A Face Only A Mother Could Love Quotes & Sayings

You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her,
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?

What man wants to lie down
and watch the world burn
in his bedroom?

Your daughter 's face is a small riot,
her hands are a civil war,
a refugee camp behind each ear,
a body littered with ugly things.

But God,
doesn't she wear
the world well? — Warsan Shire

And, like a lightning strike, there is his example. His mother before him. The lesson that she passed down for him to pass on to his children - the courage to face every breath with love and gratitude. — Lisa Genova

Sweet Evelyn, I think, I should have loved you better.
Possessing perfect knowledge I hover above him as he hacks me to bits. I see his rough childhood. I see his mother doing something horrid to him with a broomstick. I see the hate in his heart and the people he had yet to kill before pneumonia gets him at eighty-three. I see the dead kid's mom unable to sleep, pounding her fists against her face in grief at the moment I was burying her son's hand. I see the pain I've caused. I see the man I could have been, and the man I was, and then everything is bright and new and keen with love and I sweep through Sam's body, trying to change him, trying so hard, and feeling only hate and hate, solid as stone. — George Saunders

I've had a lifelong love affair with makeup. When I was a little girl, I used to take my mother's makeup and paint all of my dolls' faces, and I even painted the dog's face! — Bobbi Brown

When I missed the physical body of my partner, I meditated on its parts, tossed by the waves, torn, dispersed, and deteriorated. When memories of our lives together became acute and intense, I breathed. I breathed through each wave of yearning, of regret, of guilt, of what-could-have-been. Every time I asked him, "Where are you?" A quiet voice immediately responded, "I am here. I have never left you." I did not only lose a partner. I lost my childhood all over again. I lost my soul mate. I lost the accepting father and the gentle mother that he was to me. I lost the dream of a "normal life," which I had tried so hard to achieve. Now I had to face my own mind. — Dang Nghiem

Staring at the floor, she didn't even look up as the final contestant entered.
Not until she heard a deep, rich baritone that filled the hall with the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.
Her heart pounding, she looked up to see Stryder holding his mother's lute.
Only it wasn't a love song he sang.
More like a limerick, it was a song about a woman who fancied herself a goose.
And a man who gobbled her up.
Laughter and applause rang out as soon as he strummed the last note.
Breathe, breathe.
It was the only thing Rowena could think. And even that couldn't get her to take a breath as Stryder approached her.
He smoothed her hair and straightened her feathered crown. "Methinks my goose has molted."
Rowena laughed as more tears streaked down her face. — Kinley MacGregor

He had the kind of face only a mother could love. If that mother was blind in one eye, and had that sort of milky film over the other one, ya..ya know, ya know what I mean? But still he was my identical twin. — Colin Mochrie

I've hoped for this for so many years, waited for someone to come along whom you could finally love more than your family, someone who would turn you inside-out and toss you off your path,' His mother looked positively gleeful in the face of his misery. 'Someone just like Nicola for you to blow it with. — Bella Andre

Close to the Cross was the only Apostle present, John, whose face was like a cast moulded out of love; Magdalen was there too, like a broken flower, a wounded thing. But foremost among all-God pity her!-was His own mother. Mary, Magdalen, John; innocence, penitence, and priesthood; the three types of souls forever to be found beneath the Cross of Christ. — Fulton J. Sheen

He had been longing to get at these Frenchmen and to cut them down, their being so near seemed to him now so awful that he could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? What are they running for? Can it be to me? Can they be running to me? And what for? To kill me? Me, whom every one's so fond of?" He recalled his mother's love, the love of his family and his friends, and the enemy's intention of killing him seemed impossible. "But they may even kill me." For more than ten seconds he stood, not moving from the spot, nor grasping his position. The foremost Frenchman with the hook nose was getting so near that he could see the expression of his face. And the excited, alien countenance of the man, who was running so lightly and breathlessly towards him, with his bayonet lowered, terrified Rostov. He snatched up his pistol, and instead of firing with it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran to the bushes with all his might. — Leo Tolstoy

When he came back, I hid my face within my hands. He said: "Fear nothing. Who has seen our kiss?
Who saw us? The night and the moon."
"And the stars and the first flush of dawn. The moon has seen its visage in the lake, and told it to the water 'neath the willows. The water told it to the rower's oar.
"And the oar has told it to the boat, and the boat has passed the secret to the fisher. Alas! alas! if that were only all! But the fisher told the secret to a woman.
"The fisher told the secret to a woman: my father and my mother and my sisters, and all of Hellas now shall know the tale. — Pierre Louis

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can't help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn't four years anymore. It's a number I wouldn't even be able to say. It feels like four years. It's trapped in my tender memory as four years. It's been an age. Multiple ages. It's been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It's been so long. Why am I alone? — F.K. Preston

He was telling her here, in this cellar, as he kissed her feet, he had understood love for the first time - not just from other people's words, but in his heart, in his blood. She was dearer to him than all his past, dearer to him than his mother, than Germany, than his future with Maria ... He had fallen in love with her. Great walls raised up by states, racist fury, the heavy artillery and its curtain of fire were all equally insignificant, equally powerless in the face of love.. He gave thanks to fate for allowing him to understand this before he died. — Vasily Grossman

