Family Alienation Quotes & Sayings

Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world. — Susan Lieberman

To look down into crowds is to see bald spots and slipped bra straps before faces and gowns. It is the viewpoint of spiders and kings, of cheap sports seats and God. — Tanya Egan Gibson

As children become increasingly less connected to adults, they rely more and more on each other; the whole natural order of things change. In the natural order of all mammalian cultures, animals or humans, the young stay under the wings of adults until they themselves reach adulthood. Immature creatures were never meant to bring one another to maturity. They were never meant to look to one another for primary nurturing, modelling, cue giving or mentoring. They are not equipped to give one another a sense of direction or values. As a result of today's shift to this peer orientation, we are seeing the increasing immaturity, alienation, violence and precocious sexualization of North American Youth. The disruption of family life, rapid economic and social changes to human culture and relationships, and the erosion of stable communities are at the core of this shift. — Gabor Mate

I have always swung back and forth between alienation and relatedness. As a child, I would run away from the beatings, from the obscene words, and always knew that if I could run far enough, then any leaf, any insect, any bird, any breeze could bring me to my true home. I knew I did not belong among people. Whatever they hated about me was a human thing; the nonhuman world has always loved me. I can't remember when it was otherwise. But I have been emotionally crippled by this. There is nothing romantic about being young and angry, or even about turning that anger into art. I go through the motions of living in society, but never feel a part of it. When my family threw me away, every human on earth did likewise. — Wendy Rose

Learning became her. She loved the smell of the book from the shelves, the type on the pages, the sense that the world was an infinite but knowable place. Every fact she learned seemed to open another question, and for every question there was another book. — Robert Goolrick

It's a success story," said Chanu, exercising his shoulders. "But behind every story of immigration success there lies a deeper tragedy."
Kindly explain this tragedy."
I'm talking about the clash between Western values and our own. I'm talking about the struggle to assimilate and the need to preserve one's identity and heritage. I'm talking about children who don't know what their identity is. I'm talking about the feelings of alienation engendered by a society where racism is prevalent. I'm talking about the terrific struggle to preserve one's own sanity while striving to achieve the best for one's family. I'm talking
" p. 88 — Monica Ali

Most of what I call "cooking" is just melting cheese on stuff. — Darynda Jones

Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt. — Minna Antrim

I couldn't prevent my own child from becoming a casualty of war, but I may be able to help prevent another child from becoming one. I'd rather fail at the attempt than not try at all. — Dawn Willson

I just think self-satisfied people ignore certain signs about other people. — Lisa Cholodenko

Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There's a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion. There's heavy, leaden fear that comes in ingots, piling up in your belly during the empty hours between midnight and morning, when everything is dark, every problem grows larger, and every wound and illness grows worse. And there is coppery fear, drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on one single note that cannot possibly be sustained for a single second longer - but goes on and on and on, the tension before the crash of cymbals, the brassy challenge of the horns, the threatening rumble of the kettle drums. That's the kind of fear I felt. Horrible, clutching tension that left the coppery flavor of blood on my tongue. Fear of the creatures in the darkness around me, of my own weakness, the stolen power the Nightmare had torn from me. And fear for those around me, for the folk who didn't have the power I had. — Jim Butcher

The book of Jonah becomes an embarrassing and public reading of your family business. (page iii) — Michael Ben Zehabe

It's strange how the people you care about least, sometimes know you the best. You let your guard down with them because you don't mind that they see you, warts and all. — Paige Toon

'The Simpsons' is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but who drive you completely crazy. — Matt Groening

Perhaps we humans are cosmic dwarfs; perhaps we are molecular giants. But there is no denying our mid-scale complexity. We humans live neither at the range of the infinitely small, nor at that of the infinitely large, but we might well live at the range of the infinitely complex. We live at the range of the most caring; we ourselves might embody the most capacity for caring. — Holmes Rolston III

The idea of the family as a protective haven is a myth, the family unit cannot provide the haven it promises. On the contrary, we can never isolate ourselves from social and political relationships in the world. The places we choose to hide are alawys inseparably connected to the real world, the world they actually might encounter in school, and for some, in neighborhoods. It is not the failure, or the breakdown, of the family which causes our alienation, but the ever-disappointed hopes instilled in us as children. These hopes are false dreams of being cocooned and of belonging. — Nicola Field

Quite often, the consequence of gaining literacy or critical consciousness is alienation not just from the values of the dominant culture, but from the ways of knowing and being that characterize one's own immediate family and community. — Margo V. Perkins

Never has God given waivers to family members, just because they had bad leaders. In Jonah's time, the entire family of Israel had become unacceptable, but never has any Israelite administration been without some injustice, intolerance and alienation from God
much less today's earthly family. Even during the celebrated reign of Solomon, Solomon was multiplying wives and horses
against God's written counsel. It has always been so.
Regardless, Israel was one family. They were expected to stick together whether they were in exile, or at home living in abundance. No deserters, or pious arm-folders were allowed. As Jonah discovered, no quitters were allowed. (page vi) — Michael Ben Zehabe

