Quotessence
Home / Topics / Parents Quotes

Parents Quotes

Browse 1491 quotes about Parents.

Parents Quotes

“He conjured a spotlight, which travelled down along the balcony, and rested on her face. ‘Your hair,’ he said. ‘All of the lights land in it.’ (All of the lights land in it: an excellent line. While I try to deny it, there were times – when I was younger – when this would have impressed me, too.) ‘Is this how you usually spend your Saturday nights?’ Mother asked. ‘No. Sometimes. I like the technology, you see. And I like to help out.’ Mother leaned against the railing alongside him. She let her hair fall against his arm. ‘I’ve never had company before,’ Father said, and smiled. ‘This makes things much more interesting.’ ‘I’m not that interesting at all,’ Mother said. ‘I mean, I’m pretty boring. Actually.’ ‘I don’t believe you. What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?’ ‘What?’ ‘Tell me the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Nobody’s boring when they tell you the best thing that’s ever happened. Go.’ Mother thought of her princess dress, and the faces of the villagers watching the Harvest Festival. In her mind, they multiplied, so that she led the parade through a crowd of hundreds – thousands – of well-wishers. ‘Fine,’ she said. She knew exactly how she would tell it. ‘See,’ Father said, at the end. ‘That wasn’t boring. But it wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to you, either.’ ‘It wasn’t?’ ‘Of course not,’ Father said. He concentrated on the fuse box, passing it from one great palm to the other. He was smiling, close to laughter. ‘That’s tonight.”

StoriesParentsFirst MeetingFamily Stories
Book:Girl A
Create image

“As a kid you idolize your parents. You think they’re perfect, because they’re the yardstick by which you measure the rest of the world, and yourself. Then as a teenager they just piss you off, because you realize the not only are they not perfect, but they may be even a little more screwed up than you. But there’s that moment when you realize they’re not superheroes, or villains. They’re painfully, unforgivably human. The question is, can you forgive them for being human anyway?”

ParentsDryRelatable
Book:Dry
Create image

“I didnt always have things, but I had people. I had a mother and a father who I would match against any other. [...] I had friends who would leap in front of a bus for me. You need to know that I was loved, that whatever my lack of religious feeling, I have always loved my people and that broad love is directly related to the specific love I feel for you.”

LoveInspirationalCommunityFamilyParentsMaterial Possessions
Book:Between the World and Me
Create image

“[The mutually dependent child] cannot rely on his own emotions, has not come to experience them through trial and error, has no sense of his own real needs, and is alienated from himself to the highest degree. Under these circumstances he cannot separate from his parents, and even as an adult he is still dependent on affirmation from his partner, from groups, and especially from his own children ... Unless the heir casts off his 'inheritance' by becoming fully conscious of his true past, and thus of his true nature, loneliness in the parental home will necessarily be followed by an adulthood lived in emotional isolation.”

ChildhoodParents
Book:The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
Create image

“When parents, in the belief that they are doing the right thing, trample underfoot some ideal that lies latent in the heart of their child they cause, more often than not, to germinate in its place disillusionment, hatred, vice; it is fortunate indeed if the existence thus turned awry does not degrade into a life of crime, instead of one of calm content and universal respect.”

IdealsParentsKasimira
Book:The Master Masochist: Tales of a Sadistic Mistress
Create image

“Often a child's very gifts (his great intensity of feeling, depth of experience, curiosity, intelligence, quickness-and his ability to be critical) will confront his parents with conflicts that they have long sought to keep at bay by means of rules and regulations. These regulations must then be rescued at the cost of the child's development. All of this can lead to an apparently paradoxical situation when parents are proud of their gifted child and who admire him are forced by their own repression to reject, suppress, or even destroy what is best, because truest, in that child.”

ChildhoodParentsGifted
Book:The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
Create image

“When you're young, you think of your parents with the simplest adjectives. As you get older, you add more adjectives and notice some of them contradict each other. He's tall. He's tall and strong. He's tall and strong and smart. He's tall and strong and smart but busy. He's tall and strong and smart but busy and aloof and judgemental. She's safe. She's safe and kind. She's safe and kind and caring. She's safe and kind and caring but sad. She's safe and kind and caring but sad and lonely and brittle. Maturity colonizes your adolescent mind, like an ultraviolet photograph of a vast cosmic nebula that turns out, on closer examination, to be a pointillist self-portrait.”

ParentsScifi
Book:All Our Wrong Todays
Create image

“Down by the lake Portia saw the pale green of her mother’s gown. She was with Papa, of course, and as Portia watched, he pulled her into his arms. They must be kissing, though she couldn’t see that far in the hazy light. Their bodies were so close together that they looked like one person. There was something about the way Papa held their mother tightly, as if she were very precious, that made Portia happy down to the bottom of her stomach. “What’s out there?” Emily said, coming up behind her. Portia pointed, even though ladies don’t point. “Ridiculous,” Emily said with a huff of disgust. “That’ll end in another baby, mark my words, Portia.” And it did.”

