Quotes & Sayings About Cruel Family

I'll find a day to massacre them all
And raze their faction and their family,
The cruel father and his traitorous sons,
To whom I sued for my dear son's life,
And make them know what 'tis to let a queen
Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain. — William Shakespeare

Don't build walls and shut people out of your life. To act as if another does not exist is a mean and cruel weapon — Joyce Meyer

The sexual license prevalent among {the} Sixties generation was deplorable, but no more so than predatory Capitalism, with cruel slums alongsideabsurd affluence: affluence which paid for...depictions of the Holy Family as a form of expiation. Love was the basis for what he believed. Promiscuity certainly violated that polestar, yet caring for others, even in "fooling around"--which was not to justify it--topped dog-eat-dog Capitalism. — Edward Hoagland

What if all your hard work never pays off?
What if I am the outsider to my friends and family? What then?
What if all the good you've done has been transformed into evil and greed?
What if those you help the most, stabbed you in the back? What then?
Should I trust again?
What if life is unfair, painful and cruel?
What if Death invites you to join its tribe?
What if death makes you feel at peace and alive! What then?
Should I take death's hand and walk away?
What then? — Quetzal

Things that were merciless and cruel always captivated me. The conversations my classmates enjoyed and the warm words I exchanged with my family never really resonated with me. They were just static, like a radio that wasn't tuned properly. — Otsuichi

He had lived by ironclad rules for so long. Protect Tavvy, protect Livvy and Ty, protect Dru. Protect Emma. Recently that he widened out slightly- he would protect Mark, because Mark had come back, and he would protect Cristina, because Emma loved her.
It was a sort of love few other people could understand. It was total and it was overwhelming and it could be cruel. He would destroy a whole city if he thought that city posed some threat to his family.
When you were twelve years old and you were all that stood between your family and annihilation, you didn't learn moderation. — Cassandra Clare

Whoever is acquainted with the cruel injustice and unjust subordination frequently manifested in the family, whoever sees matters of lasting and supreme importance relative to the beginning and continuance of the family determined by momentary fancy or unreasoning passion, cannot but desire the construction of a social fabric in which reason may rule with perfect justice. — Charles Franklin Thwing

Mama covered her ears with her hands, but I knew she heard me. Tears streamed from her eyes and dribbled from her chin.
Part of me wanted to blot her face with a tissue, real tender-like, but the evil me, the girl tired of keeping her feelings bottled up for fear I'd upset mama, was blissful at causing a commotion.
Maybe it was cruel to make mama cry, but at least I had cracked her shell and got a reaction.
Any response was better than talking to a zombie — April Young Fritz

How do you think humans got so cruel?" I asked Makili. He gazed at the ocean, then back at Turner and me. "We forgot," he said, letting the words linger. "We forgot our responsibility. And we forgot that we are as equal as any living thing within the chain. There's no hierarchy in this. Nah. We are part of the same family: living things. All the rest of it is just totally fucking bullshit. — Susan Casey

In other words, what looks like cruel and heartless from one angle might, from another, actually be the only way to protect your family. -Lucas — Jodi Picoult

WAR CHILD is the true story of Magdalena (Leni) Janic whose name appears on The Welcome Wall at Sydney's Darling Harbour. The story spans 100 years starting in pre WWII Nazi Germany and ends in the suburbs of Adelaide. It's a window into what life was like for a young illegitimate German girl growing up in poverty, coping with ostracism, bullying, abuse and dispossession as society was falling down around her and she becomes a refugee. But it's also a story of a woman's unconditional love for her family, the sacrifices she made and secrets she kept to protect them. Her ultimate secret was only revealed in a bizarre twist after her death and much to her daughter's (and author) surprise involved her. A memorable tear-jerker! A sad cruel story told with so much love. — Annette Janic

We had no compunction toward our enemies [the ants] and took to increasingly desperate and violent means of dealing with them. If we noticed they'd laid siege to a snack, we might trap them in a circle drawn with water and take away whatever they were eating, then watch them scurry about in confusion before wiping them off the floor with a wet cloth. I took pleasure in seeing them shrivel into black points when burning coals were rolled over them. When they attacked an unwashed pan or cup they'd soon be mercilessly drowned. I suppose initially each of us did these things only when we were alone, but in time, we began to be openly cruel. We came around to Amma's view of them as demons come to swallow our home and became a family that took pleasure in their destruction. We might have changed houses since, but habits are harder to change. — Vivek Shanbhag

Nancy: sisters are a shield against life's cruel adversity.
Decca: sisters are life's cruel adversity.