I, Kim Heechul, was born to successfully make women fall in love with me. It's not my fault. It's not of my own free will. My mother and father created this face. — Kim Heechul

Do you regret it, amira?"
"Regret . . . what?"
"Meeting me. Knowing me." He searched my face. "Loving me."
Everything seemed to stop at the word; it hung in the air between us, tangible and real. "No," I said at last. "No."
"But you fear you will someday. That's why you hold back. That's why you want to know you can change things before you commit." He let go of my hand and stood. The distance between us ached like the cold of a winter sea. "You watched your father chase your mother for years, and you wished he didn't love her. What will you do to my memory when I'm gone? Will you chase it like a dragon? Or will you banish it like smoke? — Heidi Heilig

She slipped Glenn into her bed and then her face hung over Glenn's for one quiet moment, like a moon.
"Meera doe branagh, Glennora Morgan."
The strange words drifted down from her mother's lips, whispered as light as falling snow.
"What does it mean, Mommy?"
Fingertips grazed Glenn's cheek. "It means I love you. It means I'll always love you." She kissed Glenn softly on the forehead, then backed away. "No matter what."
She stepped into the bright hallway and closed the door.
When Glenn woke the next morning, her mother was gone — Jeff Hirsch

On my way home from the junior high, I would sometimes stop at the edge of our property and watch my mother ride the ride-on mower, looping in and out among the pine trees, and I could remember then how she used to whistle in the mornings as she made her tea and how my father, rushing home on Thursdays, would bring her marigolds and her face would light up in yellowy in delight. They had been deeply, separately, wholly in love- apart from her children my mother could reclaim this love, but with them she began to drift. It was my father who grew toward us as the years went by; it was my mother who grew away.

~pg 153; love — Alice Sebold

Sonnet III: Black Coffin opened wide for all to See

Black Coffin opened wide for all to See,
The lifeless form of one I loved so dear.
O, listen! mournful knells that soon shall be
All night long tolling for the folk to hear.
The lanterns overlight the old churchyard
To watch the coffin lowered into the ground;
Soon Frost shall grasp the turf already hard,
Decay ye have to face without a sound.
But years have pass'd herein do I relate
My dear sweet mother's form within my mind.
Still happiness fills all my heart and state,
As I see my small family so kind.
Love cannot be withheld by death or grave,
It stays alive within the heart so brave. — Timothy Salter

Behold, nothing surpasses books. Would that I might make you love them more than your mother. Would that I might make their beauty enter before your face. For it is greater than any office You are to set your heart on books. — Anonymous

The tiny body was slippery, and he held her tightly, afraid she'd slither out of his grip. He rotated the infant face-up, holding her about ten inches away from his face. The top of her head had a slight cone shape. Her blue-tinged hands pinked. The baby's eyes were open, alert and seemingly amazed.
They connected with his.
A jolt of intense feeling, of recognition, flowed between them. As he gazed on the scrunched features of the infant, love surged through him. He'd never felt such a feeling before, and his chest ached with the joyful pressure. Caleb wanted to curl her to his chest and keep her safe. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, inhaling a scent that surprised him with its sweetness.
"My baby?" Maggie asked.
The infant broke eye contact with Caleb and turned her face toward the sound of her mother's voice. He blinked back moisture from his eyes and grinned. "You have a beautiful daughter. — Debra Holland

I love the smell of my mother's hair after she washes it.
I love the feel of the scratchy stubble on my father's face before he shaves.
But I've never been able to tell them. — Sharon M. Draper

During my incarceration Mother visited me. She had in some way managed to leave the workhouse and was making an effort to establish a home for us. Her presence was like a bouquet of flowers; she looked so fresh and lovely that I felt ashamed of my unkempt appearance and my shaved iodined head.
'You must excuse his dirty face,' said the nurse.
Mother laughed, and how well I remember her endearing words as she hugged and kissed me: 'With all thy dirt I love thee still. — Charlie Chaplin

The love radiating from Mariah's face, her hand curled protectively across her belly, all of it so tender. These sketches were Annie's true legacy. They were concrete evidence that Annie had been created in love. Maybe that's what her mother had wanted her to see. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Love was the greatest of enchantments; if Echidna and her children succeeded in killing Kypris, Thelxiepeia would no doubt, would doubtless ... Become the goddess of love in a century or less, said the Outsider, standing not behind Silk as he had in the ball court, but before him - standing on the still water of the pool, tall and wise and kind, with a face that nearly came into focus. I would claim her in that case, long before the end. As I have so many others. As I am claiming Kypris even now because love always proceeds from me, real love, true love. First romance. The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the polished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth and Mother, too. First romance, sang the Outsider with the music box. First romance. It was why he was called the Outsider. He was outside - — Gene Wolfe

Middle of his forehead. Talk about a face only a mother could love. Well, Gaea loved these guys. She named them the Elder Cyclopes, and — Rick Riordan

