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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
eb00302 You'll stay with me?' Until the very end,' said James. harry-potter lupin sirius final goodbye parents J. K. Rowling
6451914 All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair. family life inspirational parents Mitch Albom
6ea6a34 Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. parents Oscar Wilde
56c98c6 "The Voice There is a voice inside of you That whispers all day long, "I feel this is right for me, I know that this is wrong." No teacher, preacher, parent, friend Or wise man can decide true-to-self wring inner-voice leaders teachers parents right Shel Silverstein
c6f04b9 Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something. god parents Chuck Palahniuk
e7651f0 To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. humor parents paraphrased Oscar Wilde
3ffdee8 When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing. fall-of-the-gods growing-up parents John Steinbeck
9a027c9 An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do. marriage proposals parents husbands Jane Austen
6289488 But she wasn't around, and that's the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going in to every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone. loss death back-up death-of-a-loved-one parents fight dying Mitch Albom
9269f30 My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading. reading parents child children Anne Fadiman
78a0650 Have you ever noticed how parents can go from the most wonderful people in the world to totally embarrassing in three seconds? relationships family parents Rick Riordan
3e6bf1d It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful. parents Roald Dahl
9da1f37 Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong. faith parental-love parents child parenthood Richard Dawkins
3e9d9ac I think part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids. humor parents Stephen King
f58c689 "My parents are going to kill me!" "That seems rather harsh..." humor parents paranoia Garth Nix
3ffe4c6 I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them. Brian Fitzgerald, talking about his children. parenting parents Jodi Picoult
4e08ef3 Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street. parenting parents Neil Gaiman
d4bb622 Parents had some kind of sin radar, Claire thought. They always called when you were in the middle of something you just knew they'd consider wrong. Or at least risky. eve-rosser michael-glass reba shane-collins parents Rachel Caine
8be20dc I think when you become a parent you go from being a star in the movie of your own life to the supporting player in the movie of someone else's. life parents Craig Ferguson
642d4f2 When you lose your parents, the sadness doesn't go away. It just changes. It hits you sideways sometimes instead of head-on. Like now. grief parents Jude Watson
7530abe Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless --unless they've got to. harry-potter page-215 the-bribe deathly-hallows j-k-rowling parents J.K. Rowling
cf706a7 Most parents try really hard to give their kids the best possible life. They give them the best food and clothes they can afford, take their own kind of take on training kids to be honest and polite. But what they don't realize is no matter how much they try, their kids will get out there. Out to this complicated little world. If they are lucky they will survive, through backstabbers, broken hearts, failures and all the kinds of invisible insane pressures out there. But most kids get lost in them. They will get caught up in all kinds of bubbles. Trouble bubbles. Bubbles that continuously tell them that they are not good enough. Bubbles that get them carried away with what they think is love, give them broken hearts. Bubbles that will blur the rest of the world to them, make them feel like that is it, that they've reached the end. Sometimes, even the really smart kids, make stupid decisions. They lose control. Parents need to realize that the world is getting complicated every second of every day. With new problems, new diseases, new habits. They have to realize the vast probability of their kids being victims of this age, this complicated era. Your kids could be exposed to problems that no kind of therapy can help. Your kids could be brainwashed by themselves to believe in insane theories that drive them crazy. Most kids will go through this stage. The lucky ones will understand. They will grow out of them. The unlucky ones will live in these problems. Grow in them and never move forward. They will cut themselves, overdose on drugs, take up excessive drinking and smoking, for the slightest problems in their lives broken-hearts cutting-your-self depression emo emotion hopeless-romantic lfe-essons phases romance sorrow joy happiness life love inspirational childhood-trauma teenage-love infatuation growing-up helplessness crying parents bullying teenagers trapped childhood Thisuri Wanniarachchi
b75d1ee I'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it. grief memories parents David Mitchell
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
6acfd77 "but my dad said it was no excuse. "But I love him!" I had never seen my sister cry that much. "No, you don't." "I hate you!" "No, you don't." My dad can be very calm sometimes. "He's my whole world." "Don't ever say that about anyone again. Not even me." That was my mom." perks-of-being-a-wallflower parents Stephen Chbosky
