Quotessence
Home / Topics / Mothers And Daughters Quotes

Mothers And Daughters Quotes

Browse 220 quotes about Mothers And Daughters.

Mothers And Daughters Quotes

“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.”

“My beloved has arrived, but rather than greeting him, All I can do is bite the corner of my apron with a blank expression- What an awkward woman am I. My heart has longed for him as hugely and openly as a full moon But instead I narrow my eyes, and my glance to him Is sharp and narrow as the crescent moon. But then, I'm not the only one who behaves this way. My mother and my mother's mother were as silly and stumbling as I am when they were girls... Still, the love from my heart is overflowing, As bright and crimson as the heated metal in a blacksmith's forge.”

“For the first time in my life, I feel like I am being strong for the two of us, like I have broken free from those chains of lipstick and perfect hair and can take pride in my worn feet and the hair around my nipples. And I know that one day we will go shopping together and she will finally be proud of this body we both used to hate so much. I'm sure of it, because recently I have found it in my heart to forgive her. And because all of this is so very lonely sometimes, I have started to wear some of her old clothes, her cardigans and scarves--I was always too fat for everything else--and I think that's a sign that I have started to miss her in that place where I should have loved so long ago. And I admire nothing more than people who have found a way to love their mothers; I think it's the biggest challenge in life, the one thing that would make the world a better place.”

“If Mama had lived, ... I hope she would have supported and approved of her daughter’s ambitions to accomplish something in this life. She taught me to read when I was five years old. If she knew what I was doing now, if she knew that I had been accepted at the university—the university , Papa—don’t you think she would have been just a little bit proud?”

“MY MOTHER GETS DRESSED It is impossible for my mother to do even the simplest things for herself anymore so we do it together, get her dressed. I choose the clothes without zippers or buckles or straps, clothes that are simple but elegant, and easy to get into. Otherwise, it's just like every other day. After bathing, getting dressed. The stockings go on first. This time, it's the new ones, the special ones with opaque black triangles that she's never worn before, bought just two weeks ago at her favorite department store. We start with the heavy, careful stuff of the right toes into the stocking tip then a smooth yank past the knob of her ankle and over her cool, smooth calf then the other toe cool ankle, smooth calf up the legs and the pantyhose is coaxed to her waist. You're doing great, Mom, I tell her as we ease her body against mine, rest her whole weight against me to slide her black dress with the black empire collar over her head struggle her fingers through the dark tunnel of the sleeve. I reach from the outside deep into the dark for her hand, grasp where I can't see for her touch. You've got to help me a little here, Mom I tell her then her fingertips touch mine and we work her fingers through the sleeve's mouth together, then we rest, her weight against me before threading the other fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep and now over the head. I gentle the black dress over her breasts, thighs, bring her makeup to her, put some color on her skin. Green for her eyes. Coral for her lips. I get her black hat. She's ready for her company. I tell the two women in simple, elegant suits waiting outside the bedroom, come in. They tell me, She's beautiful. Yes, she is, I tell them. I leave as they carefully zip her into the black body bag. Three days later, I dream a large, green suitcase arrives. When I unzip it, my mother is inside. Her dress matches her eyeshadow, which matches the suitcase perfectly. She's wearing coral lipstick. "I'm here," she says, smiling delightedly, waving and I wake up. Four days later, she comes home in a plastic black box that is heavier than it looks. In the middle of a meadow, I learn a naked more than naked. I learn a new way to hug as I tighten my fist around her body, my hand filled with her ashes and the small stones of bones. I squeeze her tight then open my hand and release her into the smallest, hottest sun, a dandelion screaming yellow at the sky.”

“If it is your fault that your mother is miserable, it becomes a potentially fixable affront. Taking blame means that at least the hope of love is still there-all you have to do is deserve it.”

“Many daughters live out their lives avoiding or abiding or arguing with their mothers-burying the long-ago injury or insult or childhood deprivation under a blanket of forgetfulness-and not confronting it head-on. It's humiliating to remember the ways in which one demeaned oneself in order to prevent being in a mother's bad graces, the willingness to do anything in order to not be rejected, when rejection felt like death.”

“Another reason it's dangerous to acknowledge that you were unloved is that it implies the possibility that your mother may have been right-you are unlovable.”

“If your mother lived your life as though it were her own-never allowing you a moment of stress or frustration, routinely sleeping in your bed when you had a bad dream, never setting limits or establishing boundaries, seldom or never letting you out of her sight, excusing and failing to provide consequences for your negative or hurtful behaviour, insisting on a daily chronicle of every detail of your life, all in the name of maternal love-then you never had to grow up and take responsibility for your actions. You remain a child.”

