c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Every parent is an artist, for the bared canvas of a newborn’s soul begs for the artist’s touch. And because this is so, a parent must prepare the palette with the utmost care, choose the brushes with poised caution, and mindfully attend to every brushstroke regardless of how slight. And such caution is utterly imperative for the emerging rendering will be both a legacy borne of the parent, and a life lived by the child.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Profound Living
Even though he had admitted to her that he used to watch me shower through a hole in the bathroom wall back when I was thirteen. She blamed us both for what we had "done" to her. But it sounds like she got over being mad at him pretty quick. She later told me that she had to go back and have sex with him one more time, just to make sure that there was nothing left between the two of them and to get some closure. That almost made me want to vomit. The only interaction between us after that was her showing up at the courthouse when I had to sit in front of a grand jury of twelve strangers and tell them what had happened. She came into the waiting room where I was sitting and started screaming that I was a whore and that I'd fucked her husband. She had to be escorted out of the court by two officers. That's what I got from her.
— Ashly Lorenzana, Speed Needles
Narcissism makes people incapable of looking beyond themselves, beyond their own desires and needs.
— Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia: Apostolic Exhortation on the Family
The child you hold in your arms is your gift to a future that you will not see. Therefore, we must turn a blind eye to ourselves and selflessly pour the best of ourselves into our children while rigorously sifting out the worst of ourselves. And once we are utterly spent by such daring gestures, we will shockingly discover the resulting emptiness as astonishingly filled.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Profound Living
My family is my vulnerability.
— Deyth Banger
It's easy to smile just to make other people feel better. But when a person fakes happy, it has edges. Regular people may not see, but the people who count, they can see edges and lines where smile ends and the real you, the sadness (me) or the anger (Grandma) begins.
— Heidi W. Durrow, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
The older Kit gets, the less confident he feels judging other people as spouses or parents. These days, driving past the home of the Naked Hemp Society, he finds himself more curious than contemptuous about their easily ridiculed New Age ways. Why shouldn't they nurse their babies till age four? Why shouldn't they want to keep their children away from factory-farmed meats, from clothing soaked in fire-retardant chemicals, from dull-witted burned-out public school teachers whose tenure is all too easily approved? Why not frolic naked in the sprinkler---under the full moon, perhaps? Why not turn one's family into a small nurturing country protected by a virtual moat?
— Julia Glass, And the Dark Sacred Night
If you ever have a daughter—a blessing I wouldn't wish on anyone, because it's Murphy's Law that sooner or later she will break your heart—anyhow, as I was saying, if you ever have a daughter, you'll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps: those you suspect are sleeping with her and those you don't. Whoever says that's not true is lying through his teeth.
— Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Certainly, child rearing requires many different interventions. There are times for helping, for not getting involved, or for being strict, But the real issue is this: Is what you are going being done on purpose? Or are you doing it from reasons that you do not think about, such as your own personality, childhood, need of the moment, or fears?
— Henry Cloud
Ohana isn’t just your blood, Tess. It’s the family you choose for yourself. Family isn’t just the people who made you; it’s the people who love you.
— Rebecca Addison, The 'Ohana Tree
You won't know how much you’ll miss someone until they’re gone. Go give them a big hug while you have the chance.
— Kevin Focke
Believe me, daughter, there is nothing worse than having your own family member out for revenge.
— Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter
She had not thought it would be so easy to slip into the old roles. Cambridge had changed her fundamentally and she thought she was immune. No one in her family, however, noticed the transformation in her, and she was not able to resist the power of their habitual expectations.
— Ian McEwan
They believe, along the lines of social networks, that love can be connected or disconnected at the whim of the consumer, and the relationship quickly "blocked". We treat affective relationships the way we treat material objects and the environment : everything is disposable; everyone uses and throws away, takes and breaks, exploits and squeezes to the last drop. Then, goodbye.
— Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia: Apostolic Exhortation on the Family
Freedom of choice makes it possible to plan our lives and to make the most of ourselves. Yet if this freedom lacks noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates into an inability to give oneself generously to others.
— Pope Francis
A child deserves to be born of that love, and not by any other means, for “he or she is not something owed to one, but is a gift”, which is “the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of the parents”. This is the case because, “according to the order of creation, conjugal love between a man and a woman, and the transmission of life are ordered to each other (cf. Gen 1:27-28). Thus the Creator made man and woman share in the work of his creation and, at the same time, made them instruments of his love, entrusting to them the responsibility for the future of mankind, through the transmission of human life”.
— Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia: Apostolic Exhortation on the Family
Real problems in life are those related to your wellbeing and the wellbeing of your loved ones... Everything else is NOT a problem!
