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Parents Quotes

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Parents Quotes

“From then on, I was terrified that I or one of my parents were going to die. My mother worried me the most. She was the force around which our world turned. Unlike our father, who spent his life in the clouds, my mother was propelled through the universe by the brute force of reason. She was the judge in all of our arguments. One disapproving word from her was enough to send us off to hide in a corner, where we would cry and fantasize our own martyrdrom. And yet. One kiss could restore us to princedom. Without her, our lives would dissolve into chaos.”

LifeMotherFatherGrowing UpAdviceChaosMotherhoodParents
Book:The History of Love
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“I always envisioned myself as traveling the ocean of life in a rowboat where my mother was one oar and my father, the other. Having two good, solid oars made rowing much easier.”

ChildrenMotherFatherFamilyGrowing UpParentingParentsRichelle GoodrichRichelle E GoodrichRichelleImportance Of Family
Book:Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year
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“Your own life starts the moment you're born. Before that, even." "I just, I feel like as long as I live with you, I won't... I'm not... It's like George Jefferson." "From the TV show?" "Right. George Jefferson. As long as he was on 'All in the Family', he was just somebody who made Archie Bunker's story more interesting. He didn't have anything of his own. He didn't have a plot or supporting characters. I don't know if you ever even got to see his house. But after he got his own show, George had his own living room and kitchen... and bedroom, I think. He even had his own elevator. Places for him to exist in, for his story to happen. Like this apartment. This is something that's mine.”

Growing UpParentsComing Of AgeParents And ChildrenMoving Out
Book:Attachments
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“In some ways, forcing me to leave was the best thing that could have happened to me. In other ways, it was a disaster. I'm still glad they did it though, because I think I might have just died if I had stayed at the coast. Although I ended up there a couple years later, when my mother relapsed on a whim, I think I needed that two years away from that horrible little coastal town where time is frozen and ideas creep forward too slow to notice any progress.”

FamilyGrowing UpChildhoodParentsAdolescenceSmall Towns
Book:Speed Needles
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“James, you’d like Lou Reed,” Michael insisted. “He was bisexual.” Their laughter turned to coughs. They were all staring at me when I turned around. I told myself to relax. “Oh, yeah?” I said. “He doesn’t sound bisexual.” Michael just shook his head, but Ronan and Glenn smiled. “They did electroshock therapy on him when he was a teenager,” Michael said. “Electro-what?” said Glenn. “They electrocuted people?” “Kind of. They zapped their brains to alter their personalities. That’s how they tried to make gay people straight back then.” They all looked at me for a response. I shrugged. “So, he was bisexual? It worked halfway?”

LoveRomanceMusicGrowing UpHigh SchoolParentsLgbtComing OutTeenBisexualBisexualityGlbt
Book:True Letters from a Fictional Life
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“Oh bell-dumb heart, it makes you a fool to think you were ever closer to opening up the world — to art, to breaking it apart — than those who came before. But knowing that can't make you read or breathe more slowly. Since when did you listen to anyone? To give up on motivation is to give up on the work we do with alphabet and light. It's not enough to hunt or haunt our parents' hearts; we must occupy our own.”

ArtGrowing UpParentsGrowing Away
Book:Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries
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“Maybe you never stop feeling like an eight-year-old in front of your parents. You resolve to be your mature self, to react in this considered way rather than that elemental way, to breathe evenly from the bottom of your stomach and to see your parents as equals, but within five minutes your intentions are blown to hell, and you're babbling and screaming in rage like an angry child.”

Growing UpParents
Book:The Buddha of Suburbia
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“I know more about my father than I used to know: I know he wanted to be a pilot in the war but could not, because the work he did was considered essential to the war effort… I know he grew up on a farm in the backwoods of Nova Scotia, where they didn’t have running water or electricity. This is why he can build things and chop things… He did his high school courses by correspondence, sitting at the kitchen table and studying by the light by a kerosene lamp; he put himself through university by working in lumber camps and cleaning out rabbit hutches, and was so poor he lived in a tent in the summers to save money… All this is known, but unimaginable. Also I wish I did not know it. I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.”

