c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
To practice with an end in view is to have one eye on the practice and the other on the end, which is lack of concentration, lack of sincerity.
— Alan W. Watts
The brush must draw by itself. This cannot happen if one does not practice constantly. But neither can it happen if one makes an effort.
— Alan W. Watts
Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form…the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directions, which suggests either that the earth is at the center of the universe, as in our innocence we once supposed, or that the known universe has no center.
— Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard
...it should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed.
— James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
If you are surrounded by people who not only don't believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that you can be happy.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow; If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens.Such a body has no place to rest. . . .Let another continue this poem.
— Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
The true source of happiness is within each of us.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discovered.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
Your actions create an "energy vortex" that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains us daily in everything we think and do. It gives us optimism and hope.
— Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.
— David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
We will be entering the beautiful world of a Zen master's no-mind. Sosan is the third Zen Patriarch. Nothing much is known about him- this is as it should be, because history records only violence. History does not record silence- it cannot record it. All records are of disturbance. Whenever someone becomes really silent, he disappears from all records, he is no more a part of our madness. So it is as it should be.Ch. 1: The Great Way Is Not Difficult
— Osho, Hsin Hsin Ming, the Book of Nothing: Discourses on the Faith Mind of Sosan
May we exist like a lotus, / At home in the muddy water. / Thus we bow to life as it is.
— Zen
What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The object of our lives is to look at, listen to, touch, taste things. Without them—these sticks, stones, feathers, shells—there is no Deity.
— R.H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature & Oriental Classics
For some reason when I type the word "love" in my iPad it keeps autocorrecting to "live". I find it oddly profound. My ipad IS. My iPad is ZEN: “Only the iPad that autocorrects can write the true thing.
— Annastacia Dickerson
For us life is a fact, no less, and, above all, no more.
— Julien Torma, 4 Dada Suicides: Selected Texts of Arthur Cravan, Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma, and Jacques Vaché
The present is always the best, even when its rough.
— Julien Torma, 4 Dada Suicides: Selected Texts of Arthur Cravan, Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma, and Jacques Vaché
To enter the Buddha Way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad.
— Dōgen, A Primer Of Soto Zen
See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn't bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.
— Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life
Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.
— Dōgen, A Primer Of Soto Zen
With passions stilled and one's nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure.
— Wu Cheng'en, Journey to the West
Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, “I know what Zen is,” or “I have attained enlightenment.” This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.”-“When you are sitting in the middle of your own problem, which is more real to you: your problem or you yourself? The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact. ”-“Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of “form is form and emptiness is emptiness.”-“You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice.”-“The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture.
— Shunryu Suzuki
When the cart doesn't move, do you goad the cart or the ox?
— Nanyue Huairang
No bow can be strung indefinitely, for it will surely break
— Nicholas C. Rossis, Rise of the Prince
The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains.I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in pure air.
— Bassui Takusho
if only people stopped acting like they've been asked to donate a lung every time somebody asks for something the world would be a better place
— Alina Radoi
The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday-or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme of things, and there was no such thing as Yesterday or Tomorrow.
— Lilian Jackson Braun
Amazing how the most obvious things escape your notice. Maybe the truth is exactly the things you don't notice. Maybe the aim to see and tell the truth is inherently futile, a contradiction in terms, and it's exactly those things about oneself and the world that are invisible because they are woven into one's fabric that are the truth. Just like a person can't see his own eyes. You search and search and search, and the truth, by definition, is exactly that which you don't find. You don't see the truth, you are the truth. "Habits of attention are reflexes of the complete character of an individual." And how could you notice your own habits of attention? By writing. Well, at their most profound level? It doesn't make any difference. That is the point. It's like Zen. The truth is not straining for the truth, the truth is in effortlessness. The truth is in being, not trying. Aw hell, that doesn't leave much too chew on.
— Richard Hell, Go Now
I am everything. I am nothing. I am powerful. I am forgotten.
— Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Nobody
Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.
— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
You want to know my name? --a hill, a tree. An empty drifting boat.