— Samer Chidiac
Right now, it felt like there was nowhere for his thoughts to alight that wasn't rife with land mines of regret or anger or guilt.
— Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, The Nest
I know that my grandmother certainly did nothing to warrant my mother stealing all of her jewelry that my grandfather had given her as gifts over the years, just so she could peddle it for heroin on the street. Those were precious metals and gems that could never be replaced, and each one had a story behind it. A love story between my grandparents, that my mother flushed down a proverbial toilet so that she could shoot up, throw up and pass out.
— Ashly Lorenzana, Speed Needles
My mother was obviously never there to take the blame she deserved. She left me to absorb it all in her place. She was far too busy in her own world, that incidentally revolved around herself. I'm pretty sure she dated a new guy every few months for most of my childhood. Some would last longer and show up again later after disappearing for a while, like the last day of a cold or flu before you start feeling better.
— Ashly Lorenzana, Speed Needles
He kept her company, listened patiently when she complained, and always made sure her clothes were thoroughly covered in cat hair. They were family. He was her cat; she was his human. It seemed crazy, but that was enough.
— Lydia Sherrer, Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Revelations
Your behavior inside your home is the real indicator of your character. Not in the workplace, not in school. Sure, it's nice to look good when you leave your home, and make a bella figure. But in terms of your identity, the most important thing is who you are with your parents, with your children, with your cousins. Th most important thing is how you behave with he people who really matter.
— Katherine Wilson, Only in Naples: Lessons in Food and Famiglia from My Italian Mother-in-Law
The best don't start at the top; embrace every struggle, mistake, and obstacle you overcame to get there! Persistence and Faith = Success
— Zoe Woods
Her gaze flickered to the balcony doors and back, her brows knitted in confusion. “My balcony doesn’t connect to yours.”“I jumped.” He grinned at the flash of concern he saw in “her eyes. “At dinner, your grandmother informed me that you’d be moving to the room beside mine. She also mentioned how close my balcony was to yours; so close that even an old lady like herself could leap between the two without the least effort.”Venetia’s cheeks heated and she pulled her nightgown closer. “Grandmama is anything but subtle.”“Almost as subtle as your mother.”“Oh, no! Not Mama, too.”Gregor paused beside a small table to pick up a silver tray holding a cut crystal decanter and matching glasses and set it on the table before Venetia. “Your mother was concerned I might be afraid of heights. She told me that if she were thinking of jumping between the balconies and couldn’t bring herself to make the leap, it might be possible to pick the lock on the connecting door with, say, a cravat pin.”Venetia blushed. “I’m surprised they aren’t in here now, throwing rose petals before you as you walk.”“I would never countenance petal tossing. Too showy.
— Karen Hawkins, To Scotland, With Love
It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.
— Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia: Apostolic Exhortation on the Family
We never expressed this to each other in Chinese, because it wasn’t something said in Chinese culture; the emotions were too strong, the words too coarse, and besides, it was assumed that parents and children loved each other.
— Atom Yang, Red Envelope
I had to be an adult, be a father without a son, so for one last moment I needed to be a son who needed his mother.
— Ruth Ahmed, When Ali Met Honour
When I was younger, I thought my task was to forge ahead and succeed as an individual. But growing older has helped me realize that our success lies in our relationships— with the family we are born into, the friends we make, the people we fall in love with, and the children we have. Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we adapt, and at other times we set a course for others to follow. We are all leaders and followers in our lives. We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most important work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most.
— Caroline Kennedy
My family was too precious to forget, and too rare to replace.
— Ji-li Jiang, Red Scarf Girl
Just continue to "walk in the light" you have been given, and leave the future in God's hands. If He is calling you to do a job, He will make it possible for you to care for your family and overcome any other barriers to that responsibility.
— James C. Dobson
How rarely these few years, as work keeps up aloof,Or fares, or one thing or another,How we had days to spend under our parents' roof;Myself, my sister, and my brother.All five of us will die; to reckon from the pastThis flesh and blood is unforgiving.What's hard is that just one of us will be the lastTo bear it all and go on living.
— Vikram Seth
Heavenly blessings are life, grace, hope, faith, love, inner peace, nature, family, friends….!
— Lailah Gifty Akita
We need a mass of ancestors at our backs like a balast. Sometimes, we feel it's impossible to push into the future without such a weight behind us, without such heaviness to keep us steady, even if it is imaginary. And the more frightening the future is, the more complicated it seems to be, the more we steady ourselves with the past.
— Lauren Groff
Dinner is a cacophonous exercise of holy sanctification.
— Jen Pollock Michel
Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wish we had.
