Family And Its Quotes & Sayings

In life loyalty is something that you earn and Doreen had more than earned my loyalty over the years. But marriage is a rogue state with its own rules, and one of them is pledging your loyalty to somebody before you can be fully sure that they deserve it, so you stand their ground. You mess with him? You mess with me. That's the new rule. A husband is instant family. He gets the loyalty of a blood tie without doing any of the work. — Kate Kerrigan

Christianity had not started off as the ideology of an empire. Virtually nothing is known about its supposed founder, Jesus of Nazareth. There is not even any definite proof he was a historical rather than a mythical figure. Certainly the proof is not to be found in the Christian New Testament. It claims his birth was in Bethlehem in the Roman province of Judaea, where his family had gone for a census during the time of Augustus. But there was no census at the time stated and Judaea was not a Roman province at the time. When a census was held in AD 7 it did not require anyone to leave their place of residence. Similarly, the New Testament locates Jesus's birth as in the time of King Herod, who died in 4 BC. Roman and Greek writers of the time make no mention of Jesus and a supposed reference by the Jewish-Roman writer Josephus is almost certainly a result of the imagination of medieval monks.100 — Chris Harman

Children truly are the family's greatest treasure and most precious good. Consequently, everyone must be helped to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion. In attacking human life in its very first stages, it is also an aggression against society itself. Politicians and legislators, therefore, as servants of the common good, are duty bound to defend the fundamental right to life, the fruit of God's love. — Pope Benedict XVI

Sometimes I can't tell if you hate this place or love it."
"I love its potential. I hate its past. And I don't like what it is." She hugs her knees close to her chest. "The way you feel about the place you grew up in is a lot like how you feel about your family."
"How's that?"
She thinks about it for a long time. "Like isn't the same thing as love. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Normal people are not always boring. On the contrary. Volatility and passion, although often more romantic and enticing, are not intrinsically preferable to a steadiness of experience and feeling about another person (nor are they incompatible). These are beliefs, of course, that one has intuitively about friendships and family; they become less obvious when caught up in a romantic life that mirrors, magnifies, and perpetuates one's own mercurial emotional life and temperament. It has been with my pleasure, and not-inconsiderable pain, that I have learned about the possibilities of love - its steadiness and its growth - from my husband, the man with whom I had lived for almost a decade. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Every film is its own experience, its own planet, its own family. It seems infinite when you're working on it, and then it's suddenly very finite, and it's done. — Diane Lane

The idols of modern culture have had a profound influence on the shape of our work today. In traditional societies people found their meaning and sense of value by submitting their interests and sacrificing their desires to serve higher causes like God, family, and other people. In modern societies there is often no higher cause than individual interests and desires. This shift powerfully changed the role of work in people's lives - it now became the way we defined ourselves. Traditional cultures tended to see people's place on the social ladder as assigned by nature or convention, each family having its "proper place." That view had put too little stock in the role of individual talent, ambition, and hard work for determining the outcome of one's life. But modern society responded by putting too much stock in the autonomous person. — Timothy Keller

Speaking to the Heart is a great encouragement to men who want to be better husbands and fathers. It is both a practical job description of fatherhood-showing how fathers build strength in their children-and an inspiring call to family leadership. Any father who takes this book to heart and puts its wisdom into action will be known to his children as a great man. — James Stenson

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. — Pope John Paul II

'Can't really say?' Nick said, and heard, as he sometimes did, his own father's note of evasive sympathy. It was how his family sidled round its various crises; nothing was named, and you never knew for sure if the tone was subtly comprehensive, or just a form of cowardice. — Alan Hollinghurst

I've never forgotten what it's like to be in your early twenties, which is not a particularly easy time. You've left your family, you've left the strictures of high school, and you're trying to break free and form yourself but you have to support yourself as well. We don't really give enough credence to that time of life and to its troubles. — Julia Leigh

[A]s we celebrate 75 years of the minimum wage, we must also recognize that it is no longer achieving its potential impact in our economy or for America's working families. Every American deserves the chance to build a better life for his or her family - and raising the minimum wage will provide that opportunity. — Tom Harkin