— Hsu Hsuan
Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment
You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence. If you’re a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren’t working on your machine, what trap avoidance, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together ... The real cycle you're working in is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Qaulity or fall away from Qaulity together.
— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.
— Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
Each situation is a blossom to be picked with a curious spirit.
— Donna Quesada, Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers
The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things. . . . When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living. To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku. It is having life more abundantly.
— R.H. Blyth
The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.
— Eugen Herrigel
You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies...The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You...brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way--like the hand of a child.
— Eugen Herrigel
Umasi kept walking, out of sight and into the glittering night. Meahwhile, Zen lay alone, defeated on the cold ground, knowing that he had truly been left behind. Then the memories returned, and for the first time in his life, he cried.
— Isamu Fukui, Origins
What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly? Perfectly is in the will; perfectly is in the activity. Perfectly means that at each moment of the activity there is no egoism in it… our pain is not only our own pain; it is the pain of the universe. The joy of the universe is also our joy. Our failure and misjudgment is that of nature, which never hopes or despairs, but keeps on trying. R. H. Blyth
— R.H. Blyth
Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deitiesAnd you will be able to compose your own tune.Then you and I, united, will clap hands joyously,Singing 'tum-tiddly-um tum-tiddly-um-tum.
— Hongzhi Zhengjue
Can we cut the Zen crap for a moment?" I ask. "I'm trying to beat this bag to a pulp.
— Mari Mancusi
Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose.
— R.H. Blyth
Think of the jazz improv artist responding to the musical banter among her fellow players onstage. Aside from whatever training they've done in advance, as soon as the curtain opens, they move into unknown territory together, creating something new each time by remaining in a state of undivided presence.
— Donna Quesada, Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers
This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.
— Eugen Herrigel
These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.
— R.H. Blyth
A walk with a two-year-old is very Zen; it is not about the end but the journey. He needs to pet the dog someone is walking; to roll down the slight incline to the church basement, and then roll again, and again, and again; to remind me of the place where the wasps (he calls them bees) live, then zoom past it.
— Marc Aronson, Guys Write for Guys Read
Don't be ridiculous, Charlie, people love the parents who beat their kids in department stores. It's the ones who just let their kids wreak havoc that everybody hates.
— Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job
Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet.
— Bill Cosby
Parents had some kind of sin radar, Claire thought. They always called when you were in the middle of something you just knew they'd consider wrong. Or at least risky.
— Rachel Caine, Midnight Alley
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 as
— J.A. Redmerski, The Edge of Never
First your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
— Chuck Palahniuk
You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.
— Alice Munro, Open Secrets
I cannot help but wonder if any parents ever actually schedule in adolescent drama on their day planners. Looks like a slow week, Sarah. I guess I can pencil in your eating disorder.
— Huntley Fitzpatrick, My Life Next Door
It's amazing--my parents call everything a discussion. If I were standing across the street, firing a bazooka at my mother, while my father was launching mortar back at me, and Jeffery was charging down the driveway with a grenade in his teeth, my parents would say we should stop having this public "discussion".
— Jordan Sonnenblick, Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie
Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless —unless they've got to.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be, when you grow up.
— Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
but my dad said it was no excuse."But I love him!" I had never seen my sister cry that much."No, you don't.""I hate you!""No, you don't." My dad can be very calm sometimes."He's my whole world.""Don't ever say that about anyone again. Not even me." That was my mom.
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Nothing could convince Aunt Nelly to let Vlad stay home for the duration of the school year, which just goes to prove that parents and guardians don't care if they're sending you to face bloodthirsty monsters, so long as you get a B in English.
— Heather Brewer, Eighth Grade Bites
But I'm learning it's human nature to want the things you can't have. What changes is how you go about pursuing the things you want. When you're a little kid and you're told no, you scream and throw a temper tantrum. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you no, you're old enough to internalize your temper tantrum. But you're smarter and you're sneakier this time around. So you nod and act like you care when they say no, when they tell you who you can be friends with, when they say the know what's best. But then you go behind their backs to do it anyway. Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you need to start believing you know whats best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place.