— Nancy Samalin, Love and Anger: The Parental Dilemma
In Nita's experience, the best intelligence officers in any big family were found among the younger siblings. They began their careers while small, nonthreatening, and unobtrusive. By adolescence, they developed formidable powers of observation and recollection, to say nothing of an ability to lurk at keyholes and befriend the servants.
— Grace Burrowes, Tremaine's True Love
Honour and I would have to create our world, live by our own rules. My family wasn't ready for her just yet. I didn't know if they ever would be.
— Ruth Ahmed, When Ali Met Honour
He will choose us," Julian said. "We are his family."Kieran's eye shone. "I wouldn'tbe so sure, young Shadowhunter. Those of the Hunt are loyal to the Hunt.""He isn't of the Hunt," Emma said. "He is a Blackthorn.
— Cassandra Clare, Lady Midnight
A Mother & Daughter's Love Is Never Separated
— Viola Shipman, The Charm Bracelet
Sometimes your inability to let go has nothing to do with real love and everything to do with what that person represents in your life. Why do you give them so much importance? Why do you believe that God doesn't love you enough that he would not bring someone else into your life? Why do you put up with less than you deserve?
— Shannon L. Alder
Maybe all that silence about my brother did something to me. I think it did. Not talking can make a guy pretty lonely
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
If my children think I'm genuine, no one else's opinion matters to me.
— Beth Moore, To Live Is Christ
Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings, they're your best link to your past. And the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
— Baz Luhrmann
I hear my family's voices in the jangling of my charms.
— Viola Shipman, The Charm Bracelet
The Kite CharmFor A Life Filled with High-Flying Fun, Play with the Wonder of A Child
— Viola Shipman, The Charm Bracelet
The Sewing Machine CharmTo A Life Bound by Family, The Thread That Ties Us All Together
— Viola Shipman, The Charm Bracelet
Every day, they gave him new reasons to smile, laugh, worry, and wonder.
— C.J. Milbrandt, Inside the Tree: A Ewan Johns Adventure
The Hot Air Balloon CharmLife Can Be Filled with Adventure If You Let Yourself Soar
— Viola Shipman, The Charm Bracelet
I remember at the reception you said to me, 'I'm the daughter of a father who's been married five times. Mother killed herself. My sister killed herself. My brother has been in a mental institution. I'm twenty-three and divorced with two kids.' I said, 'Brooke, either you've got to open the window right now'--we were on the tenth floor--'either you've got to open the window right now and jump out, or say "I'm going to live," because you're right, it's the worst family history that anybody ever had, and either you jump out the window or you live.
— Brooke Hayward, Haywire
Sustainable- Nutritious Eating/Living has a Higher Purpose.
— Elizabeth Salamanca-Brosig
He's part of my family.""You don't have a family, Ella."Although I had made similar comments in the past, it rankled to hear him say it. "We're individuals bound by a pattern of reciprocal obligation," I said. "If a group of chimps in the Amazon can be called a family, I think the Varners qualify.
— Lisa Kleypas, Smooth Talking Stranger
Valentine reminds us that to be fully human is to be both a story teller and a story dweller."--- Christina Meldrum, author of Madapple and Amaryllis in Blueberry
— Tamara Valentine, What the Waves Know
Look, my son, she is so beautiful, she has fair skin and green eyes and brown hair.''She's English?' I asked cheekily, holding the cheap photo print with trepidation. Which unfortunate victim had they found for me to marry in what backwater, unbeknownst that my heart was not for trading? Honour would quote Shakespeare to make a point; for me, it was always Rumi.'La hawla wala kuwwat... May God protect us from such misfortune... you think I have lost my senses that I would marry you to a white girl?' My mum used the word gori as an insult and yet when she talked about Billo she said 'Look how gori she is.'Oh, Mum, the irony.'Well, you seem pretty obsessed with green eyes and skin colour,' I mumbled.'She is gorgeous.' Mum went on ignoring me. 'Think how beautiful your children, my grandchildren, will be? They will have cats' eyes, just like Billo.'Honour has fair skin and green eyes too, and just think how beautiful your grandchildren will be if they're mixed race, I thought.I didn't say that to my mum, obviously.
— Ruth Ahmed, When Ali Met Honour
You feel well, Ali? You have a very faraway look on your face, beta,' my dad said. 'Like you have left your heart behind.'He fixed me with eyes as liquid black as mine and for a moment I felt exposed, like he could see right through me. That irrational childhood thought that he could read my mind maybe.'What nonsense, his heart is here with his mother and his family. Tell him, Ali,' my mother said.'Begum, this generation of boys and girls, you know how they are.' My dad never said my mother's name; she was always Begum, the generic term for 'wife'.