ead0b2e We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others--our parents, for instance--and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live. life self-identity dialogue self parents Charles Taylor
942bc85 There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears. motherhood sympathy mothers parents parents-and-children Sophie Kinsella
6962199 All a child's life depends on the ideal it has of its parents. Destroy that and everything goes - morals, behavior, everything. Absolute trust in someone else is the essence of education. parents E.M. Forster
2cda36a Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encouraged them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior. raising-children parents Jeannette Walls
68e8754 [E]verywhere 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. kids caring cuteness neglect pretense hypocrisy parents children Emma Donoghue
2841628 The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them. It's for their own good. lying truth protect parents Sophie Kinsella
95e4724 "Oh, Daja," moaned Jory, "you sound just like my parents." She ran from the schoolroom. "Well, there's no reason to insult me, "muttered Daja, half offended." -- jory parents Tamora Pierce
964dcdd Isn't a kid alive who doesn't dream about rewarding her folks, or punishing them. parents parent children Chuck Palahniuk
632bf99 Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves? parents children Jeffrey Archer
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
602746a The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. less-than-zero parents Bret Easton Ellis
9e8869d If you were offered the chance to live your own life again, would you seize the opportunity? The only real philosophical answer is automatically self-contradictory: 'Only if I did not know that I was doing so.' To go through the entire experience once more would be banal and Sisyphean--even if it did build muscle--whereas to wish to be young again and to have the benefit of one's learned and acquired existence is not at all to wish for a repeat performance, or a Groundhog Day. And the mind ought to, but cannot, set some limits to wish-thinking. All right, same but with more money, an even sturdier penis, slightly different parents, a briefer latency period... the thing is absurd. I seriously would like to know what it was to be a woman, but like blind Tiresias would also want the option of re-metamorphosing if I wished. How terrible it is that we have so many more desires than opportunities. money opportunity youth women life philosophy conundrums groundhog-day self-contradiction tiresias wishful-thinking parents desire old-age Christopher Hitchens
1d957f9 It's really not that hard to put food on the table if that's what you decide to do. providing life parents Jeannette Walls
250a124 I became quietly seized with that nostalgia that overcomes you when you have reached the middle of your life and your father has recently died and it dawns on you that when he went he took some of you with him. middle-age parents nostalgia Bill Bryson
29946a2 When we sat down to eat I took inventory of the people in the room, and the remnants of my good mood evaporated when I realized how very little I had in common with them - the career dads, the responsible and diligent moms - and I was soon filled with dread and loneliness. I locked in on the smug feeling of superiority that married couples give off and that permeated the air - the shared assumptions, the sweet and contented apathy, it all lingered everywhere - despite the absence in the room of anyone single at which to aim this. parents Bret Easton Ellis
2b18094 My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves. shelves parents bookshelves Anne Fadiman
a7f6852 "A thousand times today I've started to open my mouth, started to squeak out, "Can you tell me...? But then I'd look into the front seat, at my mother's silent shaking, my father's grim profile, the mournful bags under his eyes, and all the questions I might ask seemed abusive. Assault and battery, a question mark used like a club. My parents are old and fragile. I'd have to heartless to want to hurt them." silence feelings fear suppress discomfort crying parents protectiveness Margaret Peterson Haddix
9787326 I'm not smarter than you, I'm more knowledgeable than you, and that's only because I'm older than you. Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents. fiction parents Jonathan Safran Foer
fc0ed57 How strange was the relation between parents and children! When they were small the parents doted on them, passed through agonies of apprehension at each childish ailment, and the children clung to their parents with love and adoration; a few years passed, the children grew up, and persons not of their kin were more important to their happiness than father or mother. Indifference displaced the blind and instinctive love of the past. Their meetings were a source of boredom and irritation. Distracted once at the thought of a month's separation they were able now to look forward with equanimity to being parted for years. maugham parents W. Somerset Maugham
d6d95f2 Children get food shelter pocket money longholidays and love, all of it apparently free gratis, and most of the little fools think it's a sort of compensation for having been born. 'There are no strings on me!' They sang; but I, pinnoccio, saw the strings. Parents are impelled by the profit motive - nothing more, nothing less. For their attentions, they expected, from me, the immense dividend of greatness. life-purpose greatness parents salman rushdie
95747a3 At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood. fathers family traits genetics parents Salman Rushdie
