape-breton nova-scotia call telephone dysfunctional-families eighteen pretend canada conversation friend talk girl mom mother invisible remember phone Rebecca McNutt
cd35d5b Rosies mother was a highly strung bundle of barely thought-through prejudices, worries and feuds. bundle feuds rosie gaiman prejudices worries mother Neil Gaiman
82a3392 Mum always says the right thing. She always makes everything better. mum parent mother Sophie Kinsella
86899e7 A mothers greatest joy in having a child is to give that child fully and freely to God. woman free joy god christian mom mother Elizabeth George
0d5fd35 I also believe that parents, if they love you, will hold you up safely, above their swirling waters, and sometimes that means you'll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn't. But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins. for-one-more-day mitch-albom love parents mother Mitch Albom
286000a But then, I knew so little about my mother over the last decade of her life. I had been too wrapped up in my own drama. mother selfishness Mitch Albom
60bf912 "Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She kisses Luisa's forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. "What?" identity daughter growing-up parents mother father human-nature roles David Mitchell
919c39d Too late, too late, your love gave me life. Here am I the creature you made through your loving; by your passion you created the thing that I am. Who are you to deny me the right to love? But for you I need never have known existence. love lgbtq lgbt mother Radclyffe Hall
04f80b9 And yet... you wouldn't want it to stop hurting... you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could. mother l.m. montgomery
d002323 She ran into the bathroom and powdered her face and the front of her dress, drew a surrealistic version of a mouth beneath her nose, and dashed into her bedroom to find a coat. humor truth mother John Kennedy Toole
83f8ca7 She has that voraciousness about children. She swoops in on them. Even I, in public was a beloved child. She'd parade me into town, smiling and teasing me, tickling me as she spoke with people on the sidewalks. When we got home, she'd trail off to her room like an unfinished sentence, and I would sit outside with my face pressed against her door, and replay the day in my head, searching for clues to what I had done to displease her. I have one memory that catches in me like a nasty clump of blood. Marian was dead about two years, and my mother had a cluster of friends come over for afternoon drinks. For hours, the child was cooed over, smothered with red lipstick kisses, tidied up with tissues, then lipstick smacked again. I was suppose to be reading in my room, but I sat at the top of the stairs watching. My mother finally was handed the baby, and she cuddled it ferociously. Oh, how, wonderful it is to hold a baby again! Adora jiggled it on her knee, walked it around the rooms, whispered to it, and I looked down from above like a spiteful little god, the back of my hand placed against my face, imagining how it felt to be cheek to cheek with my mother. jealousy loneliness dysfunctional-mother human-accessory childhood-memory child mother Gillian Flynn
8874cee Pain cannot be ignored. However, it can be endured. When necessary, a great deal of pain can be endured. Just ask my mother. pain strength endure ignore mom mother power Charlie Huston
a1a8c78 "What does it say?" asked my lord. "It says, `Good-night, God keep you all the night!'--just what she used to say when we were together. Every night she used to say that to me, and every morning she said, `God bless you all the day!' So you see I am quite safe all the time----" mother Frances Hodgson Burnett
afdd454 "Going back to something is harder than you think." I don't suppose I could have broken my mother's heart any more if I tried." moving-on heartfelt mother Mitch Albom
89d24ba God begins molding a mother after His own heart on the inside--in the inner woman and her heart--and then works outward. woman god heart life molding mom mother Elizabeth George
810c6ce "In the meantime, I'll get a job. I'll pay my own way." "A job?" "Mmm, yeah. It's that thing people do to make money." money rick-people olivia mother sarcasm Kelley Armstrong
4c33efa "Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems..." "Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue." funny answer arm blank captain cliff query response title tongue witty word language point mother sarcastic question voice wit name sarcasm Robin Hobb
768e777 "Yet being in the spotlight is also dangerous because a child's success may be construed by a narcissistic mother as competition. In self-defense, a son or daughter may insist that any achievement is a fluke, and any award is undeserved or is really a tribute to their mother. They suppress their own healthy narcissism to please a mother . . they believe any success is a mistake and at any moment they will be "found out" and identified as a fake or a fraud. The mind-set is, "I am succeeding because I can fake excellence, but inside I am not really worthy or not really able." Such self-effacement is common in people who are pressured to excel and also primed to assure others . . . that they are subservient and inferior." pleasing-others narcissism worthy pleasing mother Terri Apter
69c2863 "She had applied to college without her parents' knowledge, and when she got her choral scholarship she broke from childhood, choosing music as her religion. Emily and Jess pressed him, but they didn't understand. Their mother's life began when she came up to Cambridge on her own. "It's like a fairyland here," she used to say, when they walked through the ancient cloisters. She was a quiet rebel, buying a Liberty-dress pattern and sewing her own gown for the Emmanuel College ball, dancing until dawn, and then slipping barefoot onto the velvet lawns reserved for Fellows. As a soprano she sang for services and feasts. As an adventurer, she tried champagne for the first time and pork loin and frog's legs." rebel gillian-bach mother Allegra Goodman
95f0da7 It embarrassed her, as a child, to think that her father had fallen in love, or, if men must love, then it should have been someone else, someone dark, mysterious and profoundly clever, not an ordinary person who was impatient for no reason and cross when one was late for lunch. men clever dark love embarrass impatient late ordinary embarrassment mediocrity mother mystery mysterious father impatience Daphne du Maurier
9d3e162 The strange fact that out of millions of people in the world, your mother and father met and decided to get married to each other. And out of the millions of sperm, that the one with your genes was the one that made it to the egg and fertilised the egg. I'll never forget it. marriage egg sperm giving-birth millions genes pregnant mother father creation A.J. Jacobs
5822c60 If I look closely, I can almost see myself floating in my mother's palm. Yet, when I shut my eyes, I find a different image of my mother releasing me as we dance in the storm and twirl in separate circles that cause the water to ripple from us in widening rings which merge in one ebbing bracelet of waves where the borders of the quarry meet the water, far from the center where my mother and I continue to spin our bodies in the radiant sheen of lightning. mother-s-palm quarry spin twirl lightning floating mothers-and-daughters mother water Ursula Hegi
4f1bac4 When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them off you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them off there is not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And there he is, lying with a ticket tied around his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease... motherhood grief death birth baby grief-and-loss mother hospital scars Jean Rhys
29f7c93 "I forget your name," I said. "Most people spew shit from their arse," he retorted, "you manage it with your mouth." "Your mother gave birth through her arse," I said, "and you still reek of her shit." mourth reek shit birth mother name Bernard Cornwell
1428918 Fourteen years without a mother had me believe I could be stoic when I finally met her. stoicism mother Maria V. Snyder
197ca7d "Like Mom, Zoe thought-like Mom used to. And that's where they differed, for Zoe wrote quiet poetry suffused with twilight and questions. It's not even good poetry, she thought. I don't have talent, it's her. I should be the one ill; she has so much to offer, so much life. "You're a dark one," her mother said sometimes with amused wonder. "You're a mystery." pain loss emotion sadness dying-mother greif cancer lonliness mother Annette Curtis Klause
4ec4571 I believe that. All divorce does is divert you, taking you away from everything you thought you knew and everything you thought u wanted and steering you into all kinds of other stuff, like discussions about your mother's girdle and whether she should marry someone else. kids pain marriage thoughts plain-truth divorce mother Mitch Albom
45a7180 "Each of you told what your burden was just now, except Beth. I rather think she hasn't got any," said her mother. "Yes, I have. Mine is dishes and dusters, and envying girls with nice pianos, and being afraid of people." people dishes-and-dusters louisa-may-alcott pianos beth envy burden mother Louisa May Alcott
e506148 she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. woman mother Khaled Hosseini
3c4dcf5 I don't know what it is about the food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meat loaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory. love mother memory Mitch Albom
de8861c And if ever I'm reduced to looking for a meaning to my life, you never can tell, it's in that old mess I'll stick my nose to begin with, the mess of that poor old uniparous whore and myself the last of my foul brood, neither man nor beast. meaning-of-life mother Samuel Beckett
179cafe "Paco Fuentes," Mrs. Peterson says, pointing to the table behind Mary. The handsome young man with pale blue eyes like his mother's and smoky black hair like his father's takes his assigned seat. Mrs. Peterson regards her new student over the glasses perched on her nose. "Mr. Fuentes, don't think this class will be a piece of cake because your parents got lucky and developed a medication to halt the progression of Alzheimer's. Your father never did finish my class and he flunked one of my tests, although I have a feeling your mother was the one who should have failed. But that just means I'll expect extra from you." future past brittney mrs-peterson paco-fuentes seating-arrangements twenty-three-years-later class test parents son mother father Simone Elkeles
30e300a Every family is a ghost story. love mother Mitch Albom
f8ede1a What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear and our gills turn to lungs. Our maternal environment is perfectly safe - dark, warm, and wet. It is a residency inside the Feminine. When we outgrow our mother's body, our cramps become her own. We move. She labors. Our body turns upside down in hers as we journey through the birth canal. She pushes in pain. We emerge, a head. She pushes one more time, and we slide out like a fish. Slapped on the back by the doctor, we breath. The umbilical cord is cut - not at our request. Separation is immediate. A mother reclaims her body, for her own life. Not ours. Minutes old, our first death is our own birth. evolution motherhood death pregnancy mother Terry Tempest Williams
afb0050 Each of Nora's children had arrived on this earth as him or herself, the more she knew them, the more she felt it to be true. They were so different from one another, and from her. motherhood personality individuality growing-up parenting parents mother parenthood J. Courtney Sullivan
544d158 Things would have turned out better is she had lived. As it was, she died when I was kid;and thought everything that happened to me since then is thoroughly my own fault, still when I lost her I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life. love the-goldfinch mother Donna Tartt