— Ruth Ahmed
I contemplated the phone for some time. Never had I heard her so oddly gay and forthright; as a matter of fact, we hadn't discussed sex since adolescence. Her entire inner life was secretive and mysterious, and no one dared violate it. She sent out powerful "No Trespassing" signals and I had learned to honor them. It crossed my mind that my sister was drunk.
— Brooke Hayward, Haywire
There was something about him that had always rubbed her the wrong way. Before her mother’s death, she [Shiara] could remember her saying that he was a nice enough young man, but not the one for her daughter.
— J.C. Morrows, A Dangerous Love
We spend a lifetime undoing the damage caused by cruelty, neglect, and all manner of lovelessness experienced in our families of origin and in relationships where we simply where we simply did not know what to do.
— bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
I don't understand how I can always want to sleep, hate waking up, and yet be afraid of death.
— Mike Heil, The Quest for Immortality: And Other Misguided Adventures
I have fallen in love with the stories of our lives, our everyday mythologies. How will they unfold? What will become of us?
— D.J. MacLennan, Frozen to Life: A Personal Mortality Experiment
The ones you least expect earn the greatest respect.
— MuQundi Lesli Mbozha, AdowaLeah: The Story of Lily Willow- Gandrille Ascending
War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.
— Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea
My father was a vulture. My mother was a magpie. My oldest brother is a crow. My sister, a sparrow. I have never really been a bird." Lila resisted the urge to say he might have been a peacock. It didn't seem the time.
— V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows
They say that family is the place of safety. But sometimes this is the greatest lie; family is not sanctuary, it is not safety and succour. For some of us, it is the secret wound. Sooner or later we pay for the woundings of our ancestors.
— Nayomi Munaweera, What Lies Between Us
In Sri Lanka, when two strangers meet, they ask a series of questions that reveal family, ancestral village, and blood ties until they arrive at a common friend or relative. Then they say, "Those are our people, so you are our people." It's a small place. Everyone knows everyone."But in America, there are no such namings; it is possible to slip and slide here. It is possible to get lost in the nameless multitudes. There are no ropes binding one, holding one to the earth. Unbound by place or name, one is aware that it is possible to drift out into the atmosphere and beyond that, into the solitary darkness where there is no oxygen.
— Nayomi Munaweera, What Lies Between Us
I wasn't going to go deeper into the darkness for anybody. I was already living in the darkness. My family was my light and I was going to protect that light at all cost. That was where my dedication was, first, last and everything in-between. What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing. Not a damn thing.
— Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. 1
I never stopped loving you, Ronnie. And I never stopped thinking about you. Even if summers do come to an end.
— Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song
Dad, despite the fact you can be a right grumpy bastard, I’m so incredibly grateful to have you in my life.
— K.A. Hill, The Winners' Guide
As long as you stay cool, nothing can defeat you
— Nash
If you have friends and family who love you unconditionally - you truly have everything!
— Lindsey Rietzsch, Successful Failures: Recognizing the Divine Role That Opposition Plays in Life's Quest for Success
The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.
— Gordon B. Hinckley
Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visiting him as often as she could. Hanna told me that Ramon's greatest regret was that he wouldn't get to see his daughter grow up.And Jeremy's dad, who had that opportunity, was just throwing it away.It made me furious, and I couldn't let it go.
— Robin Stevenson, The World Without Us
I truly wanted to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the 'duties' of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I please only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibilities, to be bound by the rules of that group.
— Robin Hobb, Golden Fool
Scenes from the PlayroomNow Lucy with her family of dolls Disfigures Mother with an emery board, While Charles, with match and rubbing alcohol, Readies the struggling cat, for Chuck is bored. The young ones pour more ink into the water Through which the latest goldfish gamely swims, Laughing, pointing at naked, neutered Father. The toy chest is a Buchenwald of limbs. Mother is so lovely; Father, so late. The cook is off, yet dinner must go on With onions as her only cause for tears She hacks the red meat from the slippery bone, Setting the table, where the children wait, Her grinning babies, clean behind the ears.
— R.S. Gwynn
A silence overtook the odd family in their odd surroundings as loss became the mockery of the moment, and they were caught up in the emotional release that is common in a theater audience after the sudden ending of a tragic movie; the curtain closes and the people are still in their seats, numb and sighing their way back into reality.
— Dan Groat, Monarchs and Mendicants
I am getting by doing just the bare minimum and it takes up so many hours of my waking day.