0592238 They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father's affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could provide no more luxuriously for his family; but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never would, in his heart he disliked her. fathers family love parents W. Somerset Maugham
a2ea0c9 First, I'm not getting married, so you can forget the wife. Second, if I was insane enough to get married, I wouldn't have kids. Third, if I was insane enough to get married and have kids, it would be a cold day in hell I'd let you babysit. kids marriage love parents Jennifer Crusie
adb3200 For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and--by some sad, strange irony--it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy. parents E.M. Forster
101f5b8 Can you taste it Bruce? Can you taste the filth, the dirt, the oily blackness of that fossil fuel in our mouth as you choke and gag and spit it out? Do you still hear his voice in your head urging you to eat? Eat, eat eat. Your mother's cries. Do you hear them? You should be Bruce. Because I know that it's never left you alone. Now you can eat what you want to eat. For me, for you, for all the others. Now you can consume to your heart's content or your soul's destruction, whichever comes first. So eat. tapeworm parents eating food eat Irvine Welsh
23c63e5 ...but the truly frightening thing was to learn that his mother was no stronger than he was, that the blows of the world hurt her just as much as they hurt him and that except for the fact that she was older, there was no difference between them. life parents parents-and-children Paul Auster
a874bc6 Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other members of the human race, rather disappointingly. parents John Updike
d9b10d5 The sudden silence is horrifying, and it seems to catch my mother off guard. A tiny whimper escapes her, the sound amplified in the stillness. Surely, my father hears her now; surely he and I can't go on pretending she isn't crying. feelings discomfort denial parents Margaret Peterson Haddix
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
8b879a5 The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years. parents parents-and-children George Bernard Shaw
a0423b7 No, Miss Wright didn't want to meet her kid. To her, that relationship was just as important, just as ideal and impossible as it would be to the child. She'd expect that young man to be perfect, smart, and talented, everything to compensate for all the mistakes that she'd made. The whole wasted, unhappy mess of her life. relationship snuff parenting parents parent children Chuck Palahniuk
e35e2d2 Maybe you never stop feeling like an eight-year-old in front of your parents. You resolve to be your mature self, to react in this considered way rather than that elemental way, to breathe evenly from the bottom of your stomach and to see your parents as equals, but within five minutes your intentions are blown to hell, and you're babbling and screaming in rage like an angry child. parents Hanif Kureishi
3afe3e4 "Dear God," said Nudge under her breath, "I want real parents. But I want them to want me too. I want them to love me. I already love them. Please see what you can do. Thanks very much. Love, Nudge." Okay, so I'm not saying we were pros at this or anything. (Max thoughts)" funny learning god humor love praying parents desire James Patterson
6b85892 The death of a parent, he wrote, 'despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago... memories death preparation parents Joan Didion
e17f6e2 "For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling "vaguely guilty." mothers neglect sentimentality parents old-age William S. Burroughs
7e50b3b I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. parents knowledge father Margaret Atwood
a9fd798 Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away. tragedy parents insanity Anne Lamott
93c1f42 Mr. Lisbon had the feeling that he didn't know who she was, that children were only strangers you agreed to live with. the-virgin-suicides strangers parents Jeffrey Eugenides
0ee510f "I'm glad you were both here," I finally manage, thinking how strange it is to be standing with the two people who made you, something most kids take for granted every day of their lives." adoption parents Emily Giffin
dde067f Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to hear it myself. I am not used to my father's crying. I've had no time to harden my heart against him. feelings denial parents protectiveness Margaret Peterson Haddix
76c83ae "It's a bit burned," my mother would say apologetically at every meal, presenting you with a piece of meat that looked like something -- a much-loved pet perhaps -- salvaged from a tragic house fire. "But I think I scraped off most of the burned part," she would add, overlooking that this included every bit of it that had once been flesh. Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream -- so everything suited him so long as it was sufficiently dark and not too startlingly flavorful. Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven, for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my dad." humor parents Bill Bryson