— Katie Kacvinsky, Awaken
We don't always do the things our parents want us to do, but it is their mistake if they can't find a way to love us anyway.
— J. Courtney Sullivan, Commencement
There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears.
— Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic
I never, even for a moment, doubted what they’d told me. This is why it is that adults and even parents can, unwittingly, be cruel: they cannot imagine doubt’s complete absence. They have forgotten.
— David Foster Wallace
Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat...college,
— Woody Allen
Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.
— Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Oh, Daja," moaned Jory, "you sound just like my parents." She ran from the schoolroom."Well, there's no reason to insult me, "muttered Daja, half offended.
— Tamora Pierce, Cold Fire
Athletes are born winners, there not born loosers, and the sooner you understand this, the faster you can take on a winning attitude and become sucessful in life.
— Charles R. Sledge Jr.
I’m going, and don’t you dare try to stop me.”I ran through the door, willing myself to make it downstairs before I started to cry.
— Claudia Gray, Stargazer
Our parents were a test tube and a turkey baster.
— James Patterson, Fang
Eventually, I manage to cheer Mum up by allowing her to go through my wardrobe and criticize all my clothes...
— Helen Fielding
It was as if something snapped in two deep inside me. My parents-- the people I’d loved the most in the world, the ones I’d always told all my secrets to, the ones I’d wanted to hide with far away from the rest of the world. They had lied, and I couldn’t imagine why. It couldn’t possibly matter why.
— Claudia Gray, Stargazer
Clarity and focus doesn’t always come from God or inspirational quotes. Usually, it takes your mother to slap the reality back into you.
— Shannon L. Alder
Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encouraged them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.
— Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle
No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.
— Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle
The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children.
— Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero
But it was my parents I longed for mostly. I wanted to be a little girl again and cuddle into them, wriggling in between them like I'd done in their bed when I was three or four, snug and warm in the safest place in the world.Instead I had Hell.
— John Marsden, Darkness, Be My Friend
Mom and Dad exchange a nervous glance and have a telepathic conversation about it. I hear every word. Do we let her out? It's past curfew. True, but look at that—at least she asked! I know! I can hardly believe it! She could have sneaked out, but she asked! I know! We're good parents! "What time will you be back?" Dad asks.
— Courtney Summers, Cracked Up to Be
No child, no matter what path they may have chosen, should be abandoned by the people who should love them the most. When two people come together and make the conscious decision to create a life, they have an obligation to protect and love that child until death.
— S.L. Jennings, Dark Light
Our parents prayer is the most beautiful poetry and expectations
— cG9sYXJhZGl0aWE=
My parents were supportive of my creativity but did not have a lot of patience for whimsy with zero production value. They had stuff to do.
— Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
If we're to be judged by our parents and grandparents, then we all may as well impale ourselves upon bits of rock.
— Kristin Cashore, Fire
When I was a boy, I passed a homeless man, drunk and begging on a street corner. My father, sensing my disgust, said something I never forgot, that I think of every time I see your face on the news or in the paper- "That man was once someone's little boy.
— Blake Crouch, Unconditional
She has to live, Eliott. I owe her a lifetime of apologies.”“Sometimes I think that’s all we owe our parents.
— Bethany Griffin, Masque of the Red Death
That first pregnancy is a long sea journey to a country where you don't know the language, where land is in sight for such a long time that after a while it's just the horizon - and then one day birds wheel over that dark shape and it's suddenly close, and all you can do is hope like hell that you've had the right shots. 
— Emily Perkins, Novel About My Wife
His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile.
— Margaret Atwood
There’s no winning arguments with your parents, so why get all pumped up over them? It is way better to dive down and get out of the way than it is to get clobbered by some parental tidal wave.
— Wendelin Van Draanen
In view of this and other things, I demand forgiveness for being so obviously impressed with my own parents.
— Beryl Markham, West with the Night
Our fathers never leave us. Ever.
— Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle
Worship Allah and associate nothing with Him, and to parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbor, the neighbor farther away, the companion at your side, the traveler, and those whom your right hands possess (slaves). Indeed, Allah does not like those who are proud and boastful.[Al-Qur'an Surah Nisa 4:36]
— Asma Naqi
Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away.
— Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
sodoyouthinkyoucouldtrustmetogotothedancetonight?" she blurted before losing her nerve. Viktor and Viveka exchanged a quick glance.Are they considering it? They are! They trust -"No," they said together. Frankie resisted the urge to spark. Or scream. Or threaten to go on a charging strike. She had prepared herself for this. It had always been a possibility. That's why she'd read 'Acting For Young Actors: The Ultimate Teenage Guide' by Mary Lou Belli and Dihah Lenney. So she could act like she understood their rejection. Act like she accepted it. And act like she would return to her room with grace. "Well, thanks for hearing me out," she said, kissing them on the cheeks and skipping off to bed. "Good night.""Good night?" Viktor responded. "That's it? No argument?""No argument," Frankie said with a sweet smile. "You have to see this punishment through or you're not teaching me anything. I get it.""O-kay." Viktor returned to his medical journal, shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing."We love you." Viveka blew another kiss."I love you, too." Frankie blew two back.Time for Plan B.
— Lisi Harrison, Monster High
No. Absolutely not. I forbid it. You'll have nightmares." "She was my friend! You must allow me. Why are you so horrid?" As soon as the angry words were out of my mouth, I knew I had gone too far. "Matilda!" Mother rose from her chair. "You are forbidden to pseak to me in that tone! Apologize at once.
— Laurie Halse Anderson, Fever 1793
For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling "vaguely guilty.
— William S. Burroughs, The Cat Inside
Not willingly," admitted the tiger. "But here is the alternative; either you transform yourself into an eye for our child, or I and my dear wife will tear you into shreds.
— L. Frank Baum
I've been alone since my mom met Scott.He sucked the nectar from her heartlike a famished butterfly. No nurture,no nourishment left for Kristina.A vacation is a poor substitutefor love.
— Ellen Hopkins
Rationalizing him and the glass pipe, Dad smoked crack, but he was not a crackhead; it was just something he did. To do something didn't define you, I thought.I saw Dad through a dusty lens that distorted our relationship, as tarnished as his pipe. He was no longer just our father; he was his own person, with an identity and label and body separate from his relationship with us. He was someone who was judged outside of the lens of fatherhood, outside of our connection. When he was in the streets, he was not Dad. He was Charlie the crackhead.
— Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love  So Much More
So I'll send my parents money, and maybe they can get a bigger place, too. They can even relax when they're older, the way they deserve to. Without having to worry about how they're going to survive. But for now, I'm the one who has to survive.
— Susane Colasanti, Take Me There
I met this boy here who I knew as a kid and his mum left him with a pedophile for two weeks when he was eight years old and I'm presuming you know everything there is to know about Jonah's father, and that my father is dead, and my mother hasn't been around for years, and God knows Jessa's real story. So what I'm saying here, Sergeant, is that we're just a tad low on the reliable adult quota so you have no right to be all self-righteous about what Chaz did and if you're going to go around not talking to him when his only crime was wanting me to have what he has, then I think you're going to turn out to be a bit of a dud and you know something? I'm just a bit over life's little disappointments right now. Do you understand what I'm saying?
— Melina Marchetta, On the Jellicoe Road
If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. I hope and pray that all you parents in the sound of my voice will train up your children in the way they should go.
— Charles Portis, True Grit
The problem was that I'd never worn a bikini before. My dad doesn't allow them. He thinks even one-pieces show too much skin and constantly suggests that Jane and I wear wet suits.
— Janette Rallison, My Fair Godmother
A dog's good for filling a grief-dug hole.""In the Shape of Shep
— Eileen Granfors, Flash Warden and Other Stories
His parents’ pregnancies must have been all-out chromosomatic war
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Nightmares did come true. Because, after her second night of major loving with the man of her dreams, the absolute last person she ever wanted to see was her mother. Yet there she was, her small, hefty frame trundling up the stairs to Maira’s front door.She was so frozen with horror, she couldn’t move until she heard the doorbell ring.Don’t answer it. Maybe she’ll go away.Well, that was just stupid.