— Nina Montgomery
In this space,We do rawWe do loud hearts& truthful artWe do open arms& unfettered forgivenessWe do realWe do vulnerableWe do wildIn this space,We do loveIn all the shapes& formsThat we come inWe do love
— Bryonie Wise
Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts.
— Ezra Taft Benson
Laughing, I stood up and got her a Coke from the fridge. When I handed it to her, Raven stared at my flat belly then leaned her face against it. “You’re so lucky,” she whispered. “Your mommy will make you laugh and kiss away the tears. She’ll read you books about self esteem then sing you awful songs until you sleep out of boredom. You’re going to grow up so loved and you won’t know any other way.” When Raven looked up at me, she smiled at my tears. “I wish I had a mom like you, Lark. Everyone does. You’re going to love the shit out of this kid and you’ll make it look easy. No worries, okay?” “Okay,” I whispered, caressing her face. “I’m so glad you came home.” “Me too.” The sound of dogs’ claws on the wood floors ended the quiet moment. “Thank goodness we have company,” Raven said. “I was gonna start bawling.” Startled by a new person in the house, Pollack descended into a barking fit while Professor played tough guy by growling. Raven barked back at Pollack who decided she couldn’t argue with crazy and ran away. Already laughing before he turned the corner, Aaron took a minute to realize who was sitting with me. “Raven came home,” I told him and he smiled wider. “She speaks dog too.” “Pollack has never met a challenge she couldn’t run from,” he said then glanced down at a growling Professor. “Hush.” The dog grudgingly quieted, but kept an eye on Raven who stood up and shook Aaron’s hand. “You planning to make an honest woman out of my sister?” she asked in a voice more suiting of a protective dad. “Yes, sir.
— Bijou Hunter, Damaged and the Cobra
But you know how it is with fathers and sons. We can’t say what we want to say. We think a nod is a paragraph and a sentence is a book, and, in the end, all that’s important is left unspoken.
— Peter  Kirby, The Dead of Winter
Treat people like family because they are.
— Dillon Burroughs, Faith Acts: A Provocative Call to Live What You Believe
Your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea,
— Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea
Don't waste your time trying to provide people with proof of deceit, in order to keep their love, win their love or salvage their respect for you. The truth is this: If they care they will go out of their way to learn the truth. If they don't then they really don't value you as a human being. The moment you have to sell people on who you are is the moment you let yourself believe that every good thing you have ever done or accomplished was invisible to the world. And, it is not!
— Shannon L. Alder
Life's a battlefield, and we remain loyal to those who fight for us; those who'd die for us.
— Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading 3
My black-headed black-eyed boy. I remember every day of you. How would I forget?
— Jamie O'Neill, At Swim, Two Boys
How can I give up stalking when I have a family to feed? Get a job? I don't want to work for you, your work makes me puke, do you understand? This is the way I figure it: if a man works with you, he is always working for one of you, he is a slave and nothing else. And I always wanted to be myself, on my own, so that I could spit at you all, at your boredom and despair.
— Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic
I haven’t been able to pray with the same unquestioned simplicity of hope since Dustin passed. My childhood ended the day my brother died. The naive hope that a miracle would save him, that he would one day walk, that a disease was a blessing in my family – that hope died with him.
— Darcy Leech, From My Mother
Keb would never forget how Gracie turned to the wall and trembled, how he felt nailed to the chair, thinking: we build a perfect picture of what we want our children to be. And when that picture falls and shatters, what do we do? His sister Dot once told him: we get on our hands and knees and put the pieces back together, and call it parenting.
— Kim Heacox, Jimmy Bluefeather
There is no way to imagine what it feels like to be shot at. I will never be with him when he is the most scared.
— Melissa Seligman, The Day After He Left for Iraq: A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion
It's funny how people can take up so much roomin your heartbut you still have plenty left for someone else
— Marilyn Hilton
Afghanistan changed him, but Iraq sculpted him.
— Melissa Seligman, The Day After He Left for Iraq: A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion
Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuitions for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth. Think of your mother, who had no father. And your grandmother, who was abandoned by her father. And your grandfather, who was left behind by his father. And think of how Prince's daughter was now drafted into those solemn ranks and deprived of her birthright — that vessel which was her father, which brimmed with twenty-five years of love and was the investment of her grandparents and was to be her legacy.
— Ta-Nehisi Coates
As he moves through his day, sometimes he stops and just stares at me. There is something on the tip of his tongue. But he doesn't say it. I'm not sure he knows what it is.
— Melissa Seligman, The Day After He Left for Iraq: A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion
Your daughter's coming of age, you ought to let her see the world a little.
