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Motherhood Quotes

Browse 1829 quotes about Motherhood.

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Motherhood Quotes

“Tova wonders sometimes if it's better that way, to have one's tragedies clustered together, to make good use of the existing rawness. Get it over with in one shot. Tova knew there was a bottom to those depths of despair. Once your soul was soaked through with grief, any more simply ran off, overflowed, the way maple syrup on Saturday morning pancakes always cascaded onto the table.”

GriefMotherhood
Book:Remarkably Bright Creatures
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“It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw everyday, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed forever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connexion; and why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?”

GriefMotherhood
Book:Frankenstein
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“When I think of my mother’s violent temper, outbursts of affection, and reproachful attitude, I try not to see them as facets of her personality but to relate them to her own story and social background. This way of writing, which seems to bring me closer to the truth, relieves me of the dark, heavy burden of personal remembrance by establishing a more objective approach. And yet something deep down inside refuses to yield and wants me to remember my mother purely in emotional terms—affection or tears—without searching for an explanation.”

GriefDaughterMotherhoodMother Daughter RelationshipHealing By Writing
Book:A Woman's Story
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“One of the hardest things about losing my mom at a young age was that everyone else seemed to still have their moms. That feeling of isolation lasted beyond the initial shock and heartache of losing her, and it became even more difficult after I had my own daughter. It felt so cruel that they would never get to know each other. When I was pregnant, I’d often wonder if my baby would look like her. I secretly hoped that my child’s arrival would, in some way, bring my own mother back. Then my daughter was born—with sparkly blue eyes and strawberry blond hair. She was lovely, but she didn’t look a thing like my mom (or me, for that matter). She didn’t really act like her, either. But that was okay! She is an entirely different person, after all.”

LossDaughterMotherhoodIsolation
Book:You're Mom: A Little Book for Mothers
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“She talked to the child and her doll in the pleasing cadence of the Neapolitan dialect that I love, the tender language of playfulness and sweet nothings. I was enchanted. Languages for me have a secret venom that every so often foams up and for which there is no antidote. I remember the dialect on my mother’s lips when she lost that gentle cadence and yelled at us, poisoned by her unhappiness: I can’t take you anymore, I can’t take any more.”

WomenLossMotherhoodEnvyCrueltyInnocenceChildhood Memories
Book:The Lost Daughter
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“I stared at the hospice nurse's clipboard of notes, her purple scrubs, her file filled with Momma's health history, and I listened to the clicking of her pen and never looked her in the eye. She didn't belong in our home. She was just full of false information, cynical with age, and her pessimism about Momma's lifespan was making the house feel claustrophobic, like a coffin. She was closing the lid.”

LossGriefMedicineMotherhoodHospice
Author:Caitlin Garvey
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“Dulu aku takut akan dua hal: kekelaman dan maut. Aku akan menyelinap keluar dari tempat tidurku yang kecil pada tengah malam dan mengendap masuk ke tempat tidur ibuku. Kususupkan tubuhku ke tubuhnya yang hangat dan aku tak mau berpisah dari ibuku. Kulengkungkan tubuhku agar menjadi lebih kecil dan kucoba untuk menciutkan diriku hingga ukuran janin yang dapat kembali ke rahim ibuku. Segenap tubuhku bergetar dengan keinginan yag kuat ini dan getar seperti dalam demam. Kupikir tak ada yang dapat menyelamatkan diriku dari maut yang mendekat dalam kelam kecuali jika aku menghilang ke dalam rahim yang hangat dan lembut itu yang akan membungkus diriku sendirian di sana.”

DaughterSafetyLongingMotherhoodMelancholyWombMothers And Daughters
Book:موت معالي الوزير سابقاً
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“You’ve spent her whole life holding her. Whether cradled in your arms as a baby or wrapped in your embrace as a young woman, she’s been yours to have and to hold, Mother of the Bride—until now. Now the time has come to let her go, to let her begin her own family and pledge her allegiance to another.”

FamilyLetting GoMotherhoodWeddingMother Of The Bride
Book:Mother of the Bride: Refreshment and Wisdom for the Mother of the Bride
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“I watched her with the crab as she ignored all my admonitions that the poor crab just needed to be set free if he was to have any chance of surviving. And God showed up there on that beach to teach me a lesson. Nothing survives when it's being smothered. Life, real life, requires being free to move about in the great big ocean, not being cradled in little hot hands that will stifle independence and creativity. We can't keep our crabs (or our kids) in a bucket and expect them to go far in life.”

KidsLetting GoMotherhood
Book:Sparkly Green Earrings: Catching the Light at Every Turn
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“Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body. But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality. In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh. The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves. In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber.”