The best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted in a characteristically pungent remark, that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness. Love and work enable each of us to explore a small corner of the world and to come to accept it on its own terms. But our society tends either to devalue small comforts or else to expect too much of them. Our standards of "creative, meaningful work" are too exalted to survive disappointment. Our ideal of "true romance" puts an impossible burden on personal relationships. We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves. — Christopher Lasch

America cut back on "welfare" from the 1970s onward. Family income support fell from 0.4 percent of GDP in 1970 to under 0.2 percent in 2010.16 Welfare still looms large in the public's imagination, but it plays little role in the budget and the deficit. It's been a long time since America was generous to its poor families with children! The — Jeffrey D. Sachs

In The Moon, Come to Earth Philip Graham takes us on the best kind of journey, as he simultaneously reveals the fascinating city of Lisbon
its neighborhoods, its writers, its customs, its cuisine
and offers an intimate portrait of his beloved family. With his far-reaching intellect Graham is the ideal travelling companion, and The Moon, Come to Earth is a beautiful and surprising book. — Margot Livesey

A friend loves you for your intelligence, a mistress for your charm, but your family's love is unreasoning; you were born into it and are of its flesh and blood. Nevertheless it can irritate you more than any group of people in the world. — Andre Maurois

Today, Islam effectively resists secularization primarily because of its use of shame. Within the community, each person's sexuality is tied to his or her family and to the community. To violate the sexual rules of Allah violates both the family and the community. This powerful distortion allows Islam to remain isolated from secular sexual influences. The terror of social sanction or violence keeps young people from following their heart. It prevents healthy sexual exploration and development in men and women. — Darrel Ray

The quality of life depends upon the ability of society to teach it's members how to live in harmony with their environment-def ined first as family, then the community, then the world and its resources. — Ellen Swallow Richards

It is an Akido style of martial art. The family disturber throws their disturbance at me like a punch, and I flow with it and its energy, while taking care of myself and my opponent. In Mindell's work, an attitude of eldership means the elder uses dance to dance freely between the energy of the disturber and the energy of the one disturbed. In Mindell's talk, he explains that when we get down to this level, we are in Process Mind or into the mind behind the system itself. — Gary Reiss

When a woman understands the uniqueness of the female brain - how to care for it, how to make the most of its strengths, how to overcome its challenges, how to fall in love with it, and ultimately, how to unleash its full power - there is no stopping her. In her personal development, at work, and in her relationships, she can bring the best of herself to her family, her community, and her planet. By contrast, a woman who is not caring optimally for her brain, who is not giving it the full range of nutrients, exercise, sleep, and emotional support that it needs, is squandering her most valuable resource. If you are not taking good care of your brain, you are at a significantly higher risk of brain fog, memory problems, low energy, distractibility, poor decisions, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. — Daniel G. Amen

There was an air of satisfaction to the house at the end of the day. Maybe the day hadn't gone exactly right, but the day had been lived and the house had been there for its family. — Janet Evanovich

The family is an early expedient and in many ways irrational. If the race had developed a special sexless class to be nurses, pedagogues, and slaves, like the workers among ants and bees, then the family would have been unnecessary. Such a division of labor would doubtless have involved evils of its own, but it would have obviated some drags and vexations proper to the family. — George Santayana

The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life. — Adolf Hitler

If the married life possess love and virtue, these will be both its duty and reward — Thiruvalluvar

Why do we so mindlessly abuse our planet, our only home? The answer to that lies in each of us. Therefore, we will strive to bring about understanding that we are
each one of us
responsible for more than just ourselves, our family, our football team, our country, or our own kind; that there is more to life than just these things. That each one of us must also bring the natural world back into its proper place in our lives, and realize that doing so is not some lofty ideal but a vital part of our personal survival. — Lawrence Anthony

Literary censorship should not be necessary within the parameters of the law because it's simply a reflection of prevailing social prejudices!

Writing should challenge and change prevailing ideas - churning the guts and ruffling feathers of friends, family and society. Antagonizing is a product of open writing. Expecting less is resignation and stagnation that slides the art into the status-quo.

Writing needs the wider view that shows the causality of our prevailing social prejudice - and shakes at its foundation.

