Quotessence
Home / Topics / Grandmother Quotes

Grandmother Quotes

Browse 1038 quotes about Grandmother.

Related topics

My GrandmotherMotherPeopleIfsKnowsThinkingChildrenSaidUsedWayYour GrandmotherGrandparentFatherYearsGrandfatherWorldHouseMadeWantPlayMenFirstsGreat GrandmotherMomTwoGrandmaKidsRaisedSchoolTaughtPersonsKindLooksDaughterHomeParentWellsYoungFeelsI CanMy GrandfatherMy MomRememberStillsStoriesWantedBornGrowing UpLittlesLongDiedGenerationsGrandchildrenGrewGrew UpGrowingMother And GrandmotherChurchCookingHelpingNeedsTryingAbleMy FamilyAgeAuntBigsEnoughGirlMeanRealBookThreeWritingCooksGivingGrandpaHas BeensMightMindBeautifulDifferentEyeFeltLeftMomentsNamesCareDadFiveHandsKitchenRunningSawsShouldSometimesWould BeAsksBlackBrothermore

Grandmother Quotes

“Luella had been Lou's favorite grandma. Some grandmas took their grandchildren to parks, or bought them books and dolls, or shared their special stories. Her grandma shared her recipes. She taught Lou how to check when a roast turkey was done, chop veggies without cutting off a finger, and bake a coconut cake grown men swooned over. A fog of comforting smells had perpetually blanketed her kitchen- an expression of her love so strong you could taste it. Lou caught the culinary bug during those early days and loved that she was named after her grandma, even if Lou believed she'd never make food quite as delicious.”

CookingGrandmotherLou JohnsonLuella
Book:The Coincidence of Coconut Cake
Create image

“How did the name misfit even come about?" Sam asked. "It's so... dumb." Willo laughed. "Well, it's really not," she said. "We used to call them all sorts of slang terms: kooks, greasers, killjoys, chumps, and we had to keep changing the name as times changed. We used nerds for a long time, and then we started calling them dweebs." Willo hesitated. "And then a group of kids wasn't so nice to your mom." "I had braces," Deana said. "I had pimples. I had a perm. You do the math." She smiled briefly, but Sam could tell the pain was still there. Deana continued: "And I worked here most of the time so I really didn't get a chance to do a lot with friends after school. It was hard." This time, Willo reached out to rub her daughter's leg. "Your mom was pretty down one Christmas," she said. "All of the kids were going on a ski trip to a resort in Boyne City, but she had to stay here and work during the holiday rush. She was moping around one night, lying on the couch and watching TV..." "... stuffing holiday cookies in my mouth," Deana added. "... and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer came on. She was about to change the channel, but I made her sit back down and watch it with me. Remember the part about the Island of Misfit Toys?" Sam nodded. Willo continued. "All of those toys that were tossed away and didn't have a home because they were different: the Charlie-in-the-Box, the spotted elephant, the train with square wheels, the cowboy who rides an ostrich..." "... the swimming bird," Sam added with a laugh. "And I told your mom that all of those toys were magical and perfect because they were different," Willo said. "What made them different is what made them unique." Sam looked at her mom, who gave her a timid smile. "I walked in early the next morning to open the pie pantry, and your mom was already in there making donuts," Willo said. "She had a big plate of donuts that didn't turn out perfectly and she looked up at me and said, very quietly, 'I want to start calling them misfits.' When I asked her why, she said, 'They're as good as all the others, even if they look a bit different.' We haven't changed the name since.”

MotherGenerationsGrandmotherNameMisfitsSlangDoughnutsSam Mullins
Book:The Recipe Box
Create image

“She was always threatening to move to be nearer to Rosie and the boys, but Wisconsin was- obviously, nonnegotiably, self-evidently-too cold. So she stayed in Pheonix and held the weather to her heart as a talisman, clutched to her breast against all counteroffers. But she came up for the summers. Pheonix's weather need not be clutched to the breast for June through September.”

HumorFunnyWeatherGrandmotherArizonaWisconsin
Book:This Is How It Always Is
Create image

