c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Two weeks ago, Aaron and Isaac, I learned your mother Laura has breast cancer. My heart feels impaled. These words, so useless and feeble. Laura is only thirty-five years old. Her next birthday will be in only three days. I write this letter to you, my sons, with the hope that one day in the future you will read it and understand what happened to our family.Together, your mother and I have created and nurtured an unbreakable bond that has transformed us into an unlikely team. A Chicano from El Paso, Texas. A Jew from Concord, Massachusetts. I want you to know your mother. She has given me hope when I have felt none; she has offered me kindness when I have been consumed by bitterness. I believe I have taught her how to be tough and savvy and how to achieve what you want around obstacles and naysayers.Our hope is that the therapies we are discussing with her doctors will defeat her cancer. But a great and ominous void has suddenly engulfed us at the beginning of our life as a family. This void suffocates me.
— Sergio Troncoso, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays
Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.
— Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
The last time Assistant Principal Parker called, a girl in the school's locker room had accused Julie of being a whore during the two years she'd spent on the street. My kid took exception to that and decided to communicate that by applying a chair to the offending party's head. I'd told her to go for the gut next time- it left less evidence.
— Ilona Andrews, Magic Slays
What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.
— Joseph Chilton Pearce, Teaching Children to Love: 80 Games and Fun Activities for Raising Balanced Children in an Unbalanced World
One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because... we perceive anyone else who's doing anything differently than what we're doing as criticizing our choices.
— Brené Brown
[I] never talk about gratitude and joy separately, for this reason. In 12 years, I've never interviewed a single person who would describe their lives as joyful, who would describe themselves as joyous, who was not actively practicing gratitude.
— Brené Brown
Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors.
— Brené Brown
The dilemma I was faced with was one every parent faces sooner or later: you want to defend your child, of course; you stand up for your child, but you mustn't do it all too vehemently, and above all not too eloquently - you mustn't drive anyone into a corner. The educators, the teachers, will let you have your say, but afterwards they'll take revenge on your child. You may come up with better arguments - it's not too hard to come up with better arguments than the educators, the teachers - but in the end, your child to going to pay for it. Their frustration at being shown up is something they'll take out on the student.
— Herman Koch, The Dinner
Stop using him, and start protecting him. I know he thinks he doesn't need it, but sometimes he does. Sometimes we all do.
— Rachel Caine, Ghost Town
The word on the street was that I had two options when it came to caring for my future baby: I could either eat, sleep, drink, bathe, walk, and work with my baby permanently affixed to my body until the two of us meld into one, or I could leave my baby out naked on a cold millstone to cry, refusing to hold or feed her until the schedule allowed. Apparently, there was no in between.
— Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood
Parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.
— Bill Cosby, Fatherhood
Many men have children, but not many children have 'Fathers'. Age releases to you reproductive skills. Fatherhood requires LEADERSHIP skills
— Fela Durotoye
All those adorable towheaded kids in the promotional film are going to turn thirteen. Once a family member hits puberty, odds are that everybody is not going to have the same ideals. Unless everybody gets together and agrees that the new ideals involve turning the front yard into a skate ramp and officially changing Dad's name to Fuckhead.
— Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli
You know, bullying," her mother began. "I see it every day. Kids get bullied at school, they get cyber bullied, text bullied, Myface bullied." "Oh, God!" Arista groaned. "It's My Space or Facebook. Not Myface.
— Dianne F. Gray, The Eleventh Question
Real Fathers are men of integrity & honour. Their word is their bond.
— Fela Durotoye
Real Fathers are Solution Providers and not a part of the problem to be solved.
— Fela Durotoye
Real Fathers make a positive impact on their generation, and so give the next generation the advantage of a better nation to live in
— Fela Durotoye
Realizing the emptiness of a "spirituality" -- and of a "spiritual" nurture -- that remains in the clouds need not bring us or our children to a dead end. It is a turning point. Now we can begin to deepen our awareness of the genuine spirituality of life's humblest moments.
— Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick, Something More: Nurturing Your Child's Spiritual Growth
If our goal is to be tolerant of people who are different than we are, Chase, then we really are aiming quite low. Traffic jams are to be tolerated. People are to be celebrated.
— Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed
If you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won't need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away.
— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
The greatest lessons I learned from my father didn't come from lectures or discipline or even time spent together. What has stuck with me is his example. From watching, I chose whether to be or not to be like him.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
We are the windows through which our children first see the world. Let us be conscious of the view.
— Katrina Kenison, Mitten Strings for God: Reflections  for Mothers in a Hurry
...[E]ven I know that being a parent is awful ninety-five percent of the time...As far as I can tell, it's that last five percent that keeps the human race from dying out. Four parts blinding terror, one part perfection. It's like mainlining heroin. One taste of life on that edge and you're hooked.
— Kimberly McCreight, Reconstructing Amelia
You are almost never cool to your children.
— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out." This unwittingly stomps out individuality and encourages conformity, despite these parents' good intentions
— Tom Rath, How Full Is Your Bucket?
Last words of his mother to his father: "Keep eternity before the children.
— Dallas Willard
(Da) "Sorry, Son, what was that? I was too busy ignoring you."(Later) "Sorry, Son, I missed that," Ma said. "Ignoring you can be a full-time job.
— Brian Farrey, The Vengekeep Prophecies
It's hard to look at it like that, isn't it? Because if you can be a better parent than the ones you had, you have to face the fact that your parents had that choice too. If you're not fated to be an awful parent, they weren't either. And," I said feeling my throat tighten, "it's easier to believe that we're all just [f*'d] than it is to know there are choices." I rubbed my hands together to try to get my fingers to warm up. "It hurts less to think they couldn't have done any better than they did, doesn't it?
— Allie Larkin, Why Can't I Be You
Someday you'll understand. You'll have your own children, and they'll mean more to you than the world. A wife has to defend her children, even against her own husband. Not that I expect you to be easily cowed. But sometimes, despite all you say and do, your husband won't be dissuaded from folly. When that happens, as a mother you have to close ranks. Your first responsibility is to your children. To salvage what you can. Even if they hate you for it.
— David Walton, Quintessence
Author has developed a routine of daily emotional debriefing with his kids as he tucks them in at night. To encourage the habit of keeping uncluttered, open heart, he starts with basic questions asking whether anyone has hurt them or made them angry to help them process at an age-appropriate depth. As they mature, he will add questions.
— Andy Stanley, Enemies of the Heart: Breaking Free from the Four Emotions That Control You
I had a friend whose family had dinner together every day. The mother would tuck you in at night and make breakfast in the morning. It just seemed so amazing to me.
— Moon Unit Zappa
She became a frame for the picture that was her son and daughter.
— Erica Bauermeister, The School of Essential Ingredients
When faced with first time fatherhood at the age of 49, I didn’t know whether to celebrate with champagne… or hemlock.
— Len Filppu, PRIME TIME DADS: 45 Reasons to Embrace Midlife Fatherhood
When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.
— Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
The key is to understand that our children don't belong to us—they belong to God. Our goal as parents must not be limited by our own vision. I am a finite, sinful, selfish man. Why would I want to plan out my children's future when I can entrust them to the infinite, omnipotent, immutable, sovereign Lord of the universe? I don't want to tell God what to do with my children—I want Him to tell me!
— Voddie T. Baucham Jr., Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God
A good mother loves fiercely but ultimately brings up her children to thrive without her. They must be the most important thing in her life, but if she is the most important thing in theirs, she has failed.
— Erin Kelly, The Burning Air
Adopted. Big Deal
—  so was Superman
The Tone is the Message.
— Kevin T. McCarney, The Secrets of Successful Communication: A Simple Guide to Effective Encounters in Business
I think humans have always been desperate. I think it has always been about doing something awful if it might help, when the only other option is death. Maybe that's what being a parent is supposed to feel like.