— Alisha Rai, Veiled Seduction
I like parents, old-school, old-world parents. So real. Just think of all they've seen in their lives. They were born in another world and now they can watch it on Google maps. So much change for a single soul to see.
— Laleh Khadivi, A Good Country
The cake is pretty simple; they didn't want anything too fancy. Two tiers. The bottom is the Frango mint tier from the cake contest, but the top is a new one. An almond cake with a whipped honey caramel filling and a layer of thinly sliced spiced poached pears, with vanilla buttercream. The whole cake will get a smooth white fondant coating, and then a detailed lace pattern hand-piped with white royal icing. They've opted out of toppers, so I've made some simple wildflowers out of gum paste, colored with the powdered food colors to look incredibly real.
— Stacey Ballis, Wedding Girl
It’s funny… when you’re young you spend your life trying to convince yourself you’re not like your parents. And then, every now and then, you’ll do something a certain way, some mannerism, or you’ll say something. When our car broke down upstate, I remember I hit the wheel and said, ‘I’m not made of money!’ And I caught myself and thought, Gee, Louie, you just sounded like Pop. When you’re young and it happens, it drives you crazy. And then you live long enough, and it makes you smile a little.” He wipes a tear from his eyelashes with the back of his hand. “That’s a nice part of life,” he says.
— Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon
When i get into the best college in America, he is cutting radishes for dinner. I have just found out ten minutes ago. I am elated. He puts down the knife to shake my hand and then goes back to cutting radishes.
— Weike Wang, Chemistry
There must be other leaps in life - as momentous as the "mirror stage" - that Lacan didn't mention. Some are universal; others, culturally particular. To understand that your parents are human (and not an element of the natural world), that they're separate from you, that they were children once, that they were born and came into the world, is another leap. It's as if you hadn't seen who they were earlier - just as, before you were ten months old, you didn't know it was you in the mirror. This happens when you're sixteen or seventeen. Not long after - maybe a year - you find out your parents will die. It's not as if you haven't encountered death already. But, before now, your precocious mind can't accommodate your parents' death except as an academic nicety - to be dismissed gently as too literary and sentimental. After that day, your parents' dying suddenly becomes simple. It grows clear that you're alone and always have been, though certain convergences start to look miraculous - for instance, between your father, mother, and yourself. Though your parents don't die immediately - what you've had is a realisation, not a premonition - you'll carry around this knowledge for their remaining decades or years. You won't think, looking at them, "You're going to die". It'll be an unspoken fact of existence. Nothing about them will surprise you anymore.
— Amit Chaudhuri, Friend of My Youth
If your parents bring you no shame, be very grateful. If you're proud of them, celebrate.
— Dennis Prager, A Dark Time in America
No matter how old you are, as long as a parent is alive, you are still a child. It is only after both die that you cease being a child. And then, all of a sudden, not only are you no longer a child, you are also next in line.
— Dennis Prager, A Dark Time in America
Surprise was not when i thanked my parents. Surprise came when they said, "What for"?
— Faisal Khosa
The foundation that my parents and grandparents instilled in me is unyielding, especially the principle that teaches me to keep God first in all I do.
— Carlos Wallace, The Other 99 T.Y.M.E.S: Train Your Mind to Enjoy Serenity
Parents, teachers, and politicians should not be judged by their popularity.
— Min Kim
Killing things shouldn't make you happy, Rosa. That's why they're worried.
— Justine Larbalestier, My Sister Rosa
Some parents whenever their children have an independent thought they wrap them up in warm ignorance and send them to bed
— rassool jibraeel snyman
I don't think they're terrible parents. They love us. I think they're negligent parents. That's not the same thing.
— Justine Larbalestier, My Sister Rosa
The saddest realization I’ve had in my life is that my parents are people. Sad, human people. I aged a decade in that moment.
— Amy Schumer
Is there a magical time when children become parents to their parents?