Writers spare us no less and please leave your praise and oppugn to Christopher Hitchens. — Jack Tar

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar - except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole. — L. Frank Baum

G. K. Chesterton once said that the family is a cell of resistance to oppression. Unfortunately, this was one point of Catholic theology that the communists agreed with. To undermine Polish culture, communists struck at its heart - the family. Work and school schedules were organized so that parents had minimal contact with each other and with their children. Birth control and abortion were encouraged, state-sponsored sex education was implemented in schools, and apartments were built to accommodate only small families. — Jason Evert

Don't stay with Urdanetea, he told him. And don't go with your family to the United States. It's omnipotent and terrible, and its tale of liberty will end in a plague of miseries for us all. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Nathan was something that happened to us, as devastating in its way as the burning roof that fell on the family Mwanza; with our fate scarred by hell and brimstone we still had to track our course. And it happened finally by the grace of hell and brimstone that I had to keep moving. I moved, and he stood still. — Barbara Kingsolver

McDonald's, meanwhile, continues busily to harass small shopkeepers and restaurateurs of Scottish descent for that nationality's uncompetitive predisposition toward the Mc prefix on its surnames. The company sued the McAl an's sausage stand in Denmark; the Scottish-themed sandwich shop McMunchies in Buckinghamshire; went after Elizabeth McCaughey's McCoffee shop in the San Francisco Bay Area; and waged a twenty-six-year battle against a man named Ronald McDonald whose McDonald's Family Restaurant in a tiny town in Il inois had been around since 1956. — Naomi Klein

It had been Ari who proposed the term Kimunism for the strange form of xenophobic nationalism practiced under the Kim family dynasty; it was not really socialism, nor was it communism in even the Maoist form, despite the heaviness of its cult of personality. Ari had felt that it was the severity and chimeric plasticity of the system, so provocative, that made it appealing to French intellectuals. — David Cronenberg

And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent. — Sydney J. Harris

Swann's father, an excellent but an eccentric man in whom the least little thing would, it seemed, often check the flow of his spirits and divert the current of his thoughts. Several times in the course of a year I would hear my grandfather tell at table the story, which never varied, of the behaviour of M. Swann the elder upon the death of his wife, by whose bedside he had watched day and night. My grandfather, who had not seen him for a long time, hastened to join him at the Swanns' family property on the outskirts of Combray, and managed to entice him for a moment, weeping profusely, out of the death-chamber, so that he should not be present when the body was laid in its coffin. They took a turn or two in the park, where there was a little sunshine. Suddenly M. Swann seized my grandfather — Marcel Proust

And she looked upon the mirror that was given as a gift. She hated everything about it, from the circular size of it, to the color, and the wooden frame that held it in place. But mostly, she hated looking at herself. Especially into this one that had a scratch on its glass surface, which would reflect back to her face. And as she looked, it would cut her as the words her father would often say, in telling her she was ugly. — Anthony Liccione

Soup is a lot like a family. Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach full flavor. — Marge Kennedy

Those who reinforce the disintegrating elements in our society will get no thanks from future generations. The family becomes the ultimate victim of homosexuality, a result which any society can tolerate only within certain limits.

If the American Psychiatric Association endorses one of the symptoms of social distress as a normal phenomenon it demonstrates to the public its ignorance of social dynamics, of the relation of personal maladaptation to social disharmony, and thereby acquires a responsibility for aggravating the already existing chaos.
[response to December 15, 1973 verdict] — Abram Kardiner

Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty." Atticus's — Harper Lee

It is very important that children learn from their fathers and mothers how to love one another- not in the school, not from the teacher, but from you. It is very important that you share with your children the joy of that smile. There will be misunderstandings; every family has its cross, its suffering. Always be the first to forgive with a smile. Be cheerful, be happy. — Mother Teresa

Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother's shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course. — Helen Macdonald

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. — Sissy Spacek

The school should be an appendage of the family state, and modeled on its primary principle, which is, to train the ignorant and weak by self-sacrificing labor and love; and to bestow the most on the weakest, the most undeveloped, and the most sinful. — Catharine Beecher

When you have a Jewish mother who has a very strong Jewish family, it's very ethnic in its practices. Eating brisket, the food and the family and the interconnectedness for better or worse. — Goldie Hawn