— Susumu Katsumata, Red Snow
I work at the graveyard. It's a family business passed down to me. I seem to be the last in line, however. But I don't plan to stop. I forget to stop and just keep going. Work to be done. Always something to do. I've been working here for hundreds of years. Burying more and more. It's a family business.
— K.C. Green, Graveyard Quest
She wasn’t sure if she even needed him anymore and the thought made her sad. In consolation, she offered him a kind smile and reached for his dependable hand.
— Tan Redding, A Banquet Of Crumbs
Never write a book and let it sit on a shelf.
— Christine J. Gilbert
Your family's never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere.
— M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans
He's my family, and you don't just push family aside for some itch you want to scratch. That's not how real love works. Real love is support, even when you're fighting. Real love in honesty, even when the truth hurts like hell. Real love is being there through every miserable minute and every indefinite minute.
— Aimee Carter, Queen
We are born among relatives. Family is defined by loyalty.
— Dan Groat
For my mother’s entire life, her mother was less a mother than splintered bits of shrapnel she carried around in her body, sharp, rusty debris that threatened to puncture an organ if she turned a certain way.
— Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
Raising human offspring is an endeavor nothing less than a continued labor of patience, hard work, organization and ongoing adaptation. All of which is unlike that expected of any other living creatures on the planet (or this sector of the universe, as far as we can tell). It demands the most complex responsibility and long-term commitment of any parenting life-form. Indeed, it is at times, at least for quality parents, an overwhelming, exhausting, even daunting task. Albeit, one that in the end, (and, most of the time even in the middle of it), is more than worth it.
— Connie Kerbs
My greatest blessings are my life, my children and my family.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Motherhood (and fatherhood) is one of the most important, while at the same time being one of the most long-time, unappreciated roles we may ever find ourselves in. Add to that, it seems at times to be taken as much for granted by our society at large, as by the developing young we pour our all into. Quality parenting is also wrought with joy and satisfaction at every turn, being one of the most rewarding, and fulfilling experiences we have the opportunity to know in this thing we call the human condition.
— Connie Kerbs
One result of family failure has been the loss of dignity. No better example can be found than in the use of language. [Language has been reduced to] a four-letter word in movies, on television, in comedy routines, and in real life.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
When the family is destroyed, society eventually disintegrates.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
More friction and tensions are caused in a family by tone of voice than for any other one reason.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Many times it takes just one member of a family to initiate the action to bring a family back together again.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
There is something wrong when a brother or sister becomes alienated from the rest of their family, so there is something wrong when Christians refuse to have anything to do with their fellow Christians. God wants us to live this Christian life together.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Your own family circle knows whether Christ lives in you and through you.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
We need to place God at the center of our family . . . As a family, we need to walk with God daily.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
No subject is closer to my heart than the family . . . The moral foundation of our country is in danger of crumbling as families break up and parents neglect their responsibilities.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
A Christian has tremendous responsibilities to his own family. He or she has a responsibility of loving each member of the family.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
If people stumble, we help them get back on their feet; if they veer off course, we urge them back. On this journey we are all brothers and sisters in the same family—the family of God.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
It is only the strong Christian family unit that can survive the coming world holocaust.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Rebellion, waywardness, lack of discipline, confusion, and conflict prevent happy relationships within the home. But God is interested in your family, your marriage, your children. He shows us the ideals and the goals for the family.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
God knew that children grow and mature best in a stable, loving family, and this was one reason He gave marriage to us.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
We have exchanged love of family and home for cyberfriends and living in constant motion that robs the soul from memories—and perhaps from that still, small voice that longs to be heard.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Not only does God give us a new relationship with Himself and make us citizens of His kingdom, but He also gives us a new family—the family of God.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
The Bible says a great deal about entire families coming to Christ. Rahab the harlot . . . the Philippian jailer . . . and Cornelius, the Roman centurion. That could be true in your family too. You may be the one who could lead your family to Christ.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Amazing things can happen when the family of God bands together.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
I was calling you earlier when your name and number flashed up on my cell’s screen. But instead of it being you, it was Chris.”“You still have my number programed into your phone?
— Shaye Evans, Rescued
I wept for my family, all if us, my beautiful, idyllic, lost family. I wept for our excesses, our delusions and inconsistencies; not that we had cared too much or too little, although both were true, but that we had let such extraordinary care be subverted into extraordinary carelessness. We'd been careless with the best of our many resources: each other. It was as though we had taken for granted the fact that there would be more where we had come from too; another chance, another summer, another Brooke, Bridget or Bill.
— Brooke Hayward
His lovely wife tends her zinnias in the mild morning light and his find young man comes fondly mishandling that perpetually lost sheep of a cat, Soapy, once more back from perdition for the time being, to what would have been general rejoicing.
— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
The worst moments are when my entire family is in the same room. With the people I should love the most surrounding me, I feel the most alone.
— Katie McGarry, Crossing the Line
Oh, how terribly backwards, and yet sadly common, it is to sit scowling at family all the day long and then quickly put on a smile for strangers who drop by.
— Richelle E. Goodrich
While most people took family for granted, he [Father Tim] took it for grace.
— Jan Karon, Come Rain or Come Shine
Family will always kill you -- some bit by bit, others all at once. It is the love that does it.
— Tiphanie Yanique, Land of Love and Drowning
Did every step feel like the running leap a bird takes before flight?
— Jesmyn Ward
I need to buy some postcards to send to Mom and Dad,' said Ian, heading up the steas to the Captain's Quill Bookshop. 'I also want to send some funny ones to Jackson and some of my other friends.''I'll get one for my mom,' said Zoe.But as she sorted through the postcards, she remembered her mom was travling all summer without a fixed address, and email was a no-go because Granddad didn't own a computer. She didn't have the addresses of any of her friends with her, either-not that she had many friends.
— Christine Brodien-Jones, The Glass Puzzle
Breathing became a painful chore. Her lips turned down while her warm fingers caressed my cheek. That touch typically brought me to my knees, but now it cut me
— Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits
---Sleeps through the washes of the morning's colors and the warm brilliance of sunrise. She sleeps in a world where she remembers, perfectly, every detail about her husband, this day, that sentence, another touch. She will remember it all in the deepest sleep, and lose it again the moment her eyes open and she wonders how late it must be for the sun to already be so high and then remembers, in the next instant, what happened the day before.
— Ashley Hay, The Railwayman's Wife
Overbearing mothers usually give way to one of two things in their children: rebellion or passivity. In your case, the latter.
— Tarryn Fisher, F*ck Love
May my children and descendants know God and keep His ways.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
I feel like so much has been left undone. There are friends I won't see before I leave, there are bills I still need to pay. I haven't written as much as I've wanted, and there are countless things I've said that I wish I could correct, but this is a process that will never end. When my grandmother died she left a library full of books she never finished reading. This is how I feel now.
— Jason Christopher Hartley, Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq
...parents everywhere desire a better life for their children. It's a near constant: They understand the importance of education and crave it for their children, even as they are well aware of the sacrifice they will have to make.
— John Wood, Creating Room to Read
The family trees of all of us, of whatever origin or trait, must meet and merge into one genetic tree of all humanity by the time they have spread into our ancestries for about 50 generations.
— Guy Murchie
Will having a newborn distract from the time we have together?" she asked. "Don't you think saying goodbye to your child will make your death more painful?""Wouldn't it be great if it did?" I said. Lucy and I both felt that life wasn't about avoiding suffering.
— Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
When a long, long time later, he stares down at the silent blue marble of the earth and thinks of his sister, as he will at every important moment of his life. He doesn't know this yet, but he senses it deep down in his core. So much will happen, he thinks, that I would want to tell you.
— Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You
This is when I understood that we can do without almost anything – our home, even our country. But we will never do without other people, and we will never do without family.
— Hyeonseo Lee, The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
A prisoner should know that there are thousands of imprisoned freemen living in this world…jailed in their own society, handcuffed by duties..
— Munia Khan
What no one tells twentysomethings like Emma is that finally, and suddenly, they can pick their own families - they can create their own families - and these are the families that life will be about. These are the families that will define the decades ahead.
— Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now
The family is the nucleus of civilization.
— Will Durant
And I guess when you take away the resentment and disappointment, it's that simple. It is what we do in families: we help, because we were helped.
— Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
I tell you, families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness.
— Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Geoffrey's own heart felt inconveniently large just then.
— Thomas Hardy
They fuck you up, your mum and dad', and if you're planning on writing that's probably a good thing. But if you are planning on writing and they haven't fucked you up, well, you've got nothing to go on, so then they've fucked you up good and proper.
— Alan Bennett
Just as we shine the light of scrutiny on those around us, so must we also use it to illuminate our own lives
— Shane Eric Mathias, The Happiness Tree: Grow Your Happiness by Cultivating a Healthy, Creative and Purposeful Life
We need to let our family and our friends know this truth—God is love, “and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him. —2 Nephi 26:33
— M. Russell Ballard
Sometimes I help him out and sometimes he helps me out, and sometimes he tries to push me through the wall. (Dark City Lights)
— Parnell Hall
That's how birthdays were in our house. All hateful charades of pretty clothes, expensive presents, and ugly words . . .