b2b4a24 He died at the wrong time, when there was much to be clarified and established. They hadn't even started to be grown-ups together. There was this piece of heaven, this little girl he'd carried around the shop on his shoulders; and then one day she was gone, replaced by a foreigner, an uncooperative woman he didn't know how to speak to. Being so confused, so weak, so in love, he chose strength and drove her away from himself. The last years he spent wondering where she'd gone, and slowly came to realise that she would never return, and that the husband he'd chosen for her was an idiot. father-daughter parents regret Hanif Kureishi
a762a40 Patty believed that parents have a duty to teach their children how to recognize reality when they see it. reality religion page-81 parenting parents Jonathan Franzen
4020ca4 She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice. duty parents Jeanette Winterson
abc0cff What makes people good communicators is, in essence, an ability not to be fazed by the more problematic or offbeat aspects of their own characters. They can contemplate their anger, their sexuality, and their unpopular, awkward, or unfashionable opinions without losing confidence or collapsing into self-disgust. They can speak clearly because they have managed to develop a priceless sense of their own acceptability. They like themselves well enough to believe that they are worthy of, and can win, the goodwill of others if only they have the wherewithal to present themselves with the right degree of patience and imagination. As children, these good communicators must have been blessed with caregivers who knew how to love their charges without demanding that every last thing about them be agreeable and perfect. Such parents would have been able to live with the idea that their offspring might sometimes--for a while, at least--be odd, violent, angry, mean, peculiar, or sad, and yet still deserve a place within the circle of familial love. self-knowledge family communicators self-acceptance communication parenting parents children Alain de Botton
a9e530f "No. Absolutely not. I forbid it. You'll have nightmares." "She was my friend! You must allow me. Why are you so horrid?" As soon as the angry words were out of my mouth, I knew I had gone too far. "Matilda!" Mother rose from her chair. "You are forbidden to pseak to me in that tone! Apologize at once." parents teenagers Laurie Halse Anderson
56f812a You're not supposed to laugh at your own father. Ever. parents respect Jeannette Walls
66ea7df Only when you are grown up, perhaps only when you have children yourself, do you fully understand that your own parents had a full and intricate existence before you were born. parents Ian McEwan
a1ba6f9 I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments memories living life parents disappointment expectations memory Robin Wasserman
c46c2da Anyone can make a baby, but it takes a man to be a father. fatherhood parenting parents father Ta-Nehisi Coates
26b59b9 Our parents thought we might be corrupted by one another into becoming whatever it was they most feared: an incorrigible masturbator, a winsome homosexual, a recklessly impregnatory libertine. On our behalf they dreaded the closeness of adolescent friendship, the predatory behaviour of strangers on trains, the lure of the wrong kind of girl. How far their anxieties outran our experience. growing-up parents Julian Barnes
f1564ce Why aren't you girls out stealing hubcaps or shoplifting like normal children? shoplifting parents normal teenagers Daniel Clowes
fa266a6 Children do not find fault with their parents until later. In the beginning, the love you get is the love that sets. family love faults parents Jeanette Winterson
029c976 There was no point in telling my father. He'd never let me quit after only one day. He couldn't help me and he'd make some terrible blunder if he tried. Parents are too innocent for the Boschian landscapes of middle school. parents Karen Joy Fowler
15a7f67 ...all I could think about was how both sets of parents had needed to make their decision, on whether to medicate their child, in a scientific vacuum. (p. 35) parents mental-illness Robert Whitaker
8d9fb57 she hated everything her parents loved hate life parents parents-and-children Stephen Chbosky
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
7e458c1 My parents are like younger, urchinlike brothers and sisters whose faces are dirty and who blurt out humiliating things that can neither be anticipated nor controlled. I sigh and make the best of it. I feel I'm older than they are, much older. I feel ancient. embarrassment parents Margaret Atwood
3e3c1d0 Above all, staring at my old bedroom ceiling, I feel safe. Cocooned from the world; wrapped up in cotton wool. No one can get me here. No one even knows I'm here. I won't get any nasty letters and I won't get any nasty phone calls and I won't get any nasty visitors. It's like a sanctuary. I feel as if I'm fifteen again, with nothing to worry about but my Homework. (And I haven't even got any of that.) life parent-love-and-protection parents nostalgia Sophie Kinsella
59a8b00 Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudiced and muddled folk wisdom - how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right! parents Alexander McCall Smith
8b1c54f "Sometimes your kids will say the nastiest things, won't they, Rose? You want to ask,'Whose child is this?'" Rose chuckled. "But usually, they're just in some kind of pain. They need to work it out." work-things-out kids pain parents childhood Mitch Albom
783c934 Mr. Lisbon knew his parental and neighborly duty entailed putting the retainer in a Ziploc bag, calling the Kriegers, and telling them their expensive orthodontal device was in safe keeping. Acts like theses -- simple, humane, conscientious, forgiving -- held life together. Only a few days earlier he would have been able to perform them. But now he took the retainer and dropped it in the toiler. He pressed the handle. The retainer, jostled int he surge, disappeared down the porcelain throat, and, when waters abated, floated triumphantly, mockingly, out, Mr. Lisbon waited for the tank to refill and flushed again, but the same thing happened. The replica of the boy's mouth clung to the white slope. grief society parents Jeffrey Eugenides
58eb3c6 When the Indians saw us whipping our children, they thought at first that we must hate our children, but then they thought, no, no one can hate his child. They decided it must be a religious rite, to make the child hate this world and long for the next. We're a strange vicious people. kids whipping parents Isabel Miller
64a13fd The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents. family education parenting parents G.K. Chesterton
63a8163 We realized that the version of the world [our parents] rendered for us was not the world they really believed in, and that for all their caretaking and bitching about crabgrass they didn't give a damn about lawns. growing-up parents Jeffrey Eugenides
3dea363 What is a parent, really, but somebody who picks up the things a child leaves behind - a trail made of stripped off clothing, orphaned shoes, tiny bright plastic game pieces, and nostalgia - and who hands back each of these when its needed? parents Jodi Picoult
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
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
0b032a5 When you were a child, I didn't tell you about the evil in the world, all that lay in wait. warnings parents Blake Crouch
a6c163c More than Captain America your kids need Amelia Earhart - more than Ant Man, they need Abraham Lincoln - more than Green Arrow they need Gandhi - more than Iron Man they need Isaac Newton. fairy-tales parenting-children child-psychology parenting-101 parenting-advice parenting-teenagers parents-advice parents-and-responsibility parents-and-teenagers parents-quotes parents-responsibility raising-kids parenting fiction-fantasy parents parents-and-children children parenthood Abhijit Naskar
b36ec51 I know more about my father than I used to know: I know he wanted to be a pilot in the war but could not, because the work he did was considered essential to the war effort... I know he grew up on a farm in the backwoods of Nova Scotia, where they didn't have running water or electricity. This is why he can build things and chop things... He did his high school courses by correspondence, sitting at the kitchen table and studying by the light by a kerosene lamp; he put himself through university by working in lumber camps and cleaning out rabbit hutches, and was so poor he lived in a tent in the summers to save money... All this is known, but unimaginable. Also I wish I did not know it. I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. family growing-up parents Margaret Atwood
77aeaf9 The quotes were good, if overpolished. I find this common, and in direct proportion to the amount of TV a subject watches. Not long ago, I interviewed a woman whose twenty-two-year-old daughter had just been murdered by her boyfriend, and she gave me a line straight from a legal drama I happened to catch the night before: parents media Gillian Flynn
7e00910 I know I'm a Third, I know it, if you want I'll go away so you don't have to be embarrassed in front of everybody, I'm sorry I lost the monitor and now you have three kids and no obvious explanation, so inconvenient for you, I'm sorry sorry sorry. parents Orson Scott Card
8d8b7dc "Reading Chip's college orientation materials, Alfred had been struck by the sentence New England winters can be very cold. The curtains he'd bought at Sears were of a plasticized brown-and-pink fabric with a backing of foam rubber. They were heavy and bulky and stiff. "You'll appreciate these on a cold night," he told Chip. "You'll be surprised how much they cut down drafts." But Chip's freshman roommate was a prep-school product named Roan McCorkle who would soon be leaving thumbprints, in what appeared to be Vaseline, on the fifth-grade photo of Denise. Roan laughed at the curtains and Chip laughed, too. He put them back in the box and stowed the box in the basement of the dorm and let it gather mold there for the next four years. He had nothing against the curtains personally. They were simply curtains and they wanted no more than what any curtains wanted - to hang well, to exclude light to the best of their ability, to be neither too small nor too large for the window that it was their task in life to cover; to be pulled this way in the evening and that way in the morning; to stir in the breezes that came before rain on a summer night; to be much used and little noticed. There were numberless hospitals and retirement homes and budget motels, not just in the Midwest but in the East as well, where these particularly brown rubber-backed curtains could have had a long and useful life. It wasn't their fault that they didn't belong in a dorm room. They'd betrayed no urge to rise above their station; their material and patterning contained not a hint of unseemly social ambition. They were what they were. If anything, when he finally dug them out of the eve of graduation, their virginal pinkish folds turned out to be rather less plasticized and homely and Sears-like than he remembered. They were nowhere near as shameful as he'd thought." parents revelation symbolism Jonathan Franzen
88531b1 I look at him and realize, maybe I overreacted. Maybe more than once. misunderstandings parents Lisa Schroeder
edf561a My parents...were people running from the past, who didn't look back at much if they could help it, and whose whole life always lay somewhere in the offing. parents Richard Ford
cbf306e I cannot separate the man you are now from the boy you were then, and it's killing me. I wanted everything for you, son. I still do. love parents Blake Crouch
1eb51c8 New Rule: Don't name your kid after a ballpark. Cubs fans Paul and Teri Fields have named their newborn son Wrigley. Wrigley Fields. A child is supposed to be an independent individual, not a means of touting your own personal hobbies. At least that's what I've always taught my kids, Panama Red and Jacuzzi. names humor bad-decisions baseball chicago chicago-cubs naming sports-fans parenting parents children sports Bill Maher
74c9bf2 "This was the danger of sharing your dreams with your parents. If you told them you wanted to learn to play the guitar, all they heard you say was, "I want to learn to play the guitar," and then they found some practical, convenient, cheap way, often involving a church basement, for you to do it. But Hector had not come up with any plan of his own. And owning a guitar seemed like an important stepping stone on the way to being a guitar player. So he pawned his soul and said he would take the lessons from the Presbyterian youth minister. What the hell, he thought. Or heck, he thought. What the heck." guitar parents Lynne Rae Perkins
8521ec3 We all have to love you, and believe in you, and think you are looking out for our best interests. But look at us, Momma, and really see us. trust love mothers see look sight parents looking V.C. Andrews
bf0f526 Your girlfriend's sibling or parents might be totally nuts, but always defend them. Always. All a girl wants to do is to get along with her family and if you are on the side of making it easy, you will be loved eternally. It might be easier to condemn them - especially if she's doing that already - but, remarkably, even if they are murderers, she will find the good in them, especially if you start trashing them. in-laws girlfriend parents Mindy Kaling
894bbd1 "I was an infant when my parents died. Thye both were ornithologists. I've tried So often to evoke them that today I have a thousand parents. Sadly they Dissolve in their own virtues and recede, But certain words, chance words I hear or read, Such as "bad heart" always to him refer, And "cancer of the pancreas" to her." parents Vladimir Nabokov
ae91c9f Some secret of nurture withered a generation or two before I arrived, if it had ever existed before among the poor, marginalized people on the edges of Europe from whom I descend. Both my parents grew up with a deep sense of poverty that was mostly emotional but that they imagined as material long after they clambered into the middle class, and so they were more like a pair of rivalrous older siblings than parents who see their children as extensions of themselves and their hopes. They were stuck in separateness. I didn't realize anything was odd until I was already on my own and found out that not everyone's parents cut them off financially as soon as the law allowed. I tried to leave home unsuccessfully at fourteen and fifteen and sixteen and did so successfully at seventeen, heading off to another country, as far away as I could go, and once I got there I realized I was more on my own than I had anticipated: I was henceforth entirely repsonsible for myself and thus began a few years of poverty. family-relationships poverty family coming-of-age parents Rebecca Solnit
3cff712 She is like a mathematical equation, always there and impossible to disprove. mothers parents Jeanette Winterson
8235210 "I think we ought to find something else to do," said Mandy. "But Alecto my love, you're the first person to notice my retro diner kitchen. When my parents saw it, they thought I was creating a weird art project." "I like it. It's got that let's-drown-ourselves-in-better-days type ambiance," Alecto declared, his gray eyes narrowed." funny friendship love ambience better-days fifties retro cape-breton nova-scotia diner drowning pollution art parents kitchen nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
36282ff "And what if the other kids laugh at me?" Kerry complained to her parents as she nibbled on a piece of toast that morning. "I have a Cape Breton accent! They'll know I'm from Canada and they'll start asking me if I lived in an igloo or ate maple syrup, bacon and seal meat every day!" "You're really overreacting," Susan chuckled, sipping on a glass of orange juice. "Canada is a lot like the States and the only thing separating both countries is an imaginary boarder! If anyone laughs at you, tell them it doesn't snow year-round, you got free health care while you were there and that you never rode a polar bear to school. Besides, do you know how many popular movies and TV shows from the States were filmed in Canada?" "It's not just the Canada stuff mom," Kerry sighed worriedly. "I'm from Dym, it's an industrial dump!" "Yeah, and have you looked at Pittsburgh lately?" Susan asked. "Full of coal mines and steel mills, just like Sydney was when we lived there! I actually rather came to like the pollution, I don't think I'd ever want to leave it." funny wisdom pittsburgh polar-bear seal cape-breton nova-scotia canada united-states weird morning girl teenager parents stereotype teen joke nostalgia school Rebecca McNutt
7881cdf It seems to be typical of life in America, where opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else on the globe, that the second generation has no time to talk to the first. opportunities relationships family generations parents children James Baldwin
8907af4 "Becky --" he begins, and there's a tiny intake of breath around the churchyard. "Will you--" "Yes! Yeee-esssss!" I hear the joyful sound ripping through the churchyard before I even realize I've opened my mouth. I'm so charged up with emotion, my voice doesn't even sound like mine. In fact, it sounds more like... Mum. I don't believe it." wedding parents Sophie Kinsella
929dfe7 YOU'RE IN MY MOUTH, I said. GET OUT OF MY MOUTH. relationships change parents Aimee Bender
56bae82 All our lives my brother and I were caught by the fictions my parents told us--fictions about themselves as well as others. Each wanted us to judge the other in his or her favor. Sometimes I felt cheated, as if they never allowed us to have a story of our own. It is only now that I understand how much their story was also mine. parents Azar Nafisi
63225d8 My parents' work ethic amazed me. How could they put in such long hours, day after day? Part of the reason was to keep the family going - to keep me going. I realized that, although we had different values derived from different cultures and wouldn't agree on certain issues, they were good people, incredible people, and I loved and respected them. work family ethic parents Harvey Pekar
5488822 So about an hour later we are in the taxi shooting along empty country roads towards town. The April light is clear as an alarm. As we pass them it gives a sudden sense of every object existing in space on its own shadow. I wish I could carry this clarity with me into the hospital where distinctions tend to flatten and coalesce. I wish I had been nicer to him before he got crazy. These are my two wishes. illness poem poetry dementia clarity parents children Anne Carson
e0f64bd Here's a tip for new parents: Start lowering those expectations early, it's going to pay off later. parenting parents expectations Colson Whitehead
9e287c2 "But I had never caused my parents "a minute's worry." Didn't they know that worry proves you care? Didn't they realize that I needed their worry to assure myself that I was worth something?" love worry parents Katherine Paterson
ed8a09c That's such bullshit, Mythology repeated by parents because it lets them force their kids into sports and push them too hard by pretending that in the end it will pay off with the holy scholarship. You know how many kids get a free ride? Hardly any. Like, maybe fourteen.' -Finn (165) fear finn hayley pretending knife parents sports Laurie Halse Anderson
0f06723 "The return to the "Father from whom all fatherhood takes its name" allows me to let my dad be no less than the good, loving, but limited human being he is, and to let my heavenly Father be the God whose unlimited, unconditional love melts away all resentments and anger and makes me free to love beyond the need to please or find approval." god fatherhood parents Henri J.M. Nouwen
389d9f1 As you pray for your children, you will find it to be an unending habit of your heart. Being able to positively affect your children in prayer will keep you in close contact with them and actively involved in their lives, even after they leave home. And it will continually contribute to your joy as a parent! love joy-of-life praying parents Stormie Omartian
5ca9a48 "It felt strange to call them directly, to hear her father's "Hello?" after the second ring, and when he heard her voice, he raised his, almost shouting, as he always did with international calls. Her mother liked to take the phone out to the verandah, to make sure the neighbors overheard: "Ifem, how is the weather in America?" parents parents-and-children Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
1cc4ea0 "In his 1964 talk on feminism, Winnicott says something he's been saying all along. "...We find that the trouble is not so much that everyone was inside and then born, but that at the very beginning everyone was on a woman." Winnicott sees this dependence as the root of misogyny--though he never uses that word. Perhaps, like Woolf with "feminism," he felt plain language was more persuasive. "The awkward fact remains, for men and women, that each was once dependent on a woman, and somehow a hatred of this has to be turned into a kind of gratitude if full maturity of the personality is to be reached." feminism relationships family misogyny parents Alison Bechdel
abec9db "My parents have always worried that I'd take Amy too personally -- they always tell not to read too much into her, And yet I can't fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right: When I finally quit violin at age twelve, Amy was revealed as a prodigy in the next book. ("Sheesh, violin can be hard work, but handwork is the only way to get better!") When I blew off the junior championship at age sixteen to do a beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game. ("Sheesh, I know it's fun to spend time with friends, but I'd be letting myself and everyone else down if I didn't show up for the tournament.") This used to drive me mad, but after I wend off to Harvard (and Amy correct those my parents' alma mater), I decided it was all too ridiculous to think about. That my parents, two child psychologists, chose this particular public form of passive-aggressiveness toward their child was not just fucked up but also stupid and weird and kind of hilarious." gillian-flynn gone-girl parents Gillian Flynn
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