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family — Mary S. Lovell

...if the United States never intended to help, it shouldn't have built up the expectation. The false promise of help was cruel and inexcusable and it would only get worse over time. If a man is drowning and a boat drives past in the distance, the man accepts his death and goes down quietly. If a man is drowning and a boat pulls up beside him, dangles a life jacket, tells the world he wants to help, but then doesn't throw the life jacket, the drowning man dies crying and his family might take a blood oath to take revenge on the boat's crew. This type of anger was already starting to build in Syria and al-Qaeda would capitalize on it. — Richard Engel

Hollywood is the backdrop of my family, and I know that the movie business is incredibly cruel as you get older. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle. — Dodie Smith

He was a chicken in the outside world that turned into a lion on entering the house. — Pawan Mishra

But what a cruel thing is war to separate and destroy families and friends. — Robert E.Lee

If the political left weren't so joyless, humorless, intrusive, taxing, over-taxing, anarchistic, controlling, rudderless, chaos-prone, pedantic, unrealistic, hypocritical, clueless, politically correct, angry, cruel, sanctimonious, retributive, redistributive, intolerant, and if the political left wasn't hell-bent on expansion of said unpleasantness into all aspects of my family's life the truth is: I would not be in your life. If the democratic party were run by Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, if it had the slightest vestige of JFK and Henry "Scoop" Jackson I wouldn't be on the political map. If the American media were run by biased but not evil Tim Russert and David Brinkley types I wouldn't have joined the fight. You would not know who I am. The left made me do it, I swear, I am a reluctant cultural warrior. — Andrew Breitbart

I could only relate [to the family] that I, the father of three sons, could hardly imagine what it would be to lose one, far less three of my boys, in such a cruel and senseless manner. — William Walker

Can I pretend to be as cold as Augustus? I now know why he did not flinch in hanging my wife. And I am beginning to understand why Golds rule. They can do what I cannot.
Though I am alone, I know I will soon find others. They want me to soak in the guilt for now. They want me lonely, mournful, so that when I meet the others, the winners, I will be relieved. The murders will bind us, and I'll find the company of the winners a salve to my guilt. I do not love my fellow students, but I will think I do. I will want their comfort, their reassurances that I am not evil. And they will want the same. This is meant to make us a family - one with cruel secrets.
I am right. — Pierce Brown

A woman who is baarri is like a pious slave. She honors her husband's family and feeds them without question or complaint. She never whines or makes demands of any kind. She is strong in service, but her head is bowed. If her husband is cruel, if he rapes her and then taunts her about it, if he decides to take another wife, or beats her, she lowers her gaze and hides her tears. And she works hard, faultlessly. She is a devoted, welcoming, well-trained work animal. This is baarri. If — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

His father had been slightly ahead, carrying sister Zoe. There were creatures looking at him from behind the blue slate rocks; they pointed their fingers and smiled cruel smiles. He felt safe in his mother's papoose (facing backwords) but was still afraid of the creatures. He was only just old enough to talk. He'd tried to make a sound but he was almost mesmerized by the creatures stirring in the wake of the family's passage. — Graham Joyce

Slater Patalis had been drawn to their suburban home because of Elena. Until that awful, cruel day a lifetime ago, they'd been a family of six. Jeffrey, Marguerite, and their four girls. Mirabelle, with her hot blood and wild affection. Ariel, even tempered and bossy and protective. Elena, who wanted to do everything her older sisters did, and Beth, too young to truly remember now who they'd been together before Slater Patalis walked through the kitchen door. — Nalini Singh

Family responsibility, yes, and always. Family bankruptcy due to the cruel rules of government, no. — Barbara Mikulski

The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty 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. 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. — Thomas Jefferson

God forces us to quantify our religious tenants by measuring them against the family problems they solve. If your religious beliefs aren't solving family problems then something is broke
and it can be fixed.
pg iv — Michael Ben Zehabe

When I am billeted a German home even for one night I go out and search for the chickens and rabbits or pets and give them water and food if possible. Generally the family has pulled out too rapidly to care for such things. I suppose the stern and the cruel ones rule the world. If so, I shall be content to try to live each day within the limits of my conscience and let great plaudits go to those who are willing to pay the price for it. — Robert M. Edsel

A journalist marries the news, Seymour. She's capricious, cruel, and jealous. She demands you follow her to wherever on Earth life is cheapest, where she'll stay a day or two, then jet off. You, your safety, your family are nothing, — David Mitchell

Time can be cruel if you don't use it wisely ~ Imani Wisdom, Zion's Road: A Love Story about Faith and Redemption. — Imani Wisdom