— Lauren DeStefano, Sever
If one were to list all the cruelties and maltreatments, both physical and emotional, that parents and adults inflict on children under the guise of love, the list would be a long one. But, going beyond such sinister examples, even kissing and hugging may or may not convey to a child that he is loved.Love is a feeling, an emotional state. Artists, writers, philosophers, poets have tried to define it. Marcel Proust says, "Love is space and time measured by the heart." What is space and time? It is the here and now. It is you.As unfortunately I am no poet, I will try to recall from my own experience how it feels to be truly loved by someone. It makes me feel good, it opens me up, it gives me strength, I feel less vulnerable, less lonely, less helpless, less confused, more honest, more rich; it fills me with hope, trust, creative energy and it refuels me.How do I perceive the other person who gives me these feelings? As honest, as one who sees and accepts me for what I really am, who objectively responds without being critical, whose authenticity and values I respect and who respects mine, who is available when needed, who listens and hears, who looks and sees me, who shares herself - who cares. Cares. To care is to put love in action. The way we care for our babies is then how they experience our love.
— Magda Gerber, The RIE Manual
The greatest challenge of parenting is in the inner work it requires: the strength and confidence in believing that we are not in control of, but the answer for our children.
— Kelly Bartlett
Love, my child, is a thing that every mother learns; it is not born with a baby, but made; and for eleven years, I have learned to love you as my son.
— Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
If all we ever offer is blanket praise without any meaning behind it, kids will always seek approval because they'll never feel satisfied. If we offer genuine encouragement for their accomplishments, they won't need our approval; they'll approve of themselves.
— Kelly Bartlett, Encouraging Words for Kids
A yummy mummy is a dedicated and loving mom who embodies a healthy lifestyle while retaining a sense of the person she was before having kids.
— Marina Delio, The Yummy Mummy Kitchen: 100 Wholesome Recipes and Yummy Tips to Keep Your Family Healthy, Happy, and Glamorous
It’s not an easy time for any parent, this moment when the realization dawns that you’ve given birth to something that will never see things the way you do, despite the fact that it is your living legacy, that it bears your name.
— Richard Russo, Straight Man
Replace a goal of obedience with one of connection and trust instead. Children are drawn to follow those to whom they are emotionally connected. By parenting not for obedience but for relationship, kids are naturally inclined to follow your lead.
— Kelly Bartlett
You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow in your arms.
— Neil A. Maxwell
When I got to the States and started going to an American high school, which I did for an extremely short time, I thought everyone around me was insane, the way they talked about their parents. I thought the parents were insane too, the way they handled their kids, like every request they made was a bargain they weren't sure would be kept. That little whiny tone at the end of every statement: "Be home by ten, okay?
— Michael Gruber, The Good Son
If Mother had to be told not to shove the entire brick of Ivory up Junior's hindquarters, constipation is the least of his problems.
— James Lileks, Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice
Generally, crises were Mom's domain. Dad's job was to listen, nod, act curmudgeonly, and offer to pay for things.
— Lisa Wingate, Firefly Island
I think . . . you should have children, John." At least he's no longer talking about bugs."I'm too young, Dad.""It's the most important thing . . . I've done in . . . my life.
— Ursula Hegi, Hotel of the Saints
Mr Cobb would acquaint him, that when he was his age, his father thought no more of giving him a parental kick, or a box on the ears, or a cuff on the head, or some little admonition of that sort, than he did of any other ordinary duty of life; and he would further remark, with looks of great significance, that but for this judicious bringing up, he might have never been the man he was at that present speaking; which was probable enough, as he was, beyond all question, the dullest dog of the party.
— Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
My heart filled with Nick's smile, with the look of sheer adoration he gave me as he lugged the bucket. In the space of an instant, I felt it again—the crumbling of an old part of me, the growth of something new. The changing of my heart into a mother's heart. It happened at the strangest times, in the most unexpected ways. Nick looked at me, and the love I felt for him was almost painful in its intensity. I'd never known I had it in me, the capacity to love this way. ... But when Nick looked at me, my mind tumbled through nights and mornings, seasons and years in the future. ... I saw a future like none I'd ever imagined. I wanted it, every minute of it.
