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Quote by Jackie Kay

“My father had a lifelong terror, phobia whatever, about hospitals. Makes a lot of sense in hindsight. He was so scared of doctors, he passed that on to me. That's what parents exist for: to pass their phobias on generation to generation.”

Quote by Jackie Kay

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Author

Jackie Kay is a Scottish poet, novelist, and playwright. Known for her distinctive voice and exploration of identity, gender, and culture, her work encompasses personal experiences, history, and contemporary social issues. more

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“It's been said that parents should give their children roots and wings. That was a perfect description of my parents. Even in a wheelchair, my father was a dreamer with his head in the clouds and my mother was the roots with both feet planted firmly on terra quaking firma.”

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Book:Grace

Source: Grace

“I don't think it matters how many parents you've got, so long as the ones who are around make their presence in a long way.”

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Book:Prozac Nation

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“I could say it all began with my mother.”

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“The best security blanket a child can have is parents who respect each other.”

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“Watu wanahitaji elimu na ajira kuwaepusha na janga la madawa ya kulevya.”

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“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.”

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Book:Shopaholic Ties the Knot

Source: Shopaholic Ties the Knot

“I had to ask Scottie what TYVM meant, because now that I’ve narrowed into her activities, I notice she is constantly text-messaging her friends, or at least I hope it’s her friends and not some perv in a bathrobe. “Thank you very much,” Scottie said, and for some reason, the fact that I didn’t get this made me feel completely besieged. It’s crazy how much fathers are supposed to know these days. I come from the school of thought where a dad’s absence is something to be counted on. Now I see all the men with camouflage diaper bags and babies hanging from their chests like little ship figureheads. When I was a young dad, I remember the girls sort of bothered me as babies, the way everyone raced around to accommodate them. The sight of Alex in her stroller would irritate me at times—she’d hang one of her toddler legs over the rim of the safety bar and slouch down in the seat. Joanie would bring her something and she’d shake her head, then Joanie would try again and again until an offering happened to work and Alex would snatch it from her hands. I’d look at Alex, finally complacent with her snack, convinced there was a grown person in there, fooling us all. Scottie would just point to things and grunt or scream. It felt like I was living with royalty. I told Joanie I’d wait until they were older to really get into them, and they grew and grew behind my back.”

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Book:The Descendants

Source: The Descendants

“My mother is the antithesis of a typical Jewish mother, she is very soft-spoken and takes more naps that a cat. As a result, I've always longed for someone to really annoy the shit out of me.”

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Book:My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

Source: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

“When her mother combed Harriet's hair, she said that the woods were disgustingly muddy and mosquito-ridden. During her history unit on pioneers, her father bashfully admitted that he couldn't pitch a tent, barbeque, or fight off bears in a forest. They both agreed that such a place was unsafe. Hotels were better.”

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Book:Pocket Forest

Source: Pocket Forest

“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.”

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Book:The Faraway Nearby

Source: The Faraway Nearby