— Ralph  Webster, A Smile in One Eye: a Tear in the Other
We’re too often guilty of thinking that our parents arrived on this planet as fully functioning adults on the day that we were born. That they don’t have pasts of their own prior to our birth. That the father is not also a son, that the mother is not also a child. My mother had a tough beginning, enduring things I know little about. And yet I more often discount her pain and overvalue mine.
— Steven Rowley
Is there a magical age when children become parents to their parents?
— Ralph  Webster
What is the matter with people?” Sam fumed. “I said we needed a hundred kids and we get thirteen? Fifteen, maybe?”“They’re just kids,” Astrid said.“We’re all just kids. We’re all going to be very hungry kids.”“They’re used to being told what to do by their parents or teachers. You need to be more direct. As in, Hey, kid, get to work. Now.” She thought for a moment then added, “Or else.”“Or else what?” Sam asked.“Or else…I don’t know. We’re not going to let anyone starve. If we can help it. I don’t know the ‘or else.’ All I know is you can’t expect kids to just automatically behave the right way. I mean, when I was little my mom would give me a gold star when I was good and take away a privilege when I wasn’t.”“What am I supposed to do? Tell three hundred kids spread out in seventy or eighty different homes that they can’t watch DVDs? Confiscate iPods?”“It’s not easy playing daddy to three hundred kids,” Astrid admitted.“I’m not anyone’s daddy,” Sam practically snarled. Another sleepless night, in a long string of them, had left him in a foul mood. “I’m supposed to be the mayor, not the father.”“These kids don’t know the difference,” Astrid pointed out. “They need parents. So they look to you. And Mother Mary. Me, even, to some extent.
— Michael  Grant, Hunger
Of all the lessons my parents taught me,GIVING was the best
— Charmaine J. Forde
All of us have parents. Generations pass. We are not unique. Now it is our family's turn.
— Ralph  Webster, A Smile in One Eye: a Tear in the Other
My parents have lived longer than most and have expected very little. We have been blessed in too many ways to count.
— Ralph  Webster, A Smile in One Eye: a Tear in the Other
I want you to remember that you can’t feel responsible for everything. We’re your parents, and we will figure us out. All you need to do— any of you”— she looks at my brothers—” is be a kid for now and let us be there for you.”“All of us?” Dusty says. “Even those of us without neurological disorders?” “All of you.
— Jennifer Niven, Holding Up the Universe
Sorry to disappoint you, parents - but when your kids come out as gay, bi or transgender, it is not about you.
— Christina Engela, Fearotica: An Anthology of Erotic Horror
I’ve written more about my parents than any writer in the history of the world, and I still return to their mysterious effigies as I try to figure out what it all means—some kind of annunciation or maybe even a summing-up They still exert immense control over me even though they’ve been dead for so long. But I can conjure up their images without exerting a thimbleful of effort.
— Pat Conroy, A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life
He saw what they either couldn't see or couldn't allow themselves to see, and that only made him more pissed, because being less stupid than one's parents is repulsive, like taking a gulp from a glass of milk that you thought was orange juice.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am
Anyone could father a child. But a good parent puts his child's needs before his own. A parent should be selfless not selfish.
— Penelope Ward, Playboy Pilot
My parents spent countless hours teaching me to read and write. My mother was an English teacher who patiently taught me where to put my periods and commas, and my father, who loves books more than anyone I know, taught me from an early age that books are precious and should be handled gently , "like butterflies.
— Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It
Because you don't get to choose your parents, , and at some point you realise that maybe your parents just aren't able to parent very well, but we exist, and the only choice we've got in the whole situation is whether we're gonna love them anyway. It's as simple and messy and complicated as that
— Megan Jacobson, Yellow
A lot of parents make you feel very awkward when you meet them.
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Do you have kids?" Anna asks.I laugh. "What do you think?""It's probably a good thing," she admits. "No offense, but you don't exactly look like a parent."That fascinates me. "What do parents look like?"She seems to think about this. "You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.
— Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
Father is Everyone's First Preceptor.Happy Father's Day!
— Mohith Agadi
my parents Oedipal fakers
— Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water
He was big, that Sid. He was a force, a character, and I wondered fleetingly if Sally and I would ever seem as big to our offspring as Sid had seemed to us.