LoveHumorFamilyChildhoodParents
Book:With This Kiss: Part Three
Create image

“And when I think my thinking rouses me to blame he who created me, And I gave peace to my children for they are in the bliss of the abyss Which surpasses all the pleasures of the world, And had they been born they would’ve endured misery”

ParentsPessimismChildfreeAntinatalism
Book:The Quatrains of Abu'l-Ala: Selected From His "Lozum-Ma-La-Yalzam" And "Sact-Uz-Zind" And Now First Translated Into English
Create image

“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.”

ChildhoodParentsChild AbuseMothers And DaughtersChildhood TraumaNarcissistic AbuseScapegoatInferiority ComplexMother Daughter RelationshipAttachment Trauma
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“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.”

ChildhoodParentsRejectionChild AbuseMothers And DaughtersChildhood TraumaScapegoatInferiority ComplexMother Daughter RelationshipAttachment Trauma
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“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.”

ChildhoodParentsChild AbuseMothers And DaughtersChildhood TraumaScapegoatInferiority ComplexMother Daughter RelationshipEmotional NeglectAttachment Trauma
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“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.”

ChildhoodParentsChild AbuseMothers And DaughtersChildhood TraumaScapegoatInferiority ComplexMother Daughter RelationshipAttachment TraumaEngulfing Mother
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“She went around reading everything- the directions on the grits bag, Tate's notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pretended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom: There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters: Master Jeremy Andrew Clark, January 2, 1939. "Jeremy," she said out loud. "Jodie, I sure never thought a' you as Master Jeremy." Miss Amanda Margaret Clark, May 17, 1937. Kya touched the name with her fingers. Repeated it several times. She read on. Master Napier Murphy Clark, April 14, 1936. Kya spoke softly, "Murph, ya name was Napier." At the top, the oldest, Miss Mary Helen Clark, September 19, 1934. She rubbed her fingers over the names again, which brought faces before her eyes. They blurred, but she could see them all squeezed around the table eating stew, passing cornbread, even laughing some. She was ashamed that she had forgotten their names, but now that she'd found them, she would never let them go again. Above the list of children she read: Mister Jackson Henry Clark married Miss Julienne Maria Jacques, June 12, 1933. Not until that moment had she known her parents' proper names. She sat there for a few minutes with the Bible open on the table. Her family before her. Time ensures children never know their parents young. Kya would never see the handsome Jake swagger into an Asheville soda fountain in early 1930, where he spotted Maria Jacques, a beauty with black curls and red lips, visiting from New Orleans.”

ReadingNamesParentsSiblingsFamily Tree
Book:Where the Crawdads Sing
Create image

“My dad managed to convey the importance of working hard in school using a subtle blend of emotional blackmail (I’m paying for the best high school in New York, don’t make me regret it) and fear (if you don’t work hard now you won’t get into a good college and you won’t get a good job and you won’t meet a nice man and you’ll end your life filled with regret and fast food). It was incredibly effective.”

LifeCollegeParentsParents And Children
Book:I Was Told It Would Get Easier
Create image

“To przedziwne uczucie odkryć, że się jest w wieku swojego ojca czy matki. Człowiek nieomal broni się, żeby nie uwierzyć w to odkrycie. Chciałby wciąż być od nich młodszy. Wydaje mu się, że złamana została naturalna reguła życia, że się jest zawsze młodszym od swoich rodziców i będzie się zawsze młodszym aż do swojej śmierci. I jak w dzieciństwie wydaje mu się, że oni są wciąż jego tarczą, za którą się chowa, mimo że ich już nie ma.”

YouthParentsAging ParentsRule Of LifeProtection Of Parents
Book:Ucho Igielne
Create image

“Ma mère n'allait pas subitement recommencer à se soucier de moi. Elle n'aurait pas de révélation sur ses erreurs passées, elle ne me prendrait pas dans ses bras en me promettant de se rattraper. Elle refuserait de reconnaître sa part de responsabilité. Elle préfèrerait même l'enfouir six pieds sous terre. Elle me ferait des reproches. M'accuserait d'être égoïste, irresponsable, idiote, tous ces adjectifs dont on accable les adolescents abandonnés par leurs parents alors que, complètement brisés, ils hurlent en silence et se débrouillent tant bien que mal pour grandir malgré le trou béant qu'ont laissé les racines sur lesquelles ils auraient dû pouvoir s'appuyer.”

QuoteParentsAdolescenceCitationHolly BourneStrong Girls ForeverReprocheErreurTome 2
Book:How Hard Can Love Be?
Create image

“Was Grandfather trying to tell me something significant in a language I could not interpret? I wanted to establish a sure relationship with him despite his thunder. Grandfather was a man with whom one could be intimate, if he permitted, without ever enjoying an intimate moment. His devotion to me was direct, captivating. He did not want to talk about it, or even show it in any normal manner.”

ParentsFatherhoodMasculinity
Book:The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica
Create image