“I was unhappy there and going through a rough transition, so I was desperate for any friend I could find that I could talk to. I thought that's what he was. We had this secret from my mom, who I didn't like much at the time. It was a harmless secret, so I didn't feel bad about it. All we did was go to the movies and hang out doing fun things all day. It wasn't until much later that the warning signs began, but I was still too young and stupid to see them for what they were at the time. Basically, he was patient as he built up the trust between us. He became a close friend and convinced me that he was on my side somehow. He took total advantage of my ignorance and totally betrayed me a few years later, when he slept with me. After my mom found out, she went psychotic and all she gave a fuck about was what had been done to her. She didn't care about anything except for how hurt she was by what had happened. She blamed me and him equally, telling me that sixteen years old was old enough to know better. Even though I never initiated a goddamn thing with him, and never would have. Even though it happened in the apartment she and I had gotten together, that he was not supposed to be staying in.”

“Even as individuals become families and families become communities, and communities become nations, so eventually must the nations draw together in peace.”

“Our Skirt (by Kathy Boudin) You were forty-five and I was fourteen when you gave me the skirt. ¨It's from Paris!¨ you said as if that would impress me who at best had mixed feelings about skirts. But I was drawn by that summer cotton with splashes of black and white--like paint dabbed by an eager artist. I borrowed your skirt and it moved like waves as I danced at a ninth grade party. Wearing it date after date including my first dinner with a college man. I never was much for buying new clothes, once I liked something it stayed with me for years. I remember the day I tried ironing your skirt, so wide it seemed to go on and on like a western sky. Then I smelled the burning and, crushed, saw that I had left a red-brown scorch on that painting. But you, Mother, you understood because ironing was not your thing either. And over the years your skirt became my skirt until I left it and other parts of home with you. Now you are eighty and I almost fifty. We sit across from each other in the prison visiting room. Your soft gray-thin hair twirls into style. I follow the lines on your face, paths lit by your eyes until my gaze comes to rest on the black and white on the years that our skirt has endured.”

“...you don't even realise you're trapped. And even when you do realise this, the psychological tentacles which are wrapped around you are very difficult to remove. In addition there can be practical and logistical tentacles too, such as living together in a co-owned house, which just add to the problem.”

“Many years later when I got involved in activism, I noticed a very common thread. A lot of us girls had been psychologically abused by our mothers. A [Muslim] woman who has no control over her life craves control. There are very few outlets where that control is acceptable. In her immediate family, she cannot exert control over her husband or her son, but her daughter is fair game. All of her aggression and frustration are released in that one direction. Since, according to Hadith, Heaven is at the feet of mothers, mothers will get to determine if their children will burn in Hell for eternity or not. That is a lot of power to wield over a child. That power can have tragic results in the hands of an abusive mother. She can abuse the status and use it to control and manipulate. You must be an obedient slave to get her affection, support, approval, and, most importantly, to get into Heaven one day. She can revoke her 'blessing' at any point, keeping you in line for perpetuity.”

“My father came first," says a Missouri painter who consistently faces a work slump whenever she commits herself to submitting paintings for a show. "My mother was defined by him. If she behaved well he would love her, buy her presents, and take care of her - she was a queen. He did take care of her. She behaved, she ran the house. He bought her presents all the time." "Was she smart?" I asked. "I don't know," the woman replied. "I think she may have been, once. She stopped thinking." One reason Mother remains shadowy is that she was intimidated by the forceful, vivid personality of her husband. The peacemaker, a kind of half-person who chooses to tag along safely behind her husband, Mother is protected from the more abrasive aspects of life in the world. Huge fights, open power struggles - these were not characteristic of the girl's relationship with her elusive mother. (...) Mother was there (...). But she was also not there. (...) Father is active; Mother is passive. Father is able to rely on himself; Mother is helpless and dependent.”

“It helps enormously to have had a loving mother. Mothers can give their daughters permission to love their fathers. Mothers can help their daughters feel good about becoming mothers. Mothers can help daughters learn the value of openness and female friendship, especially when times are bad,”

“A girl's sense of her womanly self depends only in part on how closely she has followed her mother's example in attire and actions, or how much she loves or hates or respects her. It is from both parents that a girl gains her basic identity.”

“Have I been conditioned to believe that if I am not solicitous, if I am not forthcoming, if I am not a never-ending cornicopia of entertaining delights, they will take their collections of milk-bottle tops and their mangy one-eared teddy bears and go away into the woods by themselves to play snipers? Probably. What my mother thinks was merely cute may have been lethal.”

“Have I been conditioned to believe that if I am not solicitous, if I am not forthcoming, if I am not a never-ending cornicopia of entertaining delights, they will take their collections of milk-bottle tops and their mangy one-eared teddy bears and go away into the woods by themselves to play snipers? Probably. What my mother things was merely cute may have been lethal.”