— Lisa Wingate, Firefly Island
If you can pick the baby up without him squirting our of your hands like a bar of soap in the shower, he's not oiled up enough.
— James Lileks, Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice
I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.
— Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Instead of treating your child like how you were treated. Treat them with the same love and attention you wanted from your parents while growing up.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated: The Life Of A Boy Who Never Knew A Mother's Love
To look deep into your child's eyes and see in him both yourself and something utterly strange, and then to develop a zealous attachment to every aspect of him, is to achieve parenthood's self-regarding, yet unselfish, abandon. It is astonishing how often such mutuality had been realized - how frequently parents who had supposed that they couldn't care for an exceptional child discover that they can. The parental predisposition to love prevails in the most harrowing of circumstances. There is more imagination in the world than one might think.
— Andrew Solomon, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
If I hear any more loud voices, you will both be auctioned off on eBay. I could use the extra money.
— J.R. Rain, Vampire Dawn
Often people ask, "How can you say you're blessed to have a son with Down syndrome?" My outlook on life has forever changed. I see my own challenges differently. He's always showing me that life is so much bigger than self.
— Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried:  A Memoir
A stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY
— Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World
My children taught me the true meaning of unconditional love.
— Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried:  A Memoir
I'd rather be a 'THINKER' - Two Healthy Incomes No Kids Early Retirement!
— Kaye D. Walters, Kidfree & Lovin' It! - Whether by Choice, Chance or Circumstance
The most important thing to remember, the guiding principle, is to try to keep your son's self esteem intact while he is in school. That is the real risk to his success and to his mental health. Once he's out of school, the world will be different. He'll find a niche where the fact that he can't spell well or didn't read until he was eight, won't matter. But if he starts to hate himself because he isn't good at schoolwork, he'll fall into a hole that he'll be digging himself out of for the rest of his life.
— Dan Kindlon, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
Mina wanted some of the kind of love Momma gave to her children, where love was the first and deepest thing, and the questions came later and the answers wouldn't matter much measured up against the love.
— Cynthia Voigt, Come a Stranger
That so many thousands of children around the world are available for adoption is a sign of our impoverished humanity. That so many persons around the world open their hearts and homes each year to embrace a few of these children is a lasting testimony to humanity's enduring nobility.
— Deborah A. Beasley, Successful Foster Care Adoption
In that day, we didn't have no remote controls and vacuum cleaners. If you wanted all that stuff you had children!
— Tyler Perry
I complained to a friend that although I had completed six years in therapy, my mother still wouldn’t let me go. He replied, "She’s not supposed to let you go. Your father is supposed to come and get you.
— Don Elium, Raising a Son: Parents and the Making of a Healthy Man
I mark my years or parenting by the people who stepped in and forced me to abandon my inclination to meddle, micromanage, and coddle, beginning with my children's father, who sat me down and told me in year two that I was going to create a little monster if I continuted to act as though "no" and "I don't love you" were synonomous.
— Anna Quindlen, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell of baby shampoo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry.
— Scott Spencer, A Ship Made Of Paper
Sometimes our work as caregivers is not for the faint of heart. But, you will never know what you are made of until you step into the fire. Step bravely!
— Deborah A. Beasley, Successful Foster Care Adoption
Blame or credit, does not belong to the child alone. Parents, those who raised the child, must be given equal credit, or blame. That does not change, when the child is one, twenty or ninety years old.
— Omar Kiam, Coming to Astoria: An Immigrant's Tale
Parenting is something that happens mostly while you’re thinking of something else.
— Barbara Kingsolver, Homeland and Other Stories
Stories arrest us. Parents use stories to capture the attention of active children. Preachers use stories to capture the attention of sleepy adults.