FamilyGrowing UpParentsComing Of Age
Book:Cat’s Eye
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“Our parents thought we might be corrupted by one another into becoming whatever it was they most feared: an incorrigible masturbator, a winsome homosexual, a recklessly impregnatory libertine. On our behalf they dreaded the closeness of adolescent friendship, the predatory behaviour of strangers on trains, the lure of the wrong kind of girl. How far their anxieties outran our experience.”

Growing UpParentsAdolescents
Book:The Sense of an Ending
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“I found it much more healing, to be honest, to take care of my father's plants.' ...He knew he had cared for something--truly and deeply--and he saw how those things came alive again. He had been so convinced that the only solution was to run away...The solution was always the opposite of what we expected it t be. The solution was to stay here, to plant a rosebush in the middle of Main Street. To wait, to have patience, to watch new life grow up all around him. And now, it's been years. Now, our town depends on Billy. Our town comes to him for help. They ask him to line the walls of the church for their weddings. They ask him to cover the graves of their dead. They have forgiven him.”

GrowthGriefHealingForgivenessParentsPlantsDependableDependFloristFather S Death
Book:Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance
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“From her thighs, she gives you life And how you treat she who gives you life Shows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator. And from seed to dust There is ONE soul above all others -- That you must always show patience, respect, and trust And this woman is your mother. And when your soul departs your body And your deeds are weighed against the feather There is only one soul who can save yours And this woman is your mother. And when the heart of the universe Asks her hair and mind, Whether you were gentle and kind to her Her heart will be forced to remain silent And her hair will speak freely as a separate entity, Very much like the seaweed in the sea -- It will reveal all that it has heard and seen. This woman whose heart has seen yours, First before anybody else in the world, And whose womb had opened the door For your eyes to experience light and more -- Is your very own MOTHER. So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel, Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childish How you treat her is the ultimate test. If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right way With simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness. And always remember, That the queen in the Creator's kingdom, Who sits on the throne of all existence, Is exactly the same as in yours. And her name is, THE DIVINE MOTHER.”

LifeMindHeartChildrenSoulMotherPoetryUniverseWomenExistenceBeautyKindnessFeminismCreationDivineHairMomBirthPoemFemaleSilentValueMotherhoodTreasureParentsDustWomanGentleTreatmentGrandmotherCherishPregnancyMothersGoddessKingdomWomanhoodSistersRoyaltyMother EarthHeartsQueenEulogyThighsMothers And DaughtersNameAbusiveMotheringSuzy KassemFertilitySeedMothers LoveSeaweedChildishDivine MotherFeatherMommyWoman PowerMatriarchMother PoemWoman RightsLoss Of MotherMothers PoemEulogy MotherMother Poetry
Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges, I see my father strolling out under the ochre sandstone arch, the red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head, I see my mother with a few light books at her hip standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its sword-tips black in the May air, they are about to graduate, they are about to get married, they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are innocent, they would never hurt anybody. I want to go up to them and say Stop, don't do it--she's the wrong woman, he's the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do, you are going to do bad things to children, you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of, you are going to want to die. I want to go up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it, her hungry pretty blank face turning to me, her pitiful beautiful untouched body, his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me, his pitiful beautiful untouched body, but I don't do it. I want to live. I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them, I say Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it”

PoetryParents
Author:Sharon Olds
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“Paco Fuentes," Mrs. Peterson says, pointing to the table behind Mary. The handsome young man with pale blue eyes like his mother's and smoky black hair like his father's takes his assigned seat. Mrs. Peterson regards her new student over the glasses perched on her nose. "Mr. Fuentes, don't think this class will be a piece of cake because your parents got lucky and developed a medication to halt the progression of Alzheimer's. Your father never did finish my class and he flunked one of my tests, although I have a feeling your mother was the one who should have failed. But that just means I'll expect extra from you.”