The wind was blowing from the east and the cedars bent before it, - blowing from the east like the breath of the war god. And Fred and Stanley were waving their hats gayly back to her, while the cedars bent and the wind blew from the east. They were like her own boys marching off to war. Children of her children, she loved them as she had loved their parents. Did a woman never get over loving? Deep love brought relatively deep heartaches. Why could not a woman of her age, whose family was raised, relinquish the hold upon her emotions? Why could she not have a peaceful old age, wherein there entered neither great affection nor its comrade, great sorrow? She had seen old women who seemed not to care as she was caring, whose emotions seemed to have died with their youth. Could she not be one of them? For a long time she stood in the window and looked at the cedars twisting before the east wind, like so many helpless women under the call from the east. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Angry at being angry - there's a worm that will eat its tail and no mistake. I should have Oroborus on my family crest. — Mark Lawrence

Flambeau, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective in England, had long retired from both professions. Some say a career of crime had left him with too many scruples for a career of detection. Anyhow, after a life of romantic escapes and tricks of evasion, he had ended at what some might consider an appropriate address; a castle in Spain. [ ... ] Flambeau had casually and almost abruptly fallen in love with a Spanish lady, married and brought up a large family on a Spanish estate, without displaying any apparent desire to stray again beyond its borders. — G.K. Chesterton

If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America. — John James Audubon

The post-Soviet mafia wove a spider's web of dirty money around the world. Where better to attack it than to start with the Ukrainian criminal heavyweights - the 'family' and its closest circle? — Yulia Tymoshenko

Integrity is at the heart of commerce in the world in which we live. Honesty and integrity comprise the very underpinnings of society ... Indeed, the strength and safety of any organization-including the family-lie in the integrity of its members. Without personal integrity, there can be no confidence. Without confidence, there can be no prospect of permanent success. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Writing let me escape ... It let me escape the insistent tug of my family, and its ongoing misery. Sitting in front of the computer, with the screen blank and the cursor blinking, was the best escape I knew. And there was plenty to escape from. — Jennifer Weiner

The daguerreotypist once whispered her that these marks betokened the oddities of the Pyncheon family, and that the chicken itself was a symbol of the life of the old house, embodying its interpretation, likewise, although an unintelligible one, as such clews generally are. It was a feathered riddle; a mystery hatched out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if the egg had been addle! — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I have a plan," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Let's get married," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Let's conquer the world," he said.
"Yes," she said. No one in her family had ever been accused of dreaming small.
"Let's bring the beau monde to its knees."
"Yes."
"Let's make them beg for your creations."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, yes, yes."
"Is tomorrow too soon?" he said.
"No." she said. "We've a great deal to do, you and I, conquering the world. We must start at once. We've not a minute to lose."
"I love hearing you say that," he said.
He kissed her. It lasted a long time.
And they would last, she was sure, a lifetime. On that she'd wager anything. — Loretta Chase

If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, then a family is more like a rope. We're lots of fragile little strands, and we survive by becoming hopelessly intertwined with each other. — Brian K. Vaughan

My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral — Ulysses S. Grant

I don't know the first thing about holding together a family, especially one that resembles an heirloom vase, shattered but glued back together for its beauty, and no one mentions that you can see the cracks as plain as day. — Jodi Picoult

The enormous power held by each of the southern committee chairmen individually was multiplied by their unity, by what White called a "oneness found nowhere else in politics." The symbol was the legendary "Southern Caucus," the meetings of the twenty-two southern senators which were held in the office of their leader, Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia, whenever crisis threatened - meetings that were, White said, "for all the world like reunions of a large and highly individualistic family whose members are nevertheless bound by one bond." In those meetings, the southern position was agreed upon, its tactics mapped, its front made solid. — Robert A. Caro

In the late 1600s the finest instruments originated from three rural families whose workshops were side by side in the Italian village of Cremona. First were the Amatis, and outside their shop hung a sign: "The best violins in all Italy." Not to be outdone, their next-door neighbors, the family Guarnerius, hung a bolder sign proclaiming: "The Best Violins In All The World!" At the end of the street was the workshop of Anton Stradivarius, and on its front door was a simple notice which read: "The best violins on the block." — Freda Bright

In its effect on family relationships, in its facilitation of parental withdrawal from an active role in the socialization of their children, and in its replacement of family rituals and special events, television has played an important role in the disintegration of the American family. — Marie Winn

Perhaps for many Japanese, autobiographical fiction writing is life. We are a people expected to complement, to harmonize, to anticipate one another's needs. All without a single spoken clue.

And the reason is that he's in training to be a writer. Observing detail, understanding irony, interpreting motivation. Hiro knows that acts are symbolic. The hard sour fruit offered too soon in its season carries a message. He has made an error in the timing of his visit. He has inconvenienced that family.

This is the Japanese way. Cogitating on inner meaning. Revealing ourselves and perceiving others through carefully crafted scenes.

Writing our endless I-stories. — Lydia Minatoya

Take a look at my life
its just a handful of memories
From misdemeanours to felonies
Funerals of family
Look at my life
Ain't exactly what i planned it'd be
And life, Is this really what it's all about?
My life, It ain't no mystery to figure out
My life, I got a couple rhymes I scribbled out
Guess i took a different route
Take a look at my life — Ko

Break up the institution of the family, deny the inviolability of its relations, and in a little while there would not be any humanity. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

In our family, at this point,[Sunday School] its not a choice for my kids. It's a duty for us as parents to give them faith as a foundation and hope that when they bemuse older teens and young adults they will choose the same thing for themselves. — Gretchen Carlson

The blank sheet stares up at me, its emptiness like a slap. Those were the last words Ginny ever wrote before she and her family were murdered. — Jennifer Walkup

So my life and the life of my family has been completely disrupted in absolutely every way. But it's been worth it. It's uncovered a vast cesspool of illegitimate economic and political power in which the Church is immersed right up to its ears, and I intend to dive in headfirst and pull it out of there dripping wet for all the world to see
no matter how long it takes, no matter whose feet get stepped on in the process, no matter how much it costs, no matter how great the personal sacrifice. — Madalyn Murray O'Hair

I am about tribal feminine power. As a leader, I may stumble but my essence lives to the future
of my people, of my literature, of my art. And when a tribesman turn against its leader, that tribe will become two. It may faulter my course, but it will not stifle my ending. I rule only among my believers. — Kristie LeVangie

A whole section of the family tree is pruned and primped and assessed as I politely sit there. Overall, I detect that the tree is fine: its leaves gently turning in the breeze of life. We have no scandal blight, no limb-wrenching storms of fate, no bad apples. I wonder what it is like when the Kennedys sit around for a disk check like this. — Padgett Powell

A family of four needs to transport around 200 pounds of water each and every day to meet its most minimal drinking, cooking, and cleaning needs. To manage such an impossible weight, two trips to the well each day by mother and children are not uncommon. Carrying water for basic subsistence devours school time for children and places a dispiriting burden on the enterprising will of parents to struggle out of their material privation. That the water carrying falls traditionally on women adds the insult of gender inequity to the tragedy. — Steven Solomon

Everything that makes man's life worthwhile - family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head - all this depends on the decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of its people. — Robert Kennedy

I haven't been here long, but, nevertheless, all the same, what I've managed to observe and verify here arouses the indignation of my Tartar blood. By God, I don't want such virtues! I managed to make a seven-mile tour here yesterday. Well, it's exactly the same as in those moralizing little German picture books: everywhere here each house has its Vater, terribly virtuous and extraordinarily honest. So honest it's even frightening to go near him. I can't stand honest people whom it's frightening to go near. Each such Vater has a family, and in the evening they all read edifying books aloud. Over their little house, elms and chestnuts rustle. A sunset, a stork on the roof, and all of it extraordinarily poetic and touching ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I dream of a day when governments and societies no longer value blood and race over children, and the millions of unwanted children are freed at birth for adoption by people of every race. Aside from all its other benefits, massive adoption is the best assurance that people will never again slaughter the "other." When members of every family are one of those "others," such hatreds will become, finally, impossible. — Dennis Prager

Going back to school is like going back in time. Immediately, for better or for worse, you must give up a little piece of your autonomy in order to become part of the group. And every group, of course, has its hierarchies and rules- spoken and unspoken. It is like learning to live once again in a family- which, of course, is the setting where all learning begins. — Alice Steinbach

But isn't the whole idea of sanctification the fact that we're not really there yet? That we're still growing and becoming? Still learning how to live the gospel out? Then why this obsession with pretending to be something for other people, who are pretending to be something for us? It's madness. You see that, don't you? The cross of Jesus, while definitely meant to include us in the family of God, is also designed to out us as people who desperately need what its forgiveness and power provide. The — Matt Chandler