ChildrenParentingMotherhoodVulnerabilityBabies
Book:Dragonfly in Amber
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“Had I catalogued the downsides of parenthood, "son might turn out to be a killer" would never have turned up on the list. Rather, it might have looked something like this: 1. Hassle. 2. Less time just the two of us. (Try no time just the two of us.) 3. Other people. (PTA meetings. Ballet teachers. The kid's insufferable friends and their insufferable parents.) 4. Turning into a cow. (I was slight, and preferred to stay that way. My sister-in-law had developed bulging varicose veins in her legs during pregnancy that never retreated, and the prospect of calves branched in blue tree roots mortified me more than I could say. So I didn't say. I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.) 5. Unnatural altruism: being forced to make decisions in accordance with what was best for someone else. (I'm a pig.) 6. Curtailment of my traveling. (Note curtailment. Not conclusion.) 7. Dementing boredom. (I found small children brutally dull. I did, even at the outset, admit this to myself.) 8. Worthless social life. (I had never had a decent conversation with a friend's five-year-old in the room.) 9. Social demotion. (I was a respected entrepreneur. Once I had a toddler in tow, every man I knew--every woman, too, which is depressing--would take me less seriously.) 10. Paying the piper. (Parenthood repays a debt. But who wants to pay a debt she can escape? Apparently, the childless get away with something sneaky. Besides, what good is repaying a debt to the wrong party? Only the most warped mother would feel rewarded for her trouble by the fact that at last her daughter's life is hideous, too.)”

ChildrenKidsParentingMotherhood
Book:We Need To Talk About Kevin
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“Vic didn't have a car and probably spent a hundred and sixty hours a week at home. The house smelled of piss-soaked diapers and engine parts, and the sink was always full. In retrospect Vic was only surprised she didn't go crazy sooner. She was surprised that more young mothers didn't lose it. When your tits had become canteens and the soundtrack to your life was hysterical tears and mad laughter, how could anyone expect you to remain sane?”

ChildrenMotherhoodInsanity
Book:NOS4A2
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“When kids made a decision for themselves they have a vested interest in showing they were right. Lee wanted to prove to me that he had made the right choice so he worked hard and did well. If we'd forced him to go to college somewhere else all the incentives would've been different. Then he would have had a motive to prove that we were wrong.”

ChildrenMotherhoodDecision MakingFatherhood
Book:From This Day Forward: A Wise and Endearing Memoir on Marriage, Family, and Faith
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“On Friday, Rose invites Sophie and I around to the house. We arrive at eight, armed with some fancy wine Dad handed us from his cellar. Unsurprisingly, it’s Rose who answers the door. Crawford’s there, too, talking like he’s done ten lines of cocaine. ‘Unco Tom, you missed what happened today because I was at the table with the naked sand and I was making a big cake and then I gave it to Mummy and I said “eat a bit of this cake” and she did, she ate a bit, but it was really yucky because it was made of the naked sand!’ ‘Kinetic sand,’ Rose says, ‘It’s called kinetic sand.’ But Crawford’s way too wired to listen. ‘And then after lunch Mummy was changing Ellie’s nappy and we took Ellie’s nappy off and Ellie farted and a poo fell out and went on the floor!’ ‘Darling,’ Rose interrupts, ‘I’m not sure everyone likes that story as much as you do.’ Perhaps not, but it’s absolutely slayed Crawford, who’s laughing so hard that he’s having to gasp between phrases. ‘And… and it was… so smelly… Mummy had to… open the window!”

ChildrenChildhoodParentingMotherhoodParenthoodMotheringMother And Son
Book:A Matter of Life and Death
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“What could be said of holding her child for the first time? She felt like the sun has slammed into her. In one instant, she became skinless and new and known. Yesterday and tomorrow broke into separate pieces and shot out apart from one another. What could ever be said of a moment that happened in no language, but in every language?”

ChildrenParentingMotherhoodParentsLife ChangingParenthoodParents And Children
Book:I'll Come to You
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“Secondo te mi sento così inutile perché non ho figli da guardar crescere?" mi ha chiesto mentre facevamo i piatti. "Ma come non ne hai, hai sposato un bambinone che non se ne andrà mai di casa, non patirai neanche la sindrome del nido vuoto." Con le mani nella schiuma del lavello abbiamo riso, ma eravamo un dittico strano e pietoso, lei giovane già coi rimpianti e io vecchia con ancora delle pretese.”

ChildrenKidsMotherAdultsMotherhoodAdulthood
Book:Tre ciotole
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“[Martha] saw it all so very clearly. That phrase, 'having a baby,' which was every girl's way of thinking of a first child, was nothing but a mask to conceal the truth. One saw a fluttering image of a madonna-like woman with a helpless infant in her arms; nothing could be more attractive. What one did not see, what everyone conspired to prevent one seeing, was the middle-aged woman who had done nothing but produce two or three commonplace and tedious citizens in a world that was already too full of them.”

ChildrenFeminismMotherhood
Author:Doris Lessing
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