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Parents Quotes

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Parents Quotes

“We've had some happy times here," says Dad, and a shadow passes over his face as he reaches for his glass. Now that I'm properly close to him, I can see that he looks more lined than the last time I saw him. Older. More worried. Not at all like someone who's "never been happier." He's such a performer, Dad. He can fool his guests and even his own family. But life's difficult, I realize. More difficult than he's been letting on. And I feel a wash of shame. Have I ever asked Dad how he's doing? Have I ever looked at him as a person? Or only as my dad, who was supposed to be superhuman and not get divorced and not sell the house and basically never falter in any way, shape, or form?”

FatherFamilyDadParentsDaddy
Book:The Party Crasher
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“Parents have this twisted belief that anyone under the age of about twenty simply can’t know what love is, like the age to love is assessed in the same way the law assesses the legal age to drink. They think that the ‘emotional growth’ of a teenager’s mind is too underdeveloped to understand love, to know if it’s ‘real’ or not. That's completely asinine. The truth is that adults love in different ways, not the only way.”

LoveParentsTeenage Love
Book:The Edge of Never
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“Mr. Lisbon knew his parental and neighborly duty entailed putting the retainer in a Ziploc bag, calling the Kriegers, and telling them their expensive orthodontal device was in safe keeping. Acts like theses -- simple, humane, conscientious, forgiving -- held life together. Only a few days earlier he would have been able to perform them. But now he took the retainer and dropped it in the toiler. He pressed the handle. The retainer, jostled int he surge, disappeared down the porcelain throat, and, when waters abated, floated triumphantly, mockingly, out, Mr. Lisbon waited for the tank to refill and flushed again, but the same thing happened. The replica of the boy's mouth clung to the white slope.”

DeathGriefSocietyParents
Book:The Virgin Suicides
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“When I began writing fact-detective stories, I promised myself that I would always remember I was writing about the loss of human beings, that I was to never forget that. I hoped that the work I did might somehow save other victims, might warn them of the danger. I never wanted to become tough, to seek out the sensational and the gory, and I never have. I have joined the Committee of Friends and Families of Missing Persons and Victims of Violent Crimes, at the invitation of the group. I have met many parents of victims, cried with them, and yet I have somehow felt guilty - because I make my living from other people's tragedies. When I told the Committee how I felt, they put their arms around me and said, "No. Keep on writing. Let the public know how it is for us. Let them know how we hurt, and how we try to save other parents' children by working for new legislation that requires mandatory sentencing and the death penalty for killers." They are far stronger than I could ever be.”

HumansLossGriefKnowledgeTragedyParentsSavingVictims
Book:The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story
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“He couldn't bring himself to let the plants die. His own father had sown and raised most of these plants, and suddenly, Billy wanted to understand why. Billy wanted access to his father's brain in a way he never cared about before. 'That's what happens when parents die,' he says. 'All of the sudden, you want an answer to every question you never thought to ask them.”

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Book:Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance
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“Unconditional love in my family was rare; you had to earn love, but it proved to be an elusive goal, the artist's vanishing point, unreachable in the distance. The more I tried to earn my parents' respect, the more it backfired, having the opposite effect (191).”

GriefMemoirParentsGrief And LossFamily RelationshipsGrief QuotesSelf ActualizationGrief And Loss QuotesFamily ConflictSelf Actualization Quotes
Book:Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery
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“I realize it has taken the death of both my parents for me to finally begin to see who I am, but not through their eyes. I’ll never forget them; my parents I have been in lockstep ever since I was young child, but their words drowned out my own voice. I’m starting to come into my own. (240)”

GriefMemoirParentsGrief And LossFamily RelationshipsGrief QuotesSelf ActualizationGrief And Loss QuotesFamily ConflictSelf Actualization Quotes
Book:Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery
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“We need to take yet another step in reconsidering mourning: resurrecting and redefining, rather than discarding, the significance of detaching from the dead. Paradoxically, detachment is an integral part of the mature posthumous bond as an adult maintains with a parent. It helps us uncover the essence of the relationship beyond the noise of interaction. I believe that what we disconnect from if we are lucky and effective mourners, is not the relationship with deceased parents per se but rather the way we were embedded in that relationship when they were alive. This new stance permits us to reinterpret the past and expands our understanding of what our parents were in relation to them, enhancing recognition, compassion, and sympathy for all concerned. This type of detachment radically changed my life, and the lives of the people I interviewed, for the better. When we finally see with adult eyes, we can recover as well as discover our parents’ hidden strengths and discard their newly obvious weaknesses. Detachment, the perspective it affords, and the growth it makes possible, is the greatest death benefit of all, and the prerequisite for all the rest. 62 Acting responsibly may not be glamorous, but it matters in the end. 194 Your Prescription for Collecting Death Benefits Four Practices to Cultivate Death Benefits Motivate Anticipate Meditate Activate (includes the Three Steps below) Three Steps to Reap Death Benefits Construct a narrative of your parent’s history Conduct a Psychological Inventory of your parent’s character (Includes the Four Questions below) Seek experiences and relationships to create necessary changes Four Questions for Conducting Your Psychological Inventory What did you get from your parent that you want to keep? What did your parent have that you regret not getting? What did you get from your parent that you want to discard? What did you need that your parent couldn’t provide? 215”