Law of Suspects. Suspects are those: who have in any way aided tyranny (royal tyranny, Brissotin tyranny ... ); who cannot show that they have performed their civic duties; who do not starve, and yet have no visible means of support; who have been refused certificates of citizenship by their Sections; who have been removed from public office by the Convention or its representatives; who belong to an aristocratic family, and have not given proof of constant and extraordinary revolutionary fervor; or who have emigrated. — Hilary Mantel

Whence, then, did the cathedral derive its power? Clearly here: It took back the family into the confidences of religion. It taught man and woman how the human and the divine love could go hand in hand. — Jenkin Lloyd Jones

There is something strikingly different about the quality of photographs of that time. It has nothing to do with age or colour, or the feel of paper ... In modern family photographs the camera pretends to circulate like a friend, clicking its shutters at those moments when its subjects have disarranged themselves to present to it those postures which they would like to think of as informal. But in pictures of that time, the camera is still a public and alien eye, faced with which people feel bound either to challenge the intrusion by striking postures of defiant hilarity, or else to compose their faces, and straighten their shoulders, not always formally, but usually with just that hint of stiffness which suggests a public face. — Amitav Ghosh

In the centre of Bond was a hurricane-room, the kind of citadel found in old-fashioned houses in the tropics. These rooms are small, strongly built cells in the heart of the house, in the middle of the ground floor and sometimes dug down into its foundations. To this cell the owner and his family retire if the storm threatens to destroy the house, and they stay there until the danger is past. Bond went to his hurricane room only when the situation was beyond his control and no other possible action could be taken. Now he retired to this citadel, closed his mind to the hell of noise and violent movement, and focused on a single stitch in the back of the seat in front of him, waiting with slackened nerves for whatever fate had decided for B. E. A. Flight No. 130. — Ian Fleming

Because blood is blood, and every family has its own force.
Its own flavor.
Its own charm and strange. — Stephanie Kuehn

Every family has a story that it tells itself, that it passes on to the children and grandchildren. The story grows over the years, mutates, some parts are sharpened, others dropped, and there is often debate about what really happened. But even with these different sides of the same story, there is still agreement that this is the family story. And in the absence of other narratives, it becomes the flagpole that the family hangs its identity from. — A.M. Homes

All the episodes from my stories and novels are not about food only, but about meals. You can eat food by yourself. A meal, according to my understanding anyhow, is a communal event, bringing together family members, neighbors, even strangers. At its most ordinary, it involves hospitality, giving, receiving, and gratitude. — Wendell Berry

No one goes anywhere alone, least of all into exile - not even those who arrive physically alone, unaccompanied by family, spouse, children, parents, or siblings. No one leaves his or her world without having been transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in a time of misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence possibly now forgotten by the one who had said it. — Paulo Freire

From heat and protons, to hearts, central nervous systems, minds and cluster bombs, this is Creation's single compulsion, its one and only passion; a relentless, arguably reckless passage from a state of ancestral simplicity to contemporary complexity, where complexity - and the specialisation it affords - parents a wretched and forever diversifying family of more devoted fears and faithful anxieties, more pervasive ailments and skilful parasites, more virulent toxins, more capable diseases, and more affectionate expressions of pain, ruin, psychosis and loss. In the simplest possible statement: Creation is a vast entanglement apparatus - a complexity machine - whose single-minded mindless state of employment is geared entirely towards a greater potency and efficiency in the delivery and experience of misery and confusion, not harmony and peaceful accord. — John Zande

good life, the happy life, is connecting to something larger than ourselves, recognizing that we are not mere blips on the cosmic radar screen but part of something much bigger. For some, a Victorian building, with its creaking staircases and tarnished molding, provides this connection. For others, it's giving a new cellphone, gift wrapped, to Uncle Wen who died twenty years ago but is still part of the family. — Eric Weiner

We feel the pull of the mindless herd, the allure of the pack, but we resist the extreme effects of this influence-and when we do not, we drag our societies down into the bloody wreckage of failed Utopias, led by Hitler or Lenin, or Mao Tse-tung. And the wreckage reminds us that God gave us our individualism and that to surrender it is to follow a dark path. When we fail to see the eccentricities in ourselves and to be amused by them, we become monsters of self-regard. Each in its own way, every family is as eccentric as mine. I guarantee it. Opening your eyes to this truth is to open your heart to humanity. — Anonymous

