Family Quotes

All around us is a nothing that stretches on for infinity. We humans can barely comprehend that. If we comprehend it we are rarely pleased.

~ F.k. Preston

A death in reverse is the rewinding of life. I do not die of old age, in a bed surrounded by strangers my loved ones paid to take care of me. I die in reverse. I die falling backinto a younger age. From my forty-five years to twenty-five. To sixteen. When we were in love. To fourteen: when we first met. To five. To one. To the hospital my mother died at from the complications of my existence. A life for a life.

~ F.k. Preston

But I can’t control my dreams. I can’t even remember them. For all I know I’m having the time of my life when I sleep, but I just can’t remember. So I’m forced to live in a life I have no control over. A life where I’m either numb to everything or terrified of every thought that crosses my mind. If this is all just a dream, then it sure is a disappointing one.But I still have time to try and control my dreams. I have time to try and make my dreams a reality in this waking life as well. The one bloody thing I have is time. I’ve got to remember that. I still have time. And despite everything, there is something reassuring about that.

~ F.k. Preston

I recall my life every day. I recall my sins and my acts of purity. I remind myself I was never a religious man. I remind myself that I have been dead for half of forever. I remind myself of nothing. I move along to the next minute. Next day. Next year. The earth doesn’t change so much anymore. It doesn’t change so quickly. With humans, the earth had to keep changing. But you can only replace a dying thing so many times before someone notices. There haven’t been humans for years. Maybe a decade. Maybe more. I find myself loving their absence. The absence of humanity is the absence of violence. I love this peace. But then I remember my bones. My mind and my memories. I remember I’m human. I am the thing I detest. The creature that haunts my steps. It’s my shadow I see watching me. It’s my reflection in the water. I keep remembering. I live in fear. But still, I walk on.

~ F.k. Preston

Four years ago the clocks started turning back. I open my eyes and see nothing. I feel nothing below or above me. I feel the absence of things. The absence of my flesh, my bones, my body, my mind. All that is left is awareness. I see nothing but the absence of colour. It’s not a black darkness. It’s simply nothing. The interior of a black hole. I recall news of a black hole lingering along the edges of our solar system. All that time ago. Four years ago. When the clocks started turning back. I hear nothing. Until there is a something. A small thing. A voice. I listen. There are more voices. The sounds are human. How long has it been since I’ve heard a human? The sounds scratch along my now present attention. They carve into my hearing. They are horrid, wretched things. Voices screaming. Growing loud and desperate. How many voices? Billions. This is the birth of our species. We are born screaming. It’s all we know to do. We have screamed for eternity. Within this empty space.

~ F.k. Preston

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I’m too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She’s waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I’m eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I’m so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met?

~ F.k. Preston

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can’t help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn’t four years anymore. It’s a number I wouldn’t even be able to say. It feels like four years. It’s trapped in my tender memory as four years. It’s been an age. Multiple ages. It’s been lifetimes, every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It’s been so long. Why am I alone?

~ F.k. Preston

All that is required of you is an open mind and a little patience.

~ F.k. Preston

There is nothing to me but you. I know it’s pathetic but, oh darling, it’s true.

~ F.k. Preston

I keep dying and hoping you notice me. But you’re too busy living.

~ F.k. Preston

My creativity keeps me from starving. Humanity keeps my life mundane. Loving secures my love for life, but my imagination keeps me sane.

~ F.k. Preston

The greatest happiness is a quiet kind. It’s the tender understanding that we’re living in a very strange place full of strange creatures. And there’s quite a bit of wonder in that.

~ F.k. Preston

The truth is there isn’t anything to me at all. All I know is that I can’t sleep well, I can’t dream well and I’m quite in love with you. That’s all there is to me. My greatest feature is my admiration for you. I know it’s not healthy. Like my insomnia. Like my dreamless nights. You make living alright. My nightmares come when I think of a night without Valeria. That’s when I realise you’re dead. That’s when I remember you’ve been gone for years. That’s when I remember I’m awake. And I wait for this dream called Life to leave me to my peace once and for all and forever.

~ F.k. Preston

I wanted to give you something that would last forever. Something that would surpass the world, that would still be alive and bright even after you passed away. Something beautiful. For your eyes and smile only. But I never found it. All I could give you is words. Words which were as fleeting as the heartbeats that shook my soul whenever you looked my way.

~ F.k. Preston

Once you start questioning your beliefs, that's when it's all over. It is truly doubt that kills our conviction.

~ Hyrum Yeakley

After you hear and listen. First must come desire. Second must come willingness.Third should come understanding.Fourth should come progression and with progression will come more understanding.

~ Hyrum Yeakley

During these hard times in the world we should always remember to keep our families and friends close.

~ Hyrum Yeakley

After you hear and listen. First must come desire. Second must come willingness.Third should come understanding.Fourth should come progression and with progression will come more understanding..

~ Hyrum Yeakley

That’s the hope, isn’t it? To see your family in your time of dying.

~ Saim .A. Cheeda

Some stories won't have a happy ending, but there's always hope that the next one will. Hope is everything. Even when there's nothing else. Especially when there's nothing else.

~ Clara Kensie

Dad thinks I'm ready to fly around the country as the Ambassador of Hope, but Mom thinks I'm a frail little bird with broken wings.

~ Clara Kensie

Hope is made of air, and wishes. An empty box wrapped in shiny paper.And now Dad wants me to be the ambassador of hope for his foundation. How can I be the ambassador of hope, when hope doesn't change anything? When unrealized hopes only bring pain and despair?

~ Clara Kensie

Hope is made of air, and wishes. An empty box wrapped in shiny paper.

~ Clara Kensie

My father is using me as a message of hope. My sister is using me as a message of fear.I don't want to be used by anybody.

~ Clara Kensie

The boy went ahead with the dog, trudging across the sand, maintaining the same lethargic pace. She watched them go. And as she rinsed the sand from the board, she felt restored, somehow lighter. She wanted her old life back, just the two of them, before all the drama. But it wasn't possible. So she'd have to make do with moments like these: perfect and fleeting.

~ Samantha Wood

I don’t know why everyoneis still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist.Why do we need more evidence?They exist here on this very Earth.Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasiounoverlooking the Damascene sightswith the wind carrying Qabbani’sdulcet words all around you.And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children’s cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombsuntil they lose their voice,their families, and their limbs.Yes, hell certainly does existright now, at this moment,as I pen this poem. And all we’re doingto extinguish this hellfireis sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.Tell me: what exactly does that makeus? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?

~ Kamand Kojouri

Everybody wants to know why we're here, so we search for that answer. We want to know who we belong to so we search for those people and all the while God is whispering, 'Here I am.

~ Donna Vanliere

It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.''Why are you saying that?''She might need permission to die, Cal.''I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.

~ Jenny Downham

He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving.

~ J.d. Salinger

Everyone has always said I look like Bailey, but I don't.I have grey eyes to her green,an oval face to her heart-shaped one,I'm shorter, scrawnier, paler, flatter, plainer, tamer.All we shared is a madhouse of curlsthat I imprison in a ponytailwhile she let hers ravelike madnessaround her head.I don't sing in my sleepor eat the petals off flowersor run into the rain instead of out of it.I'm the unplugged-in one,the side-kick sister,tucked into a corner of her shadow.Boys followed her everywhere;they filled the booths at the restaurant where she waitressed,herded around her at the river.One day, I saw a boy come up behind herand pull a strand of her long hairI understood this-I felt the same way.In photographs of us together,she is always looking at the camera,and I am always looking at her.

~ Jandy Nelson

But to mourn, that's different. To mourn is to be eaten alive with homesickness for the person.

~ Olive Ann Burns

Not only had my brother disappeared, but--and bear with me here--a part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from them on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.

~ John Corey Whaley

The family exists for many reasons, but its most basic function may be to draw together after a member dies.

~ Stephen King

Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.

~ Jodi Picoult

If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband's family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of a child or children? We are their caretakers. We love them. We nurse them when they are sick. . . But no woman should live longer than her children. It is against the law of nature. If she does, why wouldn't she wish to leap from a cliff, hang from a branch, or swallow lye?

~ Lisa See

Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as “normal” living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the “real world”. Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love, music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold.

~ Dominic Owen Mallary

I was with a friend of mine recently who was dying and while he was lying there with his family around his bed, I just knew that was it, that was the best you can hope for in life - to have your family and the people who love you around you at the end.

~ Ewan Mcgregor

It's okay if you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. But that's what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It's okay if you have to leave us. It's okay if you want to stop fighting.

~ Gayle Forman

You ask 'Are you a man or a demon?' Neither, I say. I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us.

~ Aravind Adiga

Nico didn’t like to be touched, but somehow this brief contact with his father felt reassuring – the same way the Chapel of Bones was reassuring. Like death, his father’s presence was cold and often callous, but it was real – brutally honest, inescapably dependable.

~ Rick Riordan