But I knew it wasn't just the cute girl on the screen that had made Eunice cry. It was her father laughing, being kind, the family momentarily loving and intact - a cruel side trip into the impossible, an alternate history. The dinner was over. The waiters were clearing the table with resignation and without a word. I knew that, according to tradition, I had to allow Dr. Park to pay for the meal, but I went into my apparat and transferred him three hundred yuan, the total of the bill, out of an unnamed account. I did not want his money. Even if my dreams were realised and I would marry Eunice someday, Dr. Park would always remain to me a stranger. After thirty-nine years of being alive, I had forgiven my own parents for not knowing how to care for a child, but that was the depth of my forgiveness. — Gary Shteyngart

Adolf Hitler and his Brownshirts had surged to power. Now they held Germany by the throat. The Gestapo was rapidly creating a cruel and brutal police state that treated all but true Aryans like dogs and swine. That was certainly true for Jews like the Weisz family. In just the last few years, they and all of the Jewish families in Germany had been stripped of their citizenship and denied many of their most basic rights. Jacob's father, an esteemed professor of German history, had been summarily fired from his prestigious post at Frederick William University in Berlin. The Weisz family had been forced out of their beautiful, spacious home in the suburbs of the capital. They'd had a big red J stamped on their official papers and had been denied permission to leave the country. So they had left Berlin and made a new home in Siegen. — Joel C. Rosenberg

For some reasonthen, I remember how Sam hated to be laughed at, and all of the times I did it anyway, because I wanted him to feel stupid, and I wonder how anybody can be cruel to someone they love. How can anyone do anything but love each other and be kind when at the end of it all, waiting quietly, sure as the dark at the end of the loveliest day, is only this? — C.J. Flood

The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, and the appeals process is expensive and cruel to the surviving family members. — Martin O'Malley

I used to watch 'The Waltons' and sob because my family was nothing like that. We had a cruel sense of humor in my family. — Paula Poundstone

Ouch. I suppose I should now apologize for my absence. I did not do it to be cruel, my dear. I had to support my brother and all that." "I thought as much. You were always close to my family so I assumed your absence was in support of your brother." "Well, you couldn't blame the boy. You were clearly driving him on the path to Bedlam," he said with a grin. She took pride in that. She really shouldn't, but she did. "He wasn't such an angel if I recall," she pointed out just as the waltz began. — R.L. Mathewson

The greats? Well, they all share that quality Napoleon most admired in his generals: luck. Be in Kabul when it falls. Be in Manhattan on 9/11. Be in Paris the night Diana's driver makes his fatal misjudgement." I flinch as the windows blast in, but, no, that's not now, that's ten days ago. "A journalist marries the news, Seymour. She's capricious, cruel, and jealous. She demands you follow her to wherever on Earth life is cheapest, where she'll stay a day or two, then jet off. You, your safety, your family are nothing," I say it like I'm blowing a smoke ring, "nothing, to her. — David Mitchell

this one is a matter of personal testimony; I could put together a whole volume of tales I've been told along the lines of "I used to be an atheist, and I was [strung out on drugs] [cruel to my family] [divorcing my wife] [etc.], but then I found Jesus and became a new man of high character and deep happiness, therefore Jesus was real." The entire churchgoing people of America must once have been raving angry atheist hedonists in broken relationships - which suggests that at an earlier time in our civic life, the parties were much more fun and the libertines far more common. Unfortunately, I've never been able to identify this magical period in recent history, even though I've lived through a few generations now. Yet all the Christians today seem to be citing this mythical past of ubiquitous godlessness. I really regret that I missed it all. Having — P.Z. Myers

People break all the time, no lie there and when that wretched break happens something is usually lost, left behind confused or some is hurt, a member of the family, a child, pure and innocent of the cruel world, dangerous adult men and women. — Abigail George

Now" - she leaned in a bit - "would you like to go flying with Grandmum before we take you home, so you can watch her toss cows around for no other reason than her own amusement?"
"Sounds unnecessarily cruel."
"Exactly!" Rhiannon used her tail to place her granddaughter on her back. "See? Already you're learning what it means to be part of this family. — G.A. Aiken

He pulled the Carstairs family ring from his finger and held it out to Will. "Take it."
Will let his eyes drift down toward it, and then up to Jem's face. A dozen awful things he could say, or do, went through his mind. One did not slough off a persona so quickly, he had found. He had pretended to be cruel for so many years that the pretense was still what he reached for first, as a man might absently turn his carriage toward the home he had lived in for all his life, despite the fact that he had recently moved. "You wish to marry me now?" he said, at last. — Cassandra Clare

To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in "family values." — Stephen Reinhardt