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Birth Quotes

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Birth Quotes

“When I asked my mother where babies came from, she thought I said rabies. She said you get them from being bitten by a dog. The next week, a woman on my block gave birth to triplets... I thought she'd been bitten by a Great Dane.”

Said Mother Next Week Dog Baby Birth Block Next Week Triplet Rabies

Author:Woody Allen

“Once, I compared poetry to mothers in my book called To Write as a Woman, because my mother is someone who captures me in her body and gave birth to me out of her desire but washed her hands of me after giving birth to me as a poet.”

Giving Writing Book Body Hands Mother Desire Poet Birth Capture Giving Birth

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Mother does not exist, like water that has given life to a flower and then disappeared. Mothers live somewhere after giving birth to us.”

Giving Doe Mother Given Water Flower Birth Giving Birth Given Life

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“I chose a career in obstetrics and gynecology because there's something about honoring women, honoring the birth process. We all come from women, and there's something extraordinary about the mothers who raised us.”

Mother Process Careers Birth Raised Extraordinary Gynecology

Author:Annie Lennox

“I made a crash landing here on Earth on February 14, 1962, in the Shreveport Catholic Charities Home for un-wed mothers. The infamous Bonnie and Clyde lost their lives just miles from where I was born. Like outlaws ourselves, my birth mother and I were on the run from the day she found out I was part of her.”

Made Home Running Earth Mother Found Lost Born Birth Catholic Charity Miles Crash Landing Outlaw February Infamous Birth Mother

Author:Kevyn Aucoin

“Before we make love my husband takes a pain killer. I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was, 'the man goes on top and the woman underneath'. For three years my husband and I slept on bunk beds. I'm a double bagger. Not only does my husband put a bag over my face when we're making love, but he also puts a bag over his head in case mine falls off. It's so long since I've had sex, I've forgotten who ties up whom. My best birth control now is to leave the lights on.”

“I think open adoption is a great idea, because it allows a relationship between the birth mother and her child so that the kid isn't like, "Where did I come from?" And to have it be like, "Look, you have a bunch of people who love you."”

People Thinking Looks Children Ideas Kids Mother Love You Birth Bunch Adoption Great Idea Birth Mother Open Adoption Birth Parents

Author:Kathleen Hanna

“Mother Earth is giving birth to a co-creative humanity. There's not a majority anywhere, but it's cropping up everywhere, because old leadership does not have the authority to guide us.”

Giving Doe Earth Mother Humanity Creative Birth Authority Majority Guides Mother Earth Giving Birth

Author:Barbara Marx Hubbard

“My father was raised by a violent alcoholic. There was alcoholism in my mother's family. I'm half-adopted, and my birth father was a drug addict and alcoholic. So, I think they very consciously made decisions and parented me in a way that was aimed to help save me from that. So, I knew it would be particularly painful and it was, especially for my father.”

Thinking Way Made Helping Would Be Mother Father Decision Half Birth Drug Raised Painful Violent Addict Adopted Alcoholism Alcoholics Drug Addict Save Me

Author:Melissa Febos

“I've been told the weirdest things: 'Yeah, I love taking a bath to your music!' or 'I gave birth to my daughter while listening to your music.'”

Mother Listening Birth Daughter Yeah My Daughter Baths

Author:Norah Jones

“That's why the virgin birth never gets rid of the human mother. The story only gets rid of the human father. So Jesus' life was the life of God nurtured through the Virgin Mary. That's because the virgin birth died as a literal story as soon as we discovered that women had an egg cell. It's interesting to watch what the Roman church did about that.”

Humans Stories Mother Father Jesus Church Interesting Watches Birth Died Cells Eggs Mary Virgins Literal Virgin Mary Virgin Birth

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Gentle birth, protecting mother and baby, is a solution that I believe will result in positive change for our society.”

Believe Mother I Believe Results Baby Birth Solutions Gentle Our Society Positive Change Mother And Baby

Author:Robin Lim

“When you've got a mother who's given birth to eight children, you know, often without any kind of medical intervention - just she gave birth to one of my brothers sort of on the bedroom floor in front of all of us -you know, you see that women are fairly capable.”

Knows Kind Children Mother Given Fronts Brother Birth Capable Eight Medical My Brother Bedroom Intervention

Author:Caitlin Moran

“My first, my birth mother - her name is Queenie - she gave me a powerful medicine when I was a child. She told me that, "I was the best," and it helped me so much.”

Firsts Children Mother Names Powerful Birth Medicine Birth Mother

Author:Erykah Badu

“I think I write mostly about death and so it is interesting to hear how often people think I'm writing about pregnancy and birth. Though of course they are two sides of the same coin. Both when I was pregnant and now as a mother, I am consumed with thoughts of death. This is a strange role in parenting. The death guardian.”

People Thinking Writing Mother Interesting Strange Birth Pregnancy Pregnant Guardian

Author:Samantha Hunt

“I love being a mother. I loved being a daughter, a sister, a wife. I love being a woman with men. I love having given birth.”

Men Mother Given Wife Birth Daughter Being A Woman Being A Mother I Love Being A Mother

Author:Jessica Lange

“My life comes down to three moments: the death of my father, meeting my husband, and the birth of my daughter. Everything I did previous to that just doesn't seem to add up to very much.”

Moments Seems Mother Three Father Family Birth Husband Daughter Add Meetings Gambling My Daughter My Husband

Author:Gwyneth Paltrow

“Don't tell your kids you had an easy birth or they won't respect you. For years I used to wake up my daughter and say, 'Melissa you ripped me to shreds. Now go back to sleep.'.”

Years Kids Used Mother Easy Sleep Birth Daughter Wake Up My Daughter Ripped Melissa

Author:Joan Rivers

“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”

Source: What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt

“All of us humans have myriad other species to thank. Without them, we couldn't exist. It's that simple, and we can't afford to ignore them, anymore than I can afford to neglect my precious wife--nor the sweet mother Earth that births and holds us all. Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.”

Humans I Can Earth Mother Simple Wife Sweet Birth Species Endure Neglect Mother Earth

Author:Alan Weisman

“She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.”

Giving Heart Children Done Wanted Mother Fall Lost Hurt Birth My Heart Desert Knees Hurt Me

Book:Jesus' Son: Stories

Source: Jesus' Son: Stories

“My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.”

World Mother Father Dangerous Birth Birthday Pregnancy Dangerous World

Author:William Blake

“I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful.”

Firsts Matter Light Beautiful Mother Night Space Darkness Struggle Birth Succeed Flow Sticks Ancient Substance Disputes Mother Night Supercilious

Book:Goethe's Faust

Source: Goethe's Faust

“Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.”

Children Mother Opinion Birth Goodness Delusion Ads Drowning

Book:Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

“Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.”

Giving Children Littles Mother Born Birth Passages Giving Birth Contractions

Author:Erma Bombeck

“Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as helping people to 'give birth' to correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. . . . Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.”

People Ifs Giving Children Doe Art Real Reason Helping Use Used Mother Understanding Saws Birth Tasks Philosophical Insight Innate Helping People Delivery Midwife

Author:Jostein Gaarder

“I had paid for my folly and, as a reward, was invited to take part in the nest builder’s performance piece. The script was great. ‘When I bleat here, do you want me to just bleat or to really let go and “bleat, bleat”?’ I asked. ‘I feel like “bleat, bleating,” but if Mother/Destroyer is going to be crawling through the birth canal of concertina wire, I don’t want to steal focus, you know what I mean?”

“When you're pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again; yet after giving 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 her 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.”

Source: The Jodi Picoult Collection #3: Vanishing Acts, The Tenth Circle, and Nineteen Minutes

“Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deeds, on the one hand, I had a woman who had chosen to give me up; on the other, I had a woman who'd sat up with me at night when I was sick as a child, who'd cried with me over boyfriends, who'd clapped fiercely at my law school graduation. Which acts made you more of a mother? Both, I realized. Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.”

Source: Handle with Care: A Novel

“Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day and night; it is not of the earth. But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and space, and it strives evermore to be born in the fruitful dust. Heaven is fulfilled in your sweet body, my child, in your palpitating heart. The sea is beating its drums in joy, the flowers are a-tiptoe to kiss you. For heaven is born in you, in the arms of the mother- dust.”

“I rang my mother to thank her for giving birth to me and she said, "What choice had I? You were in there, how else were you going to get out?”

Giving Said Mother Choices Birth Giving Birth

Author:Marian Keyes

“"I thought this was a cookout. You know, dogs and burgers, Tater Tots, ambrosia salad" Dexter picked up a box of Twinkies, tossing them into the cart. "And Twinkies." "It is... Except that it's a cookout thrown by my mother." "And?" "And my mother doesn't cook." He looked at me waiting. "At all. My mother doesn't cook at all." "She must cook sometimes." "Nope." "Everyone can make scrambled eggs, Remy. It's programmed into you at birth, the default setting. Like being able to swim and knowing not to mix pickles with oatmeal. You just KNOW."”

Knows Sometimes Able Mother Waiting Knowing Dog Birth Boxes Setting Settings Cooks Thrown Eggs Swim Salad Default Carts Burgers Pickles Oatmeal Scrambled Eggs Tots Ambrosia

Author:Sarah Dessen

“Mothers have a sacred role. They are partners with God, as well as with their own husbands, first in giving birth to the Lord's spirit children and then rearing those children so they will serve the Lord and keep his commandments. ...Motherhood is a holy calling, a sacred dedication for carrying out the Lord's work, a consecration and devotion to the rearing and fostering, the nurturing of body, mind, and spirit of those who kept their first estate and who came to this earth for their second estate to learn and be tested.”

“When we were arguing on my twenty-fourth birthday, she left the kitchen, came back with a pistol, and fired it at me five times from right across the table. But she missed. It wasn't my life she was after. It was more. She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.”

Giving Heart Children Done Wanted Mother Fall Jesus Lost Left Hurt Five Birth My Heart Twenties Tables Arguing Desert Knees Kitchen Fourth Hurt Me Pistols

Book:Jesus' Son: Stories

Source: Jesus' Son: Stories

“Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?”

Knows Mother Birth Giving Birth Pinnacle

Author:Anita Diament

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

Life Giving Humans Spiritual Mother Born Human Beings Identity Birth Conviction Cholera One Hundred Years Of Solitude Birth Life

Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”

Earth Mother Birth Dry Mother Earth

Author:Jon Stewart

“Arrayed in a new body another mother may someday give birth so that with stronger limbs and brighter mind the old soul shall take the road to earth again.”

Giving Mind May Soul Body Earth Mother Birth Stronger Someday Limbs Brighter Old Soul

Book:The Fledgling Handbook 101

Source: The Fledgling Handbook 101

“It's funny. When we were alive we spent much of our time staring up at the cosmos and wondering what was out there. We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”

“When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention.”

“You have a mother?" He quirked a brow. "Did you think mine was some sort of divine birth? My father was a remarkable man, but even he was not that talented.”

Thinking Men Mother Father Mines Divine Birth Remarkable Brows

Author:Julia Quinn

“The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don't create the new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her.”

Knows Littles Mother Artist Arms Mom Bears Birth Miracle Awe Vehicle New Life Humbling Humbling Experiences New Mom

Author:Steven Pressfield

“Simon remembered a rhyme his mother used to recite to him, about magpies. You were supposed to count them and say: one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told. "Right," simon said. He had already lost count of the numbers of birds there were. Seven, he guessed. A secret that's never been told. Whatever that was.”

Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls

“Over and over again, stories in women's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again. In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children's mother, her husband's wife.”

Ifs Knows Way Giving Years Looks Children Moments Stories Dream Mother Wife Creation Birth Husband Deny Magazines Fulfillment Repeats Feminine Giving Birth Mystique Feminine Mystique

Author:Betty Friedan

“Being a biological mother just isn't part of my experience this time around. However, I am a mother who continues to give birth to ideas and ways of experiencing life that challenge the norm.”

Way Giving Ideas Mother Challenges Birth Norm

Author:Kim Cattrall

“My mother had to send me to the movies with my birth certificate, so that I wouldn't have to pay the extra fifty cents that the adults had to pay.”

Mother Pay Birth Basketball Adults Motherhood Extras Fifty Cents Mothers Day Certificates Birth Certificate Funny Mothers Day Funny Mother Two Cents

Author:Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“My birth neither shook the German Empire nor caused much of an upheaval in the home. It pleased mother, caused father a certain amount of pride and my elder brother the usual fraternal jealousy of a hitherto only son.”

Home Mother Certain Father Son Brother Pride Amount Birth Jealousy Empires Usual Elders Upheaval Fraternal Only Son

Author:Conrad Veidt

“When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.”

Giving Children Eye Mother Saws Relationship Seeing Mom Birth Parenting Appreciation Mother Daughter Mother Proverbs Mom And Child Eyes Of A Child Special Mother Through The Eyes Of A Child

Author:Nancy Friday

“What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.”

Giving Years Mother Culture Peace Born Son Birth Hundred Years Ago My Time Meant To Be Mary Fourteen

Author:Meister Eckhart

“I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask: "Mother, what was war?"”