“Stupid dog, do you realize you have actually LITERALLY bitten the hand that feeds you?" Schatzi looks at me with a withering stare, arching her bushy eyebrows haughtily, and then turns her back to me. I stick out my tongue at her back, and go to the kitchen to freshen her water bowl. Damnable creature requires fresh water a zillion times a day. God forbid a fleck of dust is dancing on the surface, or it has gone two degrees beyond cool, I get the laser look of death. Once there was a dead fly in it, and she looked in the bowl, crossed the room, looked me dead in the eye, and squatted and peed on my shoes. I usually call her Shitzi or Nazi. I suppose I'm lucky she deigns to drink tap water. Our bare tolerance of each other is mutual, and affection between us is nil. The haughty little hellbeast was my sole inheritance from my grandmother who passed away two years ago. A cold, exacting woman who raised me in my mother's near-complete absence, Annelyn Stroudt insisted on my calling her Grand-mère, despite the fact that she put the manic in Germanic, ancestry-wise. But apparently when her grandparents schlepped here mother from Berlin to Chicago, they took a year in Paris first, and adopted many things Française. So Grand-mère it was. Grand-mère Annelyn also insisted on dressing for dinner, formal manners in every situation, letterpress stationary, and physical affection saved for the endless string of purebred miniature schnauzers she bought one after the other, and never offered to the granddaughter who also lived under her roof. Her clear disappointment in me must have rubbed off on Schatzi, who, despite having lived with me since Grand-mère died neatly and quietly in her sleep at the respectable age of eighty-nine, has never seen me as anything but a source of food, and a firm hand at the end of the leash. She dotes on Grant, but he sneaks her nibbles when he cooks, and coos to her in flawless French. Sometimes I wonder if the spirit of Grand-mère transferred into the dog upon death, and if the chilly indifference to me is just a manifestation of my grandmother's continued disapproval from beyond the grave. Schatzi wanders over to her bowl, sniffs it, sneers at me one last time for good measure, shakes her head to ensure her ears are in place, like a society matron checking her coif, and settles down to drink.”

DogGrandmotherGermanHaughtyBitchSnootyPurebred
Book:Recipe for Disaster
Create image

“She'd lived long and survived some heartbreaking shit. Growing up with a father who spent most of his life sucking down whatever alcohol he could find only to escape to a husband who used his fists to carry his side of the conversation. The men in her life taught her to be on guard. Losing my mom, Gram's daughter, by her son-in-law's hand shaped everything that came after, including raising me to be bold, fight back, and detest violent men, especially the one who made my existence possible.”

GrandmotherStrong WomenGranddaughterAbusive MenTragic Life
Book:The Usual Family Mayhem
Create image

“Lillian tells everyone about her flaws," Daisy said, her brown eyes twinkling. "She's proud of them." "I do have a terrible temper," Lillian acknowledged smugly. "And I can curse like a sailor." "Who taught you to do that?" Annabelle asked. "My grandmother. She was a washerwoman. And my grandfather was the soap maker from whom she bought her supplies. Since she worked near the docks, most of her customers were sailors and dockers, who taught her words so vulgar that it would curl your hair ribbons to hear them.”

GrandmotherLillian Bowman
Book:Secrets of a Summer Night
Create image

“Remember how you played in these orchards as young girls?" Willo asked Deana and Sam. Deana turned to look at Sam, and the two smiled. "We do," they said at the same time. These orchards had been their playground as girls. Sam slowed even more and studied the orchards carefully. I ran, played hide-and-seek, caught fireflies, scaled trees, picked apples and peaches straight off the tree, launched pits from slingshots, and danced in the sprinkles here. Sam thought. Moreover, I learned about plants and science: I understood the seasons, when to plant trees and seeds, how to nurture them and protect them from insects, what to feed the deer in winter and the hummingbirds in summer. Sam again thought of her grandpa. If we're good to Mother Nature, she will be good to us, he always used to tell her. Same goes for people.”

MotherGrandmotherMother NatureChildhood MemoriesPlaygroundOrchardsSam Mullins
Book:The Recipe Box
Create image

“You have a lovely figure. You should show it off more, not hide it beneath those tatty jeans and T-shirts you're always wearing." Maggie turns in front of the mirror, pushing back her shoulders, feeling the soft fabric move about her bare legs. She doesn't feel like herself. "It's not very me." "You look beautiful." "But probably a little much... you know, for what is essentially just standing around in a field with a lot of other people drinking tea and admiring vegetables?" Lillian laughs. "Why should you care what other people think? Worrying about them will only stifle your own life. Trust me, everyone is far too wrapped up in themselves to worry about you, Maggie Oberon. You'll see." There is a force to her grandmother's words that surprises Maggie. "You will never be as young or as beautiful as you are today. Be bold. Seize the life that was meant to be yours. Make it magnificent.”

GrandmotherBoldnessGranddaughterSeize The Moment
Book:The Peacock Summer
Create image

“For them I learned to be a mother again, cooking pancakes and thick herb-and-apple sausages. I made jam for them from figs and green tomatoes and sour cherries and quinces. I let them play with the little brown mischievous goats and feed them crusts and pieces of carrot. We fed the hens, stroked the soft noses of the ponies, collected sorrel for the rabbits. I showed them the river and how to reach the sunny sandbanks. I warned them- with such a catch in my heart- of the dangers, the snakes, roots, eddies, quicksand, made them promise never, never to swim there. I showed them the woods beyond, the best places to find mushrooms, the ways of telling the fake chanterelle from the true, the sour bilberries growing wild under the thicket.”