— Martha Moody, Best Friends
My parents have always worried that I’d take Amy too personally — they always tell not to read too much into her, And yet I can’t fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right: When I finally quit violin at age twelve, Amy was revealed as a prodigy in the next book. (“Sheesh, violin can be hard work, but handwork is the only way to get better!”) When I blew off the junior championship at age sixteen to do a beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game. (“Sheesh, I know it’s fun to spend time with friends, but I’d be letting myself and everyone else down if I didn’t show up for the tournament.”) This used to drive me mad, but after I wend off to Harvard (and Amy correct those my parents’ alma mater), I decided it was all too ridiculous to think about. That my parents, two child psychologists, chose this particular public form of passive-aggressiveness toward their child was not just fucked up but also stupid and weird and kind of hilarious.
— Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Her deep romantic nature prevented her from demanding, from asking for that quenching. She wanted it to come freely, like flowers that are sent and not requested.
— Sean Ferrer
As I discussed in the previous chapter, attachment researchers have shown that our earliest caregivers don't only feed us, dress us, and comfort us when we are upset; they shape the way our rapidly growing brain perceives reality. Our interactions with our caregivers convey what is safe and what is dangerous: whom we can count on and who will let us down; what we need to do to get our needs met. This information is embodied in the warp and woof of our brain circuitry and forms the template of how we think of ourselves and the world around us. These inner maps are remarkably stable across time.This doesn‘t mean, however, that our maps can‘t be modified by experience. A deep love relationship, particularly during adolescence, when the brain once again goes through a period of exponential change, truly can transform us. So can the birth of a child, as our babies often teach us how to love. Adults who were abused or neglected as children can still learn the beauty of intimacy and mutual trust or have a deep spiritual experience that opens them to a larger universe. In contrast, previously uncontaminated childhood maps can become so distorted by an adult rape or assault that all roads are rerouted into terror or despair. These responses are not reasonable and therefore cannot be changed simply by reframing irrational beliefs.
— Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
We have relinquished and abandoned and left behind and forgotten what we believed we had to relinquish, abandon and leave behind and ultimately forget; we have let ourselves go and we have gone away and we have gone under, but we have relinquished nothing and abandoned nothing and left behind nothing and forgotten nothing; we have in reality extinguished nothing whatsoever, because our parents did not inform us of or enlighten us about the fact that our life-process is in reality nothing but a process of illness. We were up above, in the company of our parents, locked up in our walls and in our rooms and in our books and papers and everything around us and in us was nothing but lethal and we are down below, without our parents, again locked up in these walls and in our rooms and in our books and papers and everything around us and in us is nothing but lethal.
— Thomas Bernhard
Carpe Infans! Beware BabiesThere is no other human so seductive that an otherwise rational human will feed, clothe, sit up nights, work trigonometry with, bake cookies for, and generally tolerate for such long extents of time for such paltry returns of goods and services. They are a trap for the unwary ... all of us.
— W. Clark Boutwell, Outland Exile
It felt like so many years' worth of anxiety and worry were trying to escape all at once—maybe like an emotional volcano, only my mom and dad, they didn't run away to save themselves but sprinted right into my lava. They both jumped up off the couch and wrapped their arms around me even though it meant touching each other. We stayed like that for a long time, and it felt good—almost enough to justify everything that had precipitated it, but not quite.
— Matthew Quick, Every Exquisite Thing
Mrs. Bird smiled at me as I arrived at her side. "They can surprise us, can't they, our parents? The things they got up to before we were born.""Yes," I said. "Almost like they were real people once.
— Kate Morton, The Distant Hours
They were good parents. The worst thing they ever did to us was die.
— David Leavitt, While England Sleeps
Her father had admired her mother without ever truly understanding her. And her mother--her mother had relied on her father without appreciating him. There had been a gulf between them that couldn't be bridged by all the goodwill in the world.