Each civilization, each nation, each family, each profession, each sex and each class has its own history. Humans have so far been interested mainly in their own private roots, and have therefore never claimed the whole of the inheritance into which they were born, the legacy of everybody's past experience. Each generation searches only for what it thinks it lacks, and recognizes only what it knows already. — Theodore Zeldin

I am filthy. I am riddled with lice. Hogs, when they look at me, vomit. My skin is encrusted with the scabs and scales of leprosy, and covered with yellow pus.[ ... ] A family of toads has taken up residence in my left armpit and, when one of them moves, it tickles. Mind one of them does not escape and come and scratch the inside of your ear with its mouth; for it would then be able to enter your brain. In my right armpit there is a chameleon which is perpetually chasing them, to avoid starving to death: everyone must live.[ ... ] My anus has been penetrated by a crab; encouraged by my sluggishness, he guards the entrance with his pincers, and causes me a lot of pain. — Comte De Lautreamont

Family life, even with just one little boy, had its own familiar rhythms, and it was perfectly possible to keep right on dancing like you always have, even when your mind is somewhere else. — Liane Moriarty

We have preachers and savants who dilate endlessly on the sanctity of family and childhood but who tolerate a system in which a casual observer can correlate a child's social origin with its physical well-being. — Christopher Hitchens

Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us ... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird ... a social being ... capable of actual affection ... nuzzling its young with almost human- like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family ... — Berkeley Breathed

It only took Alexis a day to read a five-hundred page book. Fiction stories took her to another world where she could lose herself for a while in someone else's life.
Its funny how things like loans to pay back, a broken home and family, and a future to worry about meant nothing to characters who only had to worry about things like boys, beaches and fun. — Lindsay Chamberlin

Marriage is treated by all civilized societies as a peculiar and favored contract. It is in its origin a contract of natural law ... It is the parent, and not the child of society; the source of civility and a sort of seminary of the republic. — Joseph Story

Hitchcock's debut novel introduces 14-year-old Jessie Pearl, who endures more than her fair share of hardships, beginning with the death of her mother. Opening in 1922, the story follows the daily activities on the family's North Carolina tobacco farm. ...Hitchcock's story is gently and lovingly written, with elements drawn from her own family history. Its detailed honesty about the particular struggles of the period, especially for strong women (Maude, a no-nonsense midwife, is particularly memorable), is significant.
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY — Publishers Weekly

The Christian life is not just our own private affair. If we have been born again into God's family, not only has he become our Father but every other Christian believer in the world, whatever his nation or denomination, has become our brother or sister in Christ. But it is no good supposing that membership of the universal Church of Christ is enough; we must belong to some local branch of it. Every Christian's place is in a local church. sharing in its worship, its fellowship, and its witness. — John Stott

Every voter knew that the Family Party had come to power promising to deport Illegals, to manage its borders more efficiently and to ensure that people of traditional European stock weren't overrun in their own country. — Lawrence Hill

The single factor most responsible for the disruption of the family is the automobile. Its full effect cannot be assessed. Modern life, as we know, would be impossible without the ubiquitous motorcar. It broke up the old family and community. — Alexander Lowen

Commercial agriculture can survive within pluralistic American society, as we know it - if the farm is rebuilt on some of the values with which it is popularly associated: conservation, independence, self-reliance, family, and community. To sustain itself, commercial agriculture will have to reorganize its social and economic structure as well as its technological base and production methods in a way that reinforces these values. — Marty Strange

This work of the Lord is indeed great and marvelous, but it moves forward essentially unnoticed by many of mankind's political, cultural, and academic leaders. It progresses one heart and one family at a time, silently and unobtrusively, its sacred message blessing people everywhere. — L. Whitney Clayton

Genes and family may determine the foundation of the house, but time and place determine its form. — Jerome Kagan

I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer. — Max Weinberg

Every single courageous act of coming out chips away at the curse of homophobia. Most importantly it's destroyed within yourself, and that act creates the potential for its destruction where it exists in friends, family and society. — Anthony Venn-Brown

Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs. It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony. It was not an easy choice in any way. But I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage. That was a decision I made for me, for our son and for our family. — Huma Abedin