— Tony Reinke, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books
Adelaide believes that all children should have enough grown-ups around who love them so that one can tell them to fight, one can tell them not to, and one can tell them not to worry so much.
— Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees
I figure when my husband comes home from work, if the kids are still alive, then I've done my job.
— Roseanne Barr
You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he said it with his face, and you could spank him for making faces, but then he said it with his eyes, and there were limits to correction—no way, in the end, to penetrate behind the blue irises and eradicate a boy’s disgust.
— Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
The most important thing anyone can do is raise their kids well.
— Claire Cross, Double Trouble
Mina wanted some of the kind of love Momma gave to her children, wheere love was the first and deepest thing, and the questions came later and the answers wouldn't matter much measured up against the love.
— Cynthia Voigt, Come a Stranger
You are mine for a moment, but you are His, forever His.
— Matt Hammitt, I Couldn't Love You More
Interesting how fashion is cyclical,” Jaccob said when she came out of the store with two black plastic bags. “Goth was the look when I was young, too.” “It’s not a look,” Chuck said. “I’m just wearing my feelings on the outside.” “Uh huh.” His phone buzzed. “Hang on a second." He rolled up his sleeve to check his HUD, but the call hadn’t come through there. Huh. He had to pick up his phone and check the read-out, which listed a phone number: an old school page. “That’s funny…” “Dad, you’re doing that thing again,” Chuck said. “What thing?” Jaccob asked. “That thing where you have to check every single doohickey you carry around.” “I am not.” Jaccob took his hand out of his coat pocket, where he’d been reaching to check his police scanner or music player (he hadn’t decided which to use first).
— Erik Scott de Bie, Cobalt City Double Feature
Quality time is not the same as the everydayness of being together. Let’s neither glorify nor undervalue.
— Don Elium, Raising a Son: Parents and the Making of a Healthy Man
Children learn best when they like their teacher and they think their teacher likes them.
— Gordon Neufeld, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love - in fact, she cannot do anything, since that love cannot be won or lost...The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative, and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to convey the unacceptability of certain behaviors without making the child herself feel unaccepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likable characteristics to the parent and still receive the parent's absolutely satisfying, security-inducing unconditional love.
— Gordon Neufeld
The key to activating maturation is to take care of the attachment needs of the child. To foster independance we must first invite dependance; to promote individuation we must provide a sense of belonging and unity; to help the child separate we must assume the responsibility for keeping the child close. We help a child let go by providing more contact and connection than he himself is seeking. When he asks for a hug, we give him a warmer one than he is giving us. We liberate children not by making them work for our love but by letting them rest in it. We help a child face the separation involved in going to sleep or going to school by satisfying his need for closeness.
— Gordon Neufeld, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
Parenthood doesn’t improve one’s character, it exposes it.
— Leslie A. Gordon, Cheer
Children do not experience our intentions, no matter how heartfelt. They experience what we manifest in tone and behavior.
— Gordon Neufeld, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
But I think parents aren't teachers anymore. Parents -- or a whole lot of us, at least -- lead by mouth instead of by example. It seems to me that if a child's hero is their mother or father -- or even better, both of them in tandem -- then the rough road of learning and experience is going to be smoothed some. And every little bit of smoothing helps, in this rough old world that wants children to be miniature adults, devoid of charm and magic and the beauty of innocence.
— Robert McCammon
My parents were nonmaterialistic. They believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of poverty in America, and over the years they were proven right.
— James McBride, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.
— Alfie Kohn, Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
Discipling our children is not about teaching them to behave in a way that won’t embarrass us. We’re working toward something much more important than that. We’re actually raising our children with a view toward leading them to trust and to follow Christ.
— Voddie T. Baucham Jr., Family Shepherds: Calling and Equipping Men to Lead Their Homes
Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.
— Chris Cleave, Gold
You become a parent, and your whole life becomes about worrying. You just worry constantly whether they'll be okay. And the idea that I'll be worried forever about them and what they do...I almost have a panic attack when I think about it. I'm worried, and I'm worried about having to worry so goddamn much.