The entire affective world, constructed over the years with utmost difficulty, collapses with a kick in the father's genitals, a smack on the mother's face, an obscene insult to the sister, or the sexual violation of a daughter. Suddenly an entire culture based on familial love, devotion, the capacity for mutual sacrifice collapses. Nothing is possible in such a universe, and that is precisely what the torturers know ... From my cell, I'd hear the whispered voices of children trying to learn what was happening to their parents, and I'd witness the efforts of daughters to win over a guard, to arouse a feeling of tenderness in him, to incite the hope of some lovely future relationship between them in order to learn what was happening to her mother, to get an orange sent to her, to get permission for her to go to the bathroom. — Jacobo Timerman

Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment - with which your eyes are now almost overflowing - with which your heart is heaving - with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent - my arms wait to receive her. — Charlotte Bronte

I want to feel the rain on my face, to smile at any man I feel attracted to, to accept all the coffees men might buy for me. I want to kiss my mother, tell her I love her, weep in her lap, unashamed of showing my feelings, because they were always there even though I hid them. — Paulo Coelho

At the hour of death when we come face-to-face with God, we are going to be judged on love; not how much we have done, but how much love we put into the doing. — Mother Teresa

The Shepherd laughed too. "I love doing preposterous things," he replied. "Why, I don't know anything more exhilarating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection. If there is one thing more than mother which I should enjoy doing at this moment it is turning a jellyfish into a mountain goat. That is my special work," he added with the light of a great joy in his face. "Transforming things - to take Much-Afraid, for instance, and to transform her into - " He broke off and then went on laughingly. "Well, we shall see later on what she finds herself transformed into. — Hannah Hurnard

Do you know anything about hearts, Jona? The Senta know hearts. Hearts are not one organ. Inside a mother's womb, two pulsing bags of blood seek their eternal mate."
Her hand reached out to his. She opened his palm, and traced a finger down his lifeline, then his loveline. She lifted it up to her own face. She placed it on her cheek.
"Lungs are fine apart," she said, "Hands do not need another but to clap. Brains gnarl like roots in the nothing of soul, and guts spin in knots around the nothing of hunger. But hearts are made by two complete parts merging together. Once the two pieces sense each other in the blood flow, they cross every bloody cliff inside of us. The arteries bind the halves close. The veins make love to each other in the life pulse that makes all life from love entwined. — J.M. McDermott

A woman who could always love would never grow old; and the love of mother and wife would often give or preserve many charms if it were not too often combined with parental and conjugal anger. There remains in the face of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom. — Jean Paul

Noah?
A welcome voice - not my mother's, but welcome all the same: Echo. A smile spread across my face. This was too good. Me in a towel, alone in the house with my nymph. I left the bathroom. — Katie McGarry

She turned to him with wide, shocked eyes. "Why did he..."
His lips twitched. No coarse language in front of the infants limited the ability to discuss the fountain of baby piss that had just arced halfway across the room.
"Twasn't you, darling. It's one of their favorite bath-time games.
"Something about the cool air on their naked...berries," he substituted at the last second....
"Do I have piddle in my hair?" she whispered, her eyes sparkling with laughter above her flushed cheeks.
"Not much," he assured her with a straight face. "You look almost becoming."...
"Decades from now, when our children ask how I fell in love with their mother, I'll say 'twas her sweet, gentle compliments during bath-time, and her fleetness of foot whilst dodging a flow of --- — Erica Ridley

If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband's family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of a child or children? We are their caretakers. We love them. We nurse them when they are sick ... But no woman should live longer than her children. It is against the law of nature. If she does, why wouldn't she wish to leap from a cliff, hang from a branch, or swallow lye? — Lisa See

We look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. — George Eliot

On the day Contessa Carolina Fantoni was married, only one other living person knew that she was going blind, and he was not her groom.
This was not because she had failed to warn them.
"I am going blind," she had blurted to her mother, in the welcome dimness of the family coach, her eyes still bright with tears from the searing winter sun. By this time, her peripheral vision was already gone. Carolina could feel her mother take her hand, but she had to turn to see her face. When she did, her mother kissed her, her own eyes full of pity.
"I have been in love, too," she said, and looked away. — Carey Wallace

The thing is, I can't love her, not in the real world. Because this would be degrading to me. To love someone who despises you, and she just might. You should see her eyes on me sometimes. Plus she's not even a mother anymore, she's just a planet with a face. Da at least has hands. — Victor Lodato

I'm relieved Peeta's alive. I tell myself again that if I get killed, his winnings will benefit my mother and Prim the most. This is what I tell myself to explain the conflicting emotions that arise when I think of Peeta. The gratitude that he game an edge by professing his love for me in the interview. The anger at his superiority on the roof. The dread that we may come face-to-face at any moment in this arena. — Suzanne Collins

I don't wear much make-up in my non-working life, though I love to dress up and put on a face for a special occasion. As I get older, I see less of the fantasy 'Indian' self I inherited from my father, and I see my mother looking back at me. — Diana Quick