— Beatriz Williams, The Forgotten Room
You do what you can," he said, after seconds of silence had stretched to a minute, "to make sure your kids are safe. From the second they're born..." He stared at the lines of Nightshade's face, the ordinariness of it. "You want to protect them. From every skinned knee, from hurt feelings and punk kids who push smaller ones into the dirt, form the worst parts of yourself and the worst parts of this world.
— Jennifer Lynn Barnes, All In
The next my parents and Brianna come rollin' up in here, I'm gonna scream, "Hey! Why don't y'all just MOVE IN?!
— Rachel Renée Russell, Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life
1. Santa Claus is real. However, your parents are folkloric constructs meant to protect and foritfy children against the darknesses of the real world. They are symbols representing the return of the sun and the end of winter, the sacrifice of the king and the eternal fecundity of the queen. They wear traditional vestments and are associated with certain seasonal plants, animals, and foods. After a certain age, no intelligent child continues believing in their parents, and it is embarrassing when one professes such faith after puberty. Santa Claus, however, will never fail us.
— Catherynne M. Valente
It was nice to call my parents and proudly tell them, "My lady garden is going viral." In hindsight, that may have been a poor choice of phrasing.
— Jenny  Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
I have heard people say love is weak but they're wrong--love is strong. In nearly everyone it trumps all other things--patriotism and ambition, religion and upbringing. And of every kind of love--the epic and the small, the noble and the base--the one that a parent has for their child is the greatest of them all.
— Terry Hayes, I Am Pilgrim
A strange thing has happened as I've aged
—  I have felt my parents' love for me more strongly every year.
How to advise parents for being successful in raising children stillremains an important unsolved problem.
— Eraldo Banovac
The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.
— Joyce Maynard
Words of “unconditional love” defines as mothers love, respect your parents
— Sourav Adhikari
My Christmas was a sum total of the ministrations of adults, usually adults who wanted me to encourage my parents to buy something for me to consume and discard.
— Thomm Quackenbush, A Creature Was Stirring
...when your child dies, you feel everything you'd expect to feel, feelings so well-documented by so many others that I won't even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that's written about mourning is all the same, and it's all the same for a reason - because there is no read deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same.But here's what no one says - when it's your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent, has come.Ah, you tell yourself, it's arrived. Here it is.And after that, you have nothing to fear again.
— Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
We are born with our father's names. We are not responsible for their failures. We are responsible for what they made us believe in. That is our only obligation. And it is even then a choice which we may sometimes be wise to ignore.
— Warren Eyster, The Goblins of Eros
I'm sorry. For all of us. Sorry for all the little ways the people who were supposed to love us most could hurt us so deeply, despite their shared heritage and blood, as thought their knowledge of our pasts gave them unlimited access to all the most tender places, the old wounds that could be so easily reopened with no more than a glance, a comment, a passing reminder of all the ways in which we failed to live up to their expectations.
— Sarah Ockler, The Summer of Chasing Mermaids
I'm sure my parents must be proud. Or horrified. Or are bitterly arguing about whether they're proud or horrified, and have already hired lawyers to resolve the dispute. -Hayden Upchurch
— Neal Shusterman, UnDivided
I think we ought to find something else to do,” said Mandy. “But Alecto my love, you’re the first person to notice my retro diner kitchen. When my parents saw it, they thought I was creating a weird art project.”“I like it. It's got that let’s-drown-ourselves-in-better-days type ambiance,” Alecto declared, his gray eyes narrowed.
— Rebecca McNutt, Super 8: The Sequel to Smog City
I was an infant when my parents died.Thye both were ornithologists. I've triedSo often to evoke them that todayI have a thousand parents. Sadly theyDissolve in their own virtues and recede,But certain words, chance words I hear or read,Such as "bad heart" always to him refer,And "cancer of the pancreas" to her.
— Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
Leave Dad alone" I told Aislinn. "His Britishness is sort-circuiting.
— Rachel Hawkins, Spell Bound
My nerves came back in full force. I'd thrown myself in the deep end, and, feeling like I had no idea how to swim, I had to get back to shore somehow. "I'm sorry," I whispered.
— Kelly Batten, One Day You'll Find Me