Family Quotes

They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis?

~ Richard Ford

It was funny how dad was more honest in a book that anyone in the world could pick up and read than he could be talking to me. Or maybe it was sad. One or the other. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

~ Gabrielle Zevin

Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said I am sorry for what you went through or I am here for you. Instead they said hurtful things: Oh he was young. That is what kids do. It is not like he was some older man you didn't know. Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.

~ Erin Merryn

What I think was hardest for me to realize was that he had tried each time to stop himself. He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child

~ Alice Sebold

She has always been a bystander in family destruction, never realizing she herself possessed the capacity to inflict it.

~ Curtis Sittenfeld

The best part of being married is that now when we walk down the street, people won't just see two guys and a kid, they'll have to see a FAMILY.

~ Patricia A. Gozemba

literature is a way in which we can learn to live deeper lives -- husband with wife, parent with child, brother with sister, fellow member with fellow member. Most good authors are better than we are. They are much better company than our own friends. What comes from good company? What comes from good company is better manners, greater sensitivity, greater sensibility, greater empathy, great sympathy. Reading good literature makes us more capable of understanding other people, of loving other people, those whom we don't particularly want to love, even our enemies, as well as those closest to us. How can we expect to have full marriages when we are not going into those marriages with full minds and fine sensibilities? We are ignoring the tremendous possibilities of a delicate, well-poised, rich, sensitive life if we ignore the literature of the past. There is no substitute.

~ Arthur Henry King

No, I`m putting it away, trying to buy a house for my family. The goal is to use the money to move into a big house, so my daughter can have a garden.

~ Ewan Mcgregor

Christmas was definitely the best thing ever, even better than pizza. But instead of all her favorite toppings, Amitola was surrounded by all her favorite people.

~ Aishabella Sheikh

A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.

~ Jane Austen

I wanted only a familiar voice, someone who knew me. Not some earlier, larval version of myself. . .

~ Jennifer Haigh

All that history, the love & laughter, is designed for youth. It is what keeps the story of who we are alive from one generation to the next. It ensures our indelible mark in the souls of generations we will never have the pleasure of holding in a warm embrace. Life is short people. Before you know it, another decade will pass, people you love will be lost to this world, and all that will be left of them is what we carry in our hearts. 2011

~ E.b. Loan

At home, they'd clipped my wings and then caged me so I couldn't fall. Here, they bandaged one another's broken wings, helped each other fly.

~ Holly Cupala

Imagine that the world had created a new 'dream product' to feed and immunize everyone born on earth. Imagine also that it was available everywhere, required no storage or delivery, and helped mothers plan their families and reduce the risk of cancer. Then imagine that the world refused to use it.

~ Frank A. Oski

Family is just accident, Jessie. It's nothing personal, hon. They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.

~ Marsha Norman

Our pets are our family.

~ Ana Monnar

We are a motley bunch. But we more than make up for it with tenacity. ~ Ralston to Simon

~ Sarah Maclean

a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn’t as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them.

~ Philip Roth

It's so easy to focus on the anguish and the misery; it's harder, somehow, to acknowledge the positive, maybe for fear of jinxing it, bringing the nightmare back down on our heads.

~ Harriet Brown

Just like that. Gone forever. They will not grow old together. They will never live on a beach by the sea, their hair turned white, dancing in a living room to Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. They will not enter a New York club at midnight and show the poor hip-hop fools how to dance. They will not chuckle together over the endless folly of the world, its vanities and stupid ambitions. They will not hug each other in any chilly New York dawn. Oh, Mary Lou. My baby. My love.

~ Pete Hamill

She craved a family, not having had enough of one to understand what a pain in the ass it was.

~ Maile Meloy

The Internet doesn’t love you or need you – but your family does.

~ James Chartrand

Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again.

~ Jane Austen

Wherever the family was, these two dogs, both six-year-old shepherd mixes, took up their posts at the central coming-and-going point. Gil called them concierge dogs. And it's true, they were inquisitive and accommodating. But they were not fawning or overly playful. They were watchful and thoughtful. Irene thought they had gravitas. Weighty demeanors. She thought of them as diplomats. She had noticed that when Gil was about to lose his temper one of the dogs always appeared and did something to divert his attention. Sometimes they acted like fools, but it was brilliant acting. Once, when he was furious about a bill for the late fees for a lost video, one of the dogs had walked right up to Gil and lifted his leg over his shoe. Gil was shouting at Florian when the piss splattered down, and she'd felt a sudden jolt of pride in the dog.

~ Louise Erdrich

Heritage was everything: it was a golden skeleton key, gleaming with power, able to get the wielder through any number of locked doors; it was the christening of the marriage bed with virgin blood on snow-white sheets; it was the benediction of a pristine pedigree, refined through ages of selective breeding and the occasional mercy culling.It was life, and death, and all that spanned between.It was his birthright.

~ Nenia Campbell

Prospero the Enchanter's immediate reaction upon meeting his daughter is a simple declaration of: Well, fuck.

~ Erin Morgenstern

Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.

~ Winston S. Churchill

But they're family, and you forgive them, even if they are human equivalent of hyenas. Because that's what you do, Posey. Forgive.

~ Kristan Higgins

Since that night I have come to understand that sometimes the best families of all are those we create ourselves, the people we choose to be with.

~ Silas House

What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed there, regardless.

~ Sarah Dessen

I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness.

~ Sharon Shinn

Scorned and torn, former love mates aim and shoot childish devastating daggers that penetrate beyond target to pierce the heart of their offspring.

~ T.f. Hodge

We're all family--the only family we've got. It doesn't have to be blood.

~ Holly Cupala

To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations.

~ Oscar Wilde

Strangers take a long time to become acquainted, particularly when they are from the same family.

~ M.e. Kerr

You want to know what I want? I'm sick of being a guinea pig. I'm sick, but I'm never f*cking sick enough for this family.

~ Jodi Picoult

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree......unless that tree's growing on top of a hill.

~ John Deprey

You have no idea how dearly I wish you were of my blood. My daughter, granddaughter. Will you allow me to take pride in what you are?-- Sandre to Catriana

~ Guy Gavriel Kay

Family drama is a trade off for having family.

~ C.c. Hunter

A true diamond never over shadows... it's the brilliance of the subtle shine that's the most attractive.

~ Dena Tyson