The task is not to turn the world upside down but in a given place to do what, from the perspecive of reality, is necessary objectively and to really carry it out. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A loyal demon? Who knew," Jo jeers, and I want to hit her.
"No," Armand's voice lashes out. "It's predictably selfish. — Eliza Crewe

The child says, "Well geesh, the institutions that I'm supposed to respect - the church and the government - they're telling me things that don't appear to be true. Either I'm crazy or they're crazy." That creates the Absurd Child. The Absurd Child is one who says, "Well, I think they're crazy." So you live in this state of alienation from your culture and your society and your family because you see this rampant bullshit around you. — Harold Ramis

There are almost too many possibilities. Photography is in direct proportion with our time: multiple, faster, instant. Because it is so easy, it will be more difficult. — Ernst Haas

This is a simple study. Yet, you can use this book to see deeper into the personality of God. I find it heartwarming that God was like a concerned parent who continuously moved the dialogue forward. Notice that Jonah was like a rebellious and headstrong son committing an idolatry of law over justice. (page v) — Michael Ben Zehabe

When you don't know what the answer is, you know *Who* the answer is. — Larry Burkett

There are still times when the thief I started out to be feels more authentic to me than the priest I've been for decades. To be pulled out of a slum and educated is to be an outsider forever - " He stopped talking, deeply embarrassed. Giuliani could never understand the price scholarship boys paid for their education: the inevitable alienation from your uncomprehending family, from roots, from your own first person, from the original "I" you once were. — Mary Doria Russell

There are 500 reasons I write for children ... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics ... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff ... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

These people, they were different to anyone I'd met. They'd offered their friendship, their trust, without a second thought. I'd always been wary about new people in my life. That same old barrier I put up to protect myself. I didn't let anyone close enough to be able to hurt me. My father had left, as though I was as insubstantial as air. As a child, I'd struggled to come to terms with it. He'd been there every single day, and then he wasn't. So what were we to him? A stopgap until something he determined as better came along? With the Aunt Margot feud, and subsequent alienation of the family, it felt as though people abandoned us like we were yesterday's newspaper. Could I fall into friendships with these girls, and then leave? Maybe it was time for me to stop worrying about anything other than living in the moment. I was missing out on so much, standing on the edge of life, waiting for something that might never happen. — Rebecca Raisin

Our society is so fragmented, our family lives so sundered by physical and emotional distance, our friendships so sporadic, our intimacies so 'in-between' things and often so utilitarian, that there are few places where we can feel truly safe. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

There was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. — Thomas Hardy

Suicide doll's suicide
Pretty, but with death there's no way to hide
Afraid to make a cut, see there's nothing inside
If your friends told you to jump off a bridge
You'd step to the edge and fly.
._. — Rae Mariz

And that is what we should all strive for. Being able to look in the mirror and love ourselves for who we are and what we've done. — Jessica Scott

On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden. — Marcia Sirota

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. — G.K. Chesterton

Children don t read to find their identity to free themselves from guilt to quench the thirst for rebellion or to get rid of alienation. They have no use for psychology ... They still believe in God the family angels devils witches goblins logic clarity punctuation and other such obsolete stuff ... When a book is boring they yawn openly. They don t expect their writer to redeem humanity but leave to adults such childish illusions. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

Few of us enter romantic relationships able to receive love. We fall into romantic attachments doomed to replay familiar family dramas. Usually we do not know this will happen precisely because we have grown up in a culture that has told us that no matter what we experience in our childhoods, no matter the pain, sorrow, alienation, emptiness, no matter the extent of our dehumanization, romantic love will be ours. We believe we will meet the girl of our dreams. We believe 'someday our prince will come.' They show up just as we imagined they would. We wanted the lover to appear but most of us were not clear about what we wanted to do with them-what the love was that we wanted to make and how we would make it. We were not ready to open our hearts fully. — Bell Hooks

When trying to explain the violent path of some Islamists, Western commentators sometimes blame harsh economic conditions, dysfunctional family circumstances, confused identity, the generic alienation of young males, a failure to integrate into the larger society, mental illness, and so on. Some on the Left insist that the real fault lies with the mistakes of American foreign policy.
None of this is convincing. Jihad in the twenty-first century is not a problem of poverty, insufficient education, or any other social precondition. (Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was earning more than $90,000 a year working for a drilling company in British Columbia, where he also reportedly proclaimed his support of the Taliban and joked about suicide bombing vests, with no repercussions.) We must move beyond such facile explanations. The imperative for jihad is embedded in Islam itself. It is a religious obligation. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali