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Daughters Quotes

Browse 165 quotes about Daughters.

Daughters Quotes

“Grief needs an outlet. Creativity offers one. Some psychiatrists see mourning and creativity as the perfect marriage, the thought processes of one neatly complementing the other. A child’s contradictory impulses to both acknowledge and deny a parent’s death represents precisely the type of rich ambiguity that inspires artistic expression.”

“I sometimes feel as though we are all daughters of the same mythical mother. Some of us are super direct, funny. Others are pensive, inquisitive, maudlin, bitter, sarcastic, or a combination of all those things. Yet we have all been orphaned, except by our words, which we eventually turn to in order to make sense of the impossible, the unknowable.”

“Ordinary days deliver joy easily again & I can’t take it. If I could tell you how her eyes laughed or describe the rage of her suffering, I must admit that lately my memories are sometimes like a color warping in my blue mind. Metal abandoned in rain. My mother will not move. Which is to say that sometimes the true color of her casket jumps from my head like something burnt down in the genesis of a struck flame. Which is to say that I miss the mind I had when I had my mother. I own what is yet. Which means I am already holding my own absence in faith. I still carry a faded slip of paper where she once wrote a word with a pencil & crossed it out. From tree to tree, around her grave I have walked, & turned back if only to remind myself that there are some kinds of peace, which will not be moved. How awful to have such wonder. The final way wonder itself opened beneath my mother’s face at the last moment. As if she was a small girl kneeling in a puddle & looking at her face for the first time, her fingers gripping the loud, wet rim of the universe.”

“Was it possible this one would be a son too? She hoped so, but not because she favored men. Her husband modeled the seriousness, the stoicism, that she hoped her sons would inherit, but she had nothing to teach a daughter. She could teach her to dream—say, to be a painter, as she herself had been trained—and then teach her to let it go. Teach her to cloister herself in dark hallways, admiring how the light fell through the rice-paper doors while knowing that there was no point in putting it on canvas.”

“I missed my one true friend, my mother. She and I were close in a way I don't think many other mothers and daughters were. I slept beside her every night of my childhood: so near to her back, I could probably sketch the constellation of moles and freckles on her skin there. When I was a very little girl, every morning I would wake before her and arrange myself so that when she woke, we were eye-to-eye. I miss her, with a never-ending ache that I did not think was possible, that crowds out any other feeling and certainly all reason, and any good sense.”

“Itches and Burs There once was a mother-and-daughterly pair Who both had an itch just beneath their long hair. Each had a bur with the prickles attached Under a belt at the mid of her back. “Oh, daughter, please scratch at my itch, will you not? And pluck out the bur—I would thank you a lot!” “I can’t,” said the daughter, “My own bur does sting. And try as I may I can’t reach the darn thing!” “Oh pain!” groaned the daughter. The mom cried, “Oh drat!” As each strained to reach her own bur at her back. “It prickles like needles! It tickles like feathers!” But easing the scratch was a fruitless endeavor. The daughter about gave a sigh of despair When all of a sudden her prick was not there. The itch too was gone with some scritches and scrapes Applied by old fingers in arthritic shape. The daughter, so grateful to feel such relief, Turned ’round to her mother and plucked out her grief. She scratched her mom’s itch just as she had done hers. Now neither has itches and neither has burs.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with daughters,' he says. 'Exchange them for sons?' 'But then I could wind up with something like you.' 'I’m not so bad,' he says. 'I’m smart.' 'You’re about a hundred miles away from the town of Smart, my friend.' 'You’re mistaken, counselor,' he says. 'I’m smart, I can take care of myself. I’m an awesome tennis player, a keen observer of life around me. I’m a good cook. I always have weed.' 'I’m sure your parents are proud.' 'It’s possible.' He looks at his knees and I wonder if I’ve offended him.”

“If you think that educating your girl is enough for her to tackle the boundaries of tradition, then you are wrong. You have to ensure that not only you empower her with education, but also make her strong enough to resist the evils of societal pressure under which she often buckles. Her life and honour are far more important than "What will people say?" A little emotional support from the parents can make the life of a daughter abused by her in-laws beautiful.”

“The idea that women should be kept weak, uneducated, and dependent on a man in ancient civilization was somewhat misinterpreted and misused, if they were referring to biblical support. In fact, in Ancient Israel women could own property. The Book of Proverbs describes an ideal woman as a woman who has the means and capacity to make financial and business decisions. It says 'she considers a field and buys it'. (Proverbs 31:16) - Raising A Strong Daughter: What Fathers Should Know by Finlay Gow JD and Kailin Gow MA”

“Rolando pursed his lips and sighed. “Just be careful.” “Why, because her father carries a gun?” Isaac said. “Aren’t you the one who always said guns don’t shoot people?” “No, it was you who said that.” Rolando corrected his son. “I’ve said fathers with guns and beautiful daughters shoot people. Boys in particular.” “You worry too much, dad.” “One day, when you are a father, you will understand.”

“Amy will be fine. Amy ..." Here was where I should have said, "Amy loves Mom." But I couldn't tell Go that Amy loved our mother, because after all that time, Amy still barely knew our mother. Their few meetings had left them both baffled. Amy would dissect the conversations for days after—"And what did she mean by ..."—as if my mother were some ancient peasant tribeswoman arriving from the tundra with an armful of raw yak meat and some buttons for bartering, trying to get something from Amy that wasn't on offer.”

“Seed becomes tree, son becomes stranger.”

“Rosabella Beauty was the daughter of the famous Beauty, a girl whose love had turned the Beast back into a prince. Darling Charming was the daughter of the renowned King Charming, whose royal storyline stretched back to the very beginning of stories. The Charming men had always been known for their heroic deeds, luxurious hair, and enchanting eyes. Darling's two brothers were expected to follow in King Charming's heroic footsteps by saving damsels, slaying dragons, and basically conquering whatever evil stepped into their paths. Darling, however, was not a son. She was a daughter. And being a daughter was a different matter altogether. No heroic deeds were expected of her. No quests or adventures. While the activities of the Charming princes had always been celebrated by poets and storytellers, the Charming princesses had a singular destiny- to be damsels in distress waiting for rescue.”

“Your daughters are receptors of knowledge, filled with interesting ideas, thoughts that could generate great conversations, find solutions to the world’s problems, if you care to engage them in talk. Don’t force them to be something they are not, because your sons have no control over themselves. Don’t shut them in, imprison them in shrouds, black cloaks with only their eyes showing, covering them up like corpses ready to be thrown on a communal burial heap.”