— Drew Magary, The Postmortal
The greatest source of security our children have in this world is a God-honoring, Christ-centered marriage between their parents.
— Voddie T. Baucham Jr., Family Shepherds: Calling and Equipping Men to Lead Their Homes
I do not know many people who think they have succeeded as parents. Those who do tend to cite the markers that indicate (their own) status in the world: the Stanford degree....Those of us less inclined to compliment ourselves on our parenting skills, in other words most of us, recite rosaries of our failures, our neglects, our derelictions and delinquencies.
— Joan Didion, Blue Nights
In thousands of little ways, we pull and push our children to grow up, hurrying them along instead of inviting them to rest. We could never court each other as adults by resisting dependance...Perhaps we feel free to invite the dependance of adults becuase we are not responsible for their growth and maturity. We don't bear the burden of getting them to be independant. Here is the core of the problem: we are assuming too much responsiblity for the maturation of our children. We have forgotten that we are not alone - we have nature as our ally. Independance is the fruit of maturation; our job in raising children is to look after their dependance needs. When we do our job of meeting genuine dependance needs, nature is free to do its job of promoting maturity. In the same way, we don't have to make our children grow taller; we just need to give them food. By forgetting that growth, development and maturation are natural processes, we lose perspective. We become afraid our children will get stuck and never grow up. Perhaps we think that if we don't push a little, they will never leave the nest. Human beings are not like birds in this respect. The more children are pushed, the tighter they cling - or, failing that, they nest with someone else.
— Gordon Neufeld
Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time(adolescense) is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of "Come when you're called," and "Do as you're bid!" But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.
— Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
We have to learn to remind the other parents who think we're being careless when we loosen our grip that we are actually trying to teach our children how to get along in the world, and that we believe this is our job. A child who can fend for himself is a lot safer than one forever coddled, because the coddled child will not have Mom or Dad around all the time, even though they act as if he will.
— Lenore Skenazy
The biggest test for parents is not how they parent, but how the respond to disorder and unpredictability.
— Sarah  Newton
When I think of Tomodachi, I think of your mother. Your mother, she too lose her baby. She lose you. That very sad thing for her. Maybe she come looking, and she not find you. You not there when she come. She think you dead for ever. But she see you in her mind. Now as I speak maybe she see you in her mind. You always there. I know. I have son too. I have Michiya. He always in my head. Like Kimi. They dead for sure, but they in my head. They in my head forever.
— Michael Morpurgo
Putting down the power right from the whistle would be ugly and brutal, but it would get the job done. He wanted to tell her that, but this was the thing with coaching: you had to step back at exactly the moment you ached to step forward.
— Chris Cleave
Nurturing a child’s sense of personal worth and therefore hope and dreams for a wonderful future is perhaps the most important responsibility of every grownup in a child’s life.
— Wess Stafford
Yes it's true, you wake the child inside of you up because you're a Mom!
— Sandra Chami Kassis
Some of the best friends you'll ever meet in your life, you'll meet though your children--mothers and fathers of their friends, parents from school. You'll see. That's the way it was for Bill and me. It's one of the many gifts of parenting.
— Michael J. Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
What the world really needs is courageous parenting from mothers and fathers who are not afraid to speak up and take a stand.
— Larry R. Lawrence
A dam doesn't try to reason with the water. Its main purpose is to hold it still for a while. When I lecture my kids I'm doing much the same thing. I'm not trying to necessarily reason with them, just hold them still for a short while.
— Spuds Crawford
Science and discovery, especially in the field of non-abnormal pediatric mysteries, is built on the work of those who have been sneezed on before us. Causation and rationale may someday be reached, but until then it is the heartwarming and parental nature of the journey that drives us on; well, that and a fresh box of Kleenex.
— Spuds Crawford
As a young father it's important to remember that, when you're at the beach, there's a BIG difference between telling your five year old son to just go pee in the ocean and telling him to get in the water at least waist deep and then pee in the ocean.