DeathGriefParentsMourning
Book:Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult's Life--For the Better
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“We need to take yet another step in reconsidering mourning: resurrecting and redefining, rather than discarding, the significance of detaching from the dead. Paradoxically, detachment is an integral part of the mature posthumous bond as an adult maintains with a parent. It helps us uncover the essence of the relationship beyond the noise of interaction. I believe that what we disconnect from if we are lucky and effective mourners, is not the relationship with deceased parents per se but rather the way we were embedded in that relationship when they were alive. This new stance permits us to reinterpret the past and expands our understanding of what our parents were in relation to them, enhancing recognition, compassion, and sympathy for all concerned. This type of detachment radically changed my life, and the lives of the people I interviewed, for the better. When we finally see with adult eyes, we can recover as well as discover our parents’ hidden strengths and discard their newly obvious weaknesses. Detachment, the perspective it affords, and the growth it makes possible, is the greatest death benefit of all, and the prerequisite for all the rest. 62 Acting responsibly may not be glamorous, but it matters in the end. 194 Your Prescription for Collecting Death Benefits Four Practices to Cultivate Death Benefits 1. Motivate 2. Anticipate 3. Meditate 4. Activate (includes the Three Steps below) Three Steps to Reap Death Benefits 1. Construct a narrative of your parent’s history 2. Conduct a Psychological Inventory of your parent’s character (Includes the Four Questions below) 3. Seek experiences and relationships to create necessary changes Four Questions for Conducting Your Psychological Inventory 1. What did you get from your parent that you want to keep? 2. What did your parent have that you regret not getting? 3. What did you get from your parent that you want to discard? 4. What did you need that your parent couldn’t provide? 215”

DeathGriefParentsMourning
Book:Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult's Life--For the Better
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“When my late father died — now I'm in mourning for my late mother — that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, "I will not let you go until you bless me.”

LifeJoyLossGriefImportanceSimplicityParentsGrievingMourningBereavementRelevance
Author:Jonathan Sacks
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“Parents are to teach their kids, to give them tools and opportunities in which to learn and grow. Parents are not to learn for their kids, for what benefit is it to anyone if we prevent our children from acquiring their own knowledge?”

Life LessonsChildhoodParentingParentsRichelle GoodrichRichelle E GoodrichTeaching Children
Book:Hope Evermore: Quotes, Verse, & Spiritual Inspiration for Every Day of the Year
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“I don't want to die. I deserve, certainly, the most extreme punishment society has, and I think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me. That's the irony. What I'm talking about is going beyond retribution because there is no way in the world that killing me is going to restore those beautiful children to their parents and correct and soothe the pain.”

WorldWantChildrenPainBeautifulSocietyDeserveKillingPunishmentParentsIronyProtectedDieLikeOthersMeToIIsGoingDon TCorrectFromTheirExtremeRestoreThoseTed BundyHasSootheTedBundyNo Way
Book:Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future
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“I told him I would go up there; he said no, no, everything was fine. I drove up anyway and when I opened the door to the house he was sitting alone in the kitchen, the kettle on the stove madly whistling away. He was fast asleep; after the stroke he sometimes nodded off in the middle of things. I woke him, and when he saw me he patted my cheek. 'Good boy,' he muttered. I made him change his clothes and then fixed us a dinner of fried rice from some leftovers.”

GuiltAgingParentsNeedAging ParentsBurdened
Book:Native Speaker
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“As parents one of the biggest jobs we have, is teaching our children how to resolve problems effectively. We live in an era where everyone is quick to act the fool over simple issues. As we used to say when I was on the streets, ‘everybody wants to cut a movie’.”

Letting GoParentingParentsParenthoodConflict ResolutionWalking AwayConflictsPeace MakerResolving ProblemsStreet ViolenceAct The FoolCut A MovieSimple IssuesYouth Violence
Book:The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father
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“You see parents as kind or unkind or happy or miserable or drunk or sober or great or near-great or failed the way you see a table square or a Montclair lip-read. Kids today... you kids today somehow don't know how to feel, much less love, to say nothing of respect. We're just bodies to you. We're just bodies and shoulders and scarred knees and big bellies and empty wallets and flasks to you. I'm not saying something cliché like you take us for granted so much as I'm saying you cannot... imagine our absence. We're so present it's ceased to mean. We're environmental. Furniture of the world.”

ChildrenExistenceGenerationsParents
Book:Infinite Jest
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“Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudiced and muddled folk wisdom - how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right!”

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Book:Love Over Scotland
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