PastMotherFatherClassSonFutureParentsTestAlex FuentesBrittneyMrs PetersonPaco FuentesSeating ArrangementsTwenty Three Years Later
Book:Perfect Chemistry
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“To the loyal and to the blood-lovers, in the good families and in the fiery dynasties, life is family and family is life. It is the same people who give advice and their vices to live well who turn out to be the ones who give resource and reason to live long.”

LoveLifeReasonMotherPurposeFatherFriendshipWealthFamilyMarriageWifeRelationshipBloodAdviceTrustSonBrotherHonorHusbandLivingDaughterResourcesDignityLoyaltyParentsMeaningMeaning Of LifeGrandmotherPurpose Of LifeGrandfatherSpouseCousinNobilityAuntFaithfulnessRoyaltyFellowshipLong LifeSisterMatrimonyDescendantsAncestorsLiving WellDynastyViceRelativesGrandparentsBloodlinesUncleBlood Is Thicker Than WaterHoly Matrimony
Book:Healology
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“At least one of the bills, the one for Mom’s credit card, kind of solved a mystery. Guess what? All those big presents Dad got us—even that dinner at Shoney’s—he put on Mom’s credit card. I bet he’s the one who took Mom’s “missing” Christmas money, too. What a nice guy, huh? There were lots of other things on the bill, too—lots of bar tabs at the Alibi Inn that I know were Dad’s, not Mom’s, because Mom can’t drink more than one beer without falling asleep. And it looks like the card was maxxed out the day after Christmas. So Dad just left when he couldn’t use Mom’s card anymore. It wasn’t my fault at all.”

Life LessonsMoneyParentsJournalCredit CardMargaret Peterson HaddixTish Bonner
Book:Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey
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“Having your parents live rent free in a house is actually a good investment. When they die all you have to do is make sure that they leave everything to you because in some countries you don't pay tax on an inheritance, but you do on rent. And to think that your parents think that you are a nice person and that you love them, but all you are is a shrewd business person. Not to mention that you will also have good tenants who will look after the place. May greed be with us!”

MoneyGreedQuote Of The DayParentsAnthony T HincksInheritanceThe Prophet AvocatoriumTenantsQuotinismRent Free
Author:Anthony T. Hincks
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“The idea of spending money, of buying myself something lovely but unnecessary, has always burdened me. Is it because my father would scrupulously count out his coins, and rub his fingers over every bill before giving me one in case there was another stuck to it? Who hated eating out, who wouldn't order even a cup of tea in a coffee bar because a box of tea bags in the supermarket cost the same? Was it my parents' strict tutelage that prompts me to always choose the least-expensive dress, greeting card, dish on the menu? To look at the tag before the item on the rack, the way people look at the descriptions of paintings in a museum before lifting their eyes to the work?”

MoneyAbuseFinanceParentsStewardshipAllowanceStingySpendthrift
Book:Whereabouts
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“If you have one parent who loves you, even if they can't buy you clothes, they're so poor and they make all kinds of mistakes and maybe sometimes they even give you awful advice, but never for one moment do you doubt their love for you--if you have this, you have incredibly good fortune. If you have two parents who love you? You have won life's Lotto. If you do not have parents, or if the parents you have are so broken and so, frankly, terrible that they are no improvement over nothing, this is fine. It's not ideal because it's harder without adults who love you more than they love themselves. But harder is just harder, that's all.”

LoveParentsMoving On
Book:This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
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“Sometimes we mistake patience for weakness, but the patient person often realizes that it's much more important for another person to discover his or her own gifts and shortcomings--the patient person doesn't feel a need to "fix" other people, and sometimes will let certain things slide until the other person recognizes the problems. Patient parents often let their kids make the same mistake two or three times because they know that a lesson learned oneself is almost always preferable to a lesson given to us by an authority figure like a parent.”

Letting GoWeaknessPatiencePatientParentsControl
Author:Tom Walsh
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