GrandmotherGrandchildrenCountry LifeRusticFrench Cooking
Book:Five Quarters of the Orange
Create image

“TJ frowns; she can’t write about willing wind and water in the official report. Voicing elements is a rumor. However, she remembers what her grandmother said five decades ago when she was a child; (it was shortly after the war): “Anyone who trains hard can be a Grade A by the time they’re forty or fifty. But it takes decades more to become strong enough to voice one element.” “One element?” TJ asked. “Do you want to voice the entire universe then?” “Can’t I?” Grandmother didn’t answer, not directly anyway, as most great masters do. They never say you can’t do this or no one can do that or that thing is impossible just because they couldn’t do it, or because they hadn’t found it yet. True masters answer differently. Wisely. Like her grandmother answered that day. “Do you know why we evolve, Tirity?” “Because we’re supposed to?” TJ replied. “Yes. It’s in the grand design. We’re ‘supposed to’ evolve. Not just in body, but also in mind,” she said. “In time. You see, time is the key. If given infinite time, you can evolve your mind infinitely. But we live only for a hundred years or so.” “A hundred years is ‘only’?” “You’re so young, Tirity! But yes, it is little for a complete cognitive evolution. Most hard trainers can prolong it to a couple of hundred years. They even get to call the wind or grow a giant plant that could touch the clouds. But voicing everything in the universe? I think only God can do it, the God who created everything with only words. And if God created the world so that he could see how far the humans can evolve, then I’d say, yes, even a human could get godly power. Godlier than voicing one or two elements. If. Given. The. Time.” “How much time?” “More than thousands of years, maybe. Could even need millions, who knows? …” TJ smiles drily; she remembers how her eyes sparkled at the thought of becoming a goddess who could voice everything. She dreamed of flying in the air or walking in space. She thought of making her own garden full of giant flowers where only enormous butterflies would dance. Some days, when she played video games in VR, she even dreamed of voicing the thunder and lightning to join her wooden sword. She thought time could help her do it. But she didn’t know then, time only makes you grow up. Time steals your dreams. Time only turns you into an adult.”

TimeGrandmotherAdultTjCognitive EvolutionVoicing The UniverseWilling Elements
Book:The High Auction
Create image

“The boys are afraid of Opal, like she was always afraid of her mom. Something about how brief and direct she is. Maybe hypercritical too, like her mom was hypercritical. It’s to prepare them for a world made for Native people not to live but to die in, shrink, disappear. She needs to push them harder because it will take more for them to succeed than someone who is not Native. It’s because she failed to do anything more than disappear herself. She’s no-nonsense with them because she believes life will do its best to get at you. Sneak up from behind and shatter you into tiny unrecognizable pieces.”

ParentingGrandmotherNative AmericansNative People
Book:There There
Create image

“You clumsy wench—Gods above! Are you trying to rob me, girl?” The nobleman seizes my wrist and yanks it from his pocket. My hand comes up with the pipe clenched in it. I stare at him, horrified. “I . . .” “I’ll have your head for this!” the man rages. “I’ll have you whipped!” *** “I got the pipe,” I say, holding it up. He stares for a minute, blinking, and then bursts into laughter. A few curious deer stick their heads through the shrubs to see what the racket is. Aladdin doubles over, laughing loud enough to startle birds from the trees overhead, and after a moment, I start laughing too. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long, long while, and it feels wonderful. We sit on the grass and laugh until our faces are red and we’re out of breath. “You are the worst thief I have ever seen,” declares Aladdin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I got it, didn’t I?” “My grandmother could pick pockets better than that! Though that’s not quite fair; my grandmother was the best pickpocket in Parthenia. She taught me all her tricks. Drove my mother crazy.”

WorstGrandmotherLaughPipeThiefAladdinRobZhara
Book:The Forbidden Wish
Create image

“I push my thigh against his. “Well, thank God.” “Thank God what?” he asks. His hand slowly rubs up and down the place where my shoulder meets my arm. It makes me good shiver. “That I don’t have a neck brace. It’s hard to rock a neck brace, especially if we’re still going to that dance.” He leans in and kisses my nose. “If anyone could do it, you could.” I tilt my head so our lips meet. “Hormonal ones, I am right here. Me. The old lady otherwise known as your grandmother,” Betty says. “Sorry. He’s just irresistible,” I say, settling back against him. “Well, try to resist the irresistible,” Betty says knowingly as the truck bumps over a pothole.”

DanceGrandmotherIrresistibleZara WhiteNick ColtHormonalBetty WhiteNeck Brace
Book:Captivate
Create image

“I have my great grandmother's recipe for black beans, all the way from Cuba, and I know how to make those. I'm actually pretty good at it now. But my first time, the beans actually exploded in the pot, so I had black beans just dripping from the ceiling - which is actually a dream come true for most Cubans. It was a nightmare to clean.”

KnowsWayFirstsDreamBlackKnow HowFirst TimeCleanGrandmotherNightmarePotRecipesDreams Come TrueCubaCeilingsBeansCubanDrippingGreat Grandmother
Author:Danny Pino
Create image

“Now, for Romney to believe that somebody's grandmother is going to be so cut off she is going to self deport... He certainly shows no concern for the humanity of people who are already here... I think you have to live in worlds of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality.”

PeopleThinkingWorldYearsBelieveSelfShowsRealityHumanityMillionsFantasyCuttingRepublicanConcernAccountsIncomeIslandsGrandmotherRomneyBank AccountsSwissCayman Islands
Author:Newt Gingrich
Create image