27a5436 a single outburst does not produce a difficult relational environment. It is only when a parent [or anyone] repeatedly and regularly uses anger to close conversations, in the broadest sense of 'conversation,' that a dilemma is framed. When a parent [or partner] uses anger or the threat of anger to dominate the emotional atmosphere, then even potentially good conversations with them lose spontaneity, openness and honesty. relationships attack domination emotional-abuse spouses anger parents Terri Apter
be345a0 That is the work of your teenage years - to build up and tear down and build up again, over and over, endlessly... They do not tell you this when you are fourteen, because the people who would tell you - your parents - are the very ones who built the thing you're so dissatisfied with. They made you how they want you. They made you how they you. They built you with all they know, and love - and so they can't see what you're : all the gaps you feel leave you vulnerable. All the new possibilities ony imagined by your geenration, and nonexistent to theirs. They have done their best... but now it's up to you, small, brave future, to do your best with what have. parents Caitlin Moran
5c72f89 As parents one of the biggest jobs we have, is teaching our children how to resolve problems effectively. We live in an era where everyone is quick to act the fool over simple issues. As we used to say when I was on the streets, 'everybody wants to cut a movie'. letting-go conflicts cut-a-movie peace-maker resolving-problems simple-issues street-violence walking-away youth-violence conflict-resolution parenting parents parenthood Drexel Deal
f427f53 Cand ne mor parintii, ne simtim intodeauna vulnerabili, pentru ca nu ne confruntam doar cu o pierdere, ci si cu propria moarte. Cand devenim orfani, intre noi si mormant nu mai sta nimeni. fear-of-dying parents dying Irvin D. Yalom
c66e742 There was the odd suburban thunderbolt, but they were mostly those people who'd found each other; they were golden and bright-lit and funny. Often they seemed in cahoots somehow, like jailbirds who wouldn't leave; they loved us, they us, and that was a pretty good trick. parenting parents Markus Zusak
4cf300f My parents were two-faced. To me, they showed no mercy. They preached from theBook of Fallen Children - Commandment 1: The Child Is Always Ungrateful. At eighteen, the free ride would stop, and I'd be dumped into the mess of the world. But in their private moments, they were soft, cowed by love. They critiqued their own parenting skills and thought of all the ways the could help their kids get ahead. two-faced parenting-children parents parents-and-children Ta-Nehisi Coates
cf1a107 "Tony and Peg have two kids, Terry-Lynn and Harvey, both of whom are enrolled in so many extracurricular and afterschool clubs that they hardly ever see their parents. If Terry-Lynn is in Girl Guides, she doesn't have to see Peg inviting the Purolator man in for "a cup of coffee". If Harvey is in the anime drawing club, he doesn't have to see Peg kissing Mr. Cooper from across the street, even if all the other neighbours secretly know what's going on. Tony has no idea, all he knows is that Peg isn't the same Peg he married back in 2003. All he knows is that she's changed a great deal, and not for the better, like a beautiful butterfly regressing back into a devouring, ugly caterpillar in the span of only a couple of months." kids marriage kiss change afterschool butterfly cheater extracurricular-activities girl-scouts homewrecker neighbours purolator caterpillar anime drawing street coffee parents beautiful children ugly Rebecca McNutt
08b0fee Her papa called her 'chiacchere' because he said she chattered away all day, just like a magpie. He had all sorts of funny names for her: 'fiorellina', my little flower; 'abelie', which meant honeysuckle; and 'topolina', my sweet little mouse. Margherita's mother only called her 'piccolina', my little one, or 'mia cara Margherita,' my darling daisy. margherita pascalina pet-names father-and-daughter italian mother-and-daughter parents Kate Forsyth
fb8b276 As I walk behind her down the halls, it happens. I shrink inch by inch until I am no longer an adult, but a baby toddling along in a comically oversized business suit. I have been pretending to be a grown-up this whole time. My briefcase is full of milk: I have been found out. 'This, then, is home. What is home? Is it a sort of lap of location, that exists only if certain conditions are in place? Is it the intersection of rigidity and comfort--a junction of familiartiy that you curl into? Is it a feeling? I don't know, but I'm being hugged hard against it, and I can't tell when I'll be let go. family home parents parents-and-children Patricia Lockwood
1a20f16 I'm saying that children are not supposed to get along with their parents. Your parents are not supposed to be your best friends. There's supposed to be some element of rebellion. That's how you define yourself as a person. family-relationships the-corrections jonathan-franzen growing-up parents parents-and-children Jonathan Franzen
6c2b756 Parents: so essential, yet sometimes like something you've stepped in and cannot get off your shoe. What else is there but to love them? parents Jeffrey Ford
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
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
c3d9238 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. parents Mitch Albom
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
060abeb You may not want to be my son, but I cannot help but be your father. parents Diane Setterfield
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