af94393 ... you may seek out a partner who psychologically resembles your mother and found that you have walked right back into a difficult relationship. Perhapse you chose to be close to someone who turns out to be as volatile as your mother and who inflicts discomfort all too familiar to you. Or perhaps gradually, over time, your partner or close friend becomes like your mother; that may be because you unconsciously behave in ways that encourage others to treat you as your mother did. abusive-relationships abuse-recovery parents mother Terri Apter
f01bca3 "As Freud noted: "A thing which has not been understood inevitably reappears; like an unlaid ghost, it cannot rest until the mystery has been resolved and the spell broken." . . . in ambivalent attachment, a mother vacillates inexplicably from being loving and tender to angry and threatening.. Faced with this unpredictable inconsistency, a child tries to appease the mother, anxious to control and monitor her shifting moods." abuse-recovery anger-management anger attachment mother Terri Apter
a1e2b11 I'm lucky, you see: I had two mothers. One gave life to me; one raised me. But they both loved me. You know, some people don't even get that once... There's only one disadvantage, really, to having two mothers. You know twice the love... but you grieve twice as much. loss love mother Alan Brennert
1e6cad9 ...But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins. love mother Mitch Albom
c45fd5b She lasted three months, then passed on a September day when everything seemed split open with sunlight. sun mother Colum McCann
7c38c25 I love Hailey and what we have works. Shes's beautiful, she's smart, she's a great mother, and she's heads above what I ever thought I could see in myself. mother self-worth Jonathan Tropper
eb6d699 Which one is really my child? The one I brought forth with my own groans who has no liking for the thing I love most in all the world, or the stranger's child whom fate placed in my life, the one who is absorbing and treasuring every word I give her, whose eyes are learning every day, whom I would love to teach... teacher mother teaching Susan Vreeland
a95f0a2 Driving like a man is one of her few foibles. foible driving mother womens-rights Elizabeth Wein
d8d5555 Inspector Milne's suspicious prying appeared to have awakened her inner Bolshevik, and so I discovered my own lady mother is not above quietly circumventing the law. bolshevik delightful innovative elizabeth-wein the-pearl-thief surprising mother curious Elizabeth Wein
f4c6c2d Converstations with a mother of five are education in patience. kids mother patience Barbara Kingsolver
3ca9bad ... mothers have wept less, bidding farewell to their children. At least, mine certainly did. mother Jacqueline Carey
a05821c From then on, I was terrified that I or one of my parents were going to die. My mother worried me the most. She was the force around which our world turned. Unlike our father, who spent his life in the clouds, my mother was propelled through the universe by the brute force of reason. She was the judge in all of our arguments. One disapproving word from her was enough to send us off to hide in a corner, where we would cry and fantasize our own martyrdrom. And yet. One kiss could restore us to princedom. Without her, our lives would dissolve into chaos. motherhood life chaos growing-up parents mother father Nicole Krauss
61a6846 And there I lie in these damned bandages for a week. And there he lies, swathed up too, like a little mummy. And never crying. But now I like raking him in my arms and looking at him. A lovely forehead, incredibly white, the eyebrows drawn very faintly in gold dust... Well, this was a funny time. (The big bowl of coffee in the morning with a pattern of red and blue flowers. I was always so thirsty.) But uneasy, uneasy... Ought a baby to be as pretty as this, as pale as this, as silent as this? The other babies yell from morning to night. Uneasy... When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them off you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them off there is not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And there he is, lying with a ticket tied around his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease... motherhood grief death birth baby grief-and-loss nurse mother hospital Jean Rhys
7323d97 "Her mother's injunction on competing with other girls is a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down: "You just have to be smarter than the ones who are prettier and prettier than the ones who are smarter" female-success smart mother pretty Mary Karr
406db7f And though it's a bleak thing to admit all these years later, still I've never met anyone who made me feel loved the way she did. Everything came alive in her company; she cast a charmed theatrical light about her so that to see anything through her eyes was to see it in brighter colors than ordinary. love mother Donna Tartt
ceff742 Their mother had white hands, long tapered fingers, and when she kneaded dough, her wedding ring clinked against the bowl. She was always singing softly as she played the piano with her white hands. She accompanied Emily's dance recitals and she could play anything, but Chopin was the one that Gillian loved. She played Chopin every night, and when she turned the pages, she wasn't really looking at the music. She knew the saddest Waltzes by heart. The saddest were the ones that she knew best, and she would play at bedtime, so falling asleep was like drifting off in autumn forests filled with golden leaves. memories gillian-bach mother Allegra Goodman
950ed10 She felt lately as though she had served her purpose, done her job, and been dispensed with, not only by her children, but by her husband as well. woman housewife wife mother Danielle Steel
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