— Spuds Crawford
A challenging career suddenly seemed more productive to me because I could measure the results of my work. These precious little ones had endless needs. They were busy little sinful creatures who demanded all of my body, time, life, emotions, and attention! As much as I loved my children, I often felt like a failure. Surely someone else could do a better job with these precious ones than I. And what exactly was I supposed to be accomplishing anyway? Was I wasting my time? What had this husband, who professed to love me, done to me?
— Sally Clarkson, The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity
When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French parents worry if their kids are too docile. They want them to have chara
— Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
My mothering needed a tad more Mother Theresa and a lot less Lizzy Borden.
— Irene Tomkinson, Not Like My Mother: Becoming a Sane Parent After Growing Up in a Crazy Family
Sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting.
— Zadie Smith, White Teeth
I had been running as fast as I could for all of my adult life. A person can’t listen effectively while running. A running mother is not able to pick up clues. She is not able to let go of her own agenda long enough to stop and listen.
— Irene Tomkinson, Not Like My Mother: Becoming a Sane Parent After Growing Up in a Crazy Family
It's a fathers job to spoil his daughters shamelessly, it's their husbands job to tame them. Prince Zehava-The Dragon Prince
— Melanie Rawn
Surely, our greatest parental hope is that our children attain a state of righteousness. It is the only sure road to happiness. But to attain such a state requires that they be decent as well as compliant. I know many, many young people who are not "righteous" in the usual sense. But they are wonderfully decent people with many praiseworthy qualities. They are not "devout" in the sense that they attend church faithfully, dress or groom themselves traditionally, or publicly declare their devotions, but they are kind, honest, hard working, concerned for others, and unselfish.
— Glenn I. Latham
Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.
— Criss Jami
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
— Adolf Hitler
Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.
— Mark Twain
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers
Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.
— Mark Twain
We're going to have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us.
— Beth Moore, So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us
Your hypocrisy insults my intelligence.
— Toba Beta
The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of th
— John F. Kennedy
Isn't it funny how we live inside the lies we believe?
— A.S. King, Please Ignore Vera Dietz
I have walked a stair of swords,I have worn a coat of scars.I have vowed with hollow words,I have lied my way to the stars-Songs of Sapphique
— Catherine Fisher, Incarceron
Where the questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor.
— Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
— Eric Hoffer
Liars make the best promises.
— Pierce Brown, Golden Son
He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he'd lie then, too.
— Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia
...lies can sound awfully pretty when a girl is in love with the person telling them.
— Gabrielle Zevin, All These Things I've Done
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?
— Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become.
— Mitch Albom, For One More Day
There's a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.
— Derek Landy, Death Bringer
If we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor... We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications... That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.[Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820]
— Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson
People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
— Otto von Bismarck
Because everybody lies. It's part of living in society. Don't get me wrong-I think it's necessary. The last thing anyone wants is to live in a society where total honesty prevails. Can you imagine the conversations? You're short and fat, one person might say, and the other might answer, I know. But you smell bad. It just wouldn't work. So people lie by omission all the time. People will tell you most of the story...and I've learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they're afraid." -Jo
— Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven
A liar is always lavish of oaths.
— Pierre Corneille
Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they have told or because the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also -- either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Why, when people are leaving their partners because they're having an affair with someone else, do they think it will seem better to pretend there is no one else involved? Do they think it will be less hurtful for their partners to think they just walked out because they couldn't stand them any more and then had the good fortune to meet some tall Omar Sharif-figure with a gentleman's handbag two weeks afterwards while the ex-partner is spending his evenings bursting into tears at the sight of the toothbrush mug? It's like those people who invent a lie as an excuse rather than the truth, even when the truth is better than the lie.
— Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary
When to people tell the same lie...""They are working together," Will finished
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess
I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich. The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lie, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed.
— Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started.
— Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Too bad we don't have marshmallows. This is an amazing fire." Howard emerged through the smoke behind Edilio.
— Michael  Grant, Lies
A storyteller makes up things to help other people
—  a liar makes up things to help himself.
Promises are lies wrapped in pretty ribbons -Cinnamon
— V.C. Andrews
Our lie is like a cancer that's spread to every single area of our lives.
— Simone Elkeles, Return to Paradise
His mother?" Gracie couldn't believe it. Suzy Denton looked much too young to be his mother. And much too respectable. "But you're not a-" She cut herself off in mid-sentence as she realized what she'd almost let slip.Suzy's wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as she gave it a hard smack. "I'm going to kill him! He's been telling that hooker story again, hasn't he?
— Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Heaven, Texas
I can't stand lies. Probably no one can. Probably everyone is, to varying degrees, allergic to them, both spiritually and physically. Lies make me feel low and ignoble, and also itchy, like there's sand under my skin. The only thing that feels worse than hearing a lie is telling one.
— Marisa de los Santos, Belong to Me
It’s not a lie,” Shallan said, “if everyone understands and knows what it means.”“Mm. Those are some of the best lies.
— Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance
Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share. That's lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about which a husband is most likely to lie are money, drink, black eyes, political affiliation, and women who squatted on his lap before and after your sweet self.
— Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless
And yes, we do have some food. Maybe you'd like to join us? Unless you want to stick with your sheep sushi.
— Michael  Grant, Lies
Well...letting the cat out of the bag is a lot easier than putting it in.
— Charles Martin, Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
You want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits. Gross, right? A bloody pulpy liquid mess. Look at it, try to make sense of it. Realize you can't. Because there is no sense. Ask your computer to print out a list of every lie you have ever told. Ask yourself how much of the universe you have ever really seen. Look in the mirror. Are you sure you're you? Are you sure you didn't slip out of yourself in the middle of the night, and someone else slipped into you, without you or you or any of you even noticing?
— Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
You must never believe everything they say about a person. Generally speaking, most of it will be lies, half-truths at best.
— Kate Atkinson, Life After Life
A harp can be a dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.
— George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.
— Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn’t hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
Telling lies is a bit like tiling bathrooms - if you don't know how to do it properly, it's best not to try.
— Tom Holt, Falling Sideways
The hardest tumble a man can take is to fall over his own bluff.
— Ambrose Bierce
There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
— Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the news
Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, "When you learn someone else's secret, your own secrets aren't safe. Dig up one, release them all.
— Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper
The worst lies in life are the ones we tell ourselves.
— Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle
Lies were lethal, however honourable the intentions of the liar. They deprived people of the opportunity to know the basic facts of their own lives. 
— Sophie Hannah, Little Face
The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.
— Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
Tell me why.” My voice shook. “Tell me right now.
— Claudia Gray, Stargazer
A lie is like a cat: you need to stop it before it gets out the door or it’s really hard to catch.
— Charles M. Blow
I prefer to make up my own quotes and attribute them to very smart people, so that I can use them to win arguments
— Albert Einstein
One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.
— Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Rule Number One in the India Savage Life Code: When in doubt or possible trouble, lie.
— Kristen Ashley, Rock Chick
Just because you have stolen someone's heart, luckily owned and occupied as a home, doesn't give you the audacity to enforce hurtful policies.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.
— Samuel Butler
Bullshit makes the flowers grow and that is beautiful
— Gregory  Hill, Principia Discordia ● Or ● How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her: The Magnum Opiate of Malaclypse the Younger
Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself.
— Jane Wagner
When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.
— William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed, while others reap and sow in his stead.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
[S]ecrets are like stars. They blaze inside the heart and ultimately could be explosive. But there are two types of secrets. Small secrets, like small stars, will eventually burn out. With time and space they lose their importance and simply vanish. No harm done. But big secrets, like massive stars, with time and constant fear grow stronger, creating a gravitational pull that eventually ... When they get so big, they become a black hole.
— Jennifer Jabaley, Lipstick Apology