— Debbie Howells, The Bones of You
Would you have left a guy being beat up to go find a teacher?' I asked.My father, he wiped his hand across his face, and what was left behind was a smile.Really, a smile.'Not in a million years,' he said.
— Gary D. Schmidt
My grandpa, unlike Jarod Kintz, was an Elder. Now that he's dead and gone, he's a ghost French wizard. And no one knows what French wizards are good at…
— Will Advise, Nothing is here...
I love you is biblical.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
As if each of us might somehow have a blueprint. As if somewhere there's the shape of my life, and I had the chance to choose a few variations, but not far from the pattern.
— David Vann, Aquarium
A single word spoken at an appropriate time can make someone feel loved, comforted or happier.
— Innocent Mwatsikesimbe, The Reason
She needed him. And he was nowhere to be found. There was no else she could rely on. No one like her brother. No one else at all.
— Alan Dean Foster, Star Wars - The Force Awakens
I'd started calling my parents but only when I knew they wouldn't be home.
— Angus McLinn, "Baby Teeth" Songs of my Selfie
Every family has in fact a sacred character belonging to it, which may indeed be forgotten or disdained; but the family is constituted, and ought therefore to be conducted, with the prospect of the rising generation following that which precedes it, not only to the grave, but to eternity"(Christopher Anderson). Every member of every household is an immortal creature; every one that leaves the circle by death, goes into an eternity of torment or bliss. And, since all the ordinances of God look to another world as their chief and ultimate reference, surely, surely, that institute which is the most powerful of all in the formation of character, must be considered as set up with a special intention to prepare the subjects of it for "glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life.
— John Angell James, The Family Monitor, Or, a Help to Domestic Happiness
I am a mother. I see clearly that while I've been teaching them, they have been my reason to learn.
— Tsara Shelton, Spinning In Circles And Learning From Myself: A Collection of Stories that Slowly Grow Up
A woman may try to control the man. But God appointed man as the head of the family.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
You want to know the real reason they never let us touch or talk to each other if they could help it? It made us strong. If you have people who love you, you can fall back on them when you're afraid.
— Alexandra Bracken, Through the Dark
I liked how your teacher said we were 'kindred spirits'. I looked that up on m-w .com and it says that means we are related spirits, like family who is not blood family. I told Mamaw this and she said, 'Sometimes that's the best family of all.
— Silas House & Neela Vaswani, Same Sun Here
No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge.
— Adeline Yen Mah, Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter
It's funny to think that Christmas — a time known for its joyful togetherness — can be the loneliest time of the year for some.
— Giovanna Fletcher, Christmas With Billy and Me
It’s fascinating, really, when you think about it. How a person can slip into a new life as one would a new pair of shoes. At first there’s a keen awareness of the fit: a stiffness at the heel, the binding of the width, the curve pressed to the arch. But with time and enough steps, the feel becomes so natural you almost forget you’re wearing them at all.
— Kristina McMorris, The Edge of Lost
A daughter is a rainbow - a curve of light through scattered mist that lifts the spirit with her prismatic presence. Is a shadow - a reminder of something brilliant ducking out of sight, too easily drawn away. She is an aria, swelling within the concern chamber, an echo reverberating across a miniature sea. She is a secret, whispered, a hint of what we cannot know until it finds us. She is a sliver of her father, a shard of her mother. A daughter is a promise, kept.
— Ellen Hopkins, Triangles
If opportunity knocks, let it in. But with the way things are nowadays-I'd rather meet opportunity somewhere that's more public. I could meet opportunity in a coffee shop, but what if it works there? Well, I could suggest my grandma's basement.-James Lee Schmidt and Jarod Kintz
— James Lee Schmidt, liQUID PROse QUOtes
This girl who's slept a hundred years has something after all. It's called Centuryitis, and it has turned me into a man. Oh, what will mamma think when she sees me?!-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz
— Karen Quan, liQUID PROse QUOtes
I hate when I'm not done with my cup but my mom decides to put it in the dishwasher anyway and the cup isn't dishwasher safe. I keep telling my mom that my origami coffee mugs are hand wash ONLY. Handshakes are also hand wash only.-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz
— Karen Quan, liQUID PROse QUOtes
I've often wondered - where do the people who WORK at coffee shops go to meet their friends - Do they go to Conference Rooms? And if they don't meet in conference rooms, I'd like them to know I'd be willing to rent out my grandma's basement.-James Lee Schmidt and Jarod Kintz
— James Lee Schmidt, liQUID PROse QUOtes
If it tries to take you," Wren said, "I wont' let go.
— Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
I knew that I was the least-loved child because I was a girl and because my mother had died giving birth to me.
— Adeline Yen Mah, Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter