Quotes & Sayings About Family Over Everything

I sleep for an entire day. And when I wake up I'm a new person. I'm empty. I've cried out everything I had in me. I'm an empty shell waiting to be filled with what comes next. Or I'm just being a total drama queen. I'm not empty. I'm still a person. I cried over a bad thing that happened in my life, but I probably shouldn't have. Compared to Mom's crisis, mine was small. Compared to a thousand other girls' around the world, mine is insignificant. It wasn't bad. Not compared to everyone else. It was just a couple seconds. It wasn't years. It wasn't months, like Mom. It wasn't a family member. Wasn't someone I see anymore. It didn't even hurt. There was no blood. It wasn't bad. Not compared to others'. So I should stop crying. — Sara Wolf

You called?" Sounding casual is difficult when it feels like you're heart's river-dancing in your rib cage.
"Yes. I just wondered where you were. You didn't answer your cell. Is everything okay?" She sighs, but I can't tell if it's in relief or parental aggravation.
"Everything's fine. My battery is dead, but Galen bought me a charger to keep over here, so it's charging."
"How sweet of him," she says, knowing good and well she instructed him to do so. "Well, just wanted to check in. Should I wait up for you? I don't appreciate you missing curfew the last few nights. Technically, staying over there until four in the morning is a coed sleepover, which I don't allow, or had you forgotten? Your trip to Florida with Galen's family was a special circumstance."
"I stayed the night at Chloe's all the time with JJ there." JJ is Chloe's eight-year-old brother. Not a great comeback, but it will have to do. — Anna Banks

At the end only two things really matter to a man, regardless of who he is; and they are the affection and understanding of his family. Anything and everything else he creates are insubstantial; they are ships given over to the mercy of the winds and tides of prejudice. but the family is an everlasting anchorage, a quiet harbor where a man's ships can be left to swing to the moorings of pride and loyalty. — Richard E. Byrd

I can only sign over everything,
the house, the dog, the ladders, the jewels,
the soul, the family tree, the mailbox.
Then I can sleep.
Maybe. — Anne Sexton

The whole mad swirl of everything that was to come began then; it would mix up all my friends and all I had left of my family in a big dust cloud over the American Night. — Jack Kerouac

Over the last couple of years, I've really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it. — Alanis Morissette

Get some perspective. A lot of things that may aggravate you only do so because you have the luxury of not wrestling with bigger issues. Today, be thankful for everything you have: being alive, your friends and family, your health, a roof over your head, something to eat, clean water to drink, indoor plumbing, heating, air conditioning, clothes, shoes, a job, and freedoms. Many, many people have it worse. — Dinah Sanders

After everything happened, we all got super tight. I can't deny it. We all just love each other. James Garner and David Spade came on and we fell in love with them too. We've just become a family all over again. We don't want to lose anyone again. — Kaley Cuoco

Mapleshade: "Your punishment is complete now, Crookedstar. You have lost everything."
Crookedstar: "No, Mapleshade. You're wrong. I still have a clan that I love and am proud to lead. And now ... now everything precious to me is here, in StarClan. My family is waiting here for me, when my ninth life has passed. It's you who have lost. You have no power over me anymore."
Mapleshade: "I have destroyed you!"
Crookedstar: "No, Mapleshade. I still have the cats that I loved. You have nothing and no one. — Erin Hunter

But even though our old home had physically seen better days, I knew in that moment that we had taken the soul of that house with us to our new home. And as I branched out and left our small town, I'd taken all the best bits of home life - the essence of its soul - with me wherever I went. It's the soul that matters most, after all. And even though over the years I've lived in everything from a cramped dorm room at school to a grand apartment in Paris and finally to our family town home in Santa Monica, I have taken the soul of home with me, wherever I am. — Jennifer L. Scott

God has already done everything He's going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you're going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family. — Joel Osteen

One of the greatest gifts that God gives to each of us is the love we share with our family, friends, and fellowmen. It is this divine gift of love that enriches us, gives meaning and purpose to life, and makes it all worth living. Everything else in life is secondary. Everything. And when our time here on earth is over, our lives will not be measured by the riches we accumulate, the honors we receive, the degrees we acquire, or the professional success we achieve, but by our capacity to love and be loved. — Mike Ramsdell

Don't BELIEVE everything you read and see on the socialmedia! Don't let LIKES & RT brainwash your mind, take control over your time and take you away from your life, family & responsibilities! — Lily Amis

I thought all I had to do to get you back was kill off your so-called mother and that little girl. No, I also pondered eating you alive. I imagined drinking all your blood and swallowing you whole many times. A thousand times ... no, a million times over the past few days! I couldn't even tell apart my dreams from reality. Why are you so obsessed with your piece of shit family? They abandoned you! Why must you only desire the things I can't give you, huh?! If you have any love left to go around, then don't give it to those worthless people. Give it to me! Give me everything. I want it all, even the last speck of dust lying at the bottom of your heart! Give me everything before I lose my mind! Before I really do drink your blood and eat your flesh! Before I swallow you whole! — Hajin Yoo

When we talked about "A Modest Proposal" I felt like I was running circles around everybody. I understood that shit better than the professor 'cause he was just a fan. I wasn't an Irishman, but I knew how it felt to have someone standing over you, controlling your life and wanting to call it something else. From the people at the Christian Fellowship to First Academy to my parents to Confucius to thousands of years of ass-backwards Chinese thinking, I knew how it felt. Everything my parents did to me and their parents did to them was justified under the banner of Tradition, Family, and Culture. And when it wasn't them it was someone impressing Christianity onto me and when it wasn't Christianity it was whiteness. — Eddie Huang

It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken. It isn't like I'd want to not have my little ones and Jack and that ranch, it is part of life to have to support yourself. It's just that I want everything, my insides are not just hungry, but greedy. I want to find out all the things in the world and still have a family and a ranch. Maybe part of passing that test was a marker for where I've been, but it feels more like a pointer for something I'll never reach. (November 29, 1887 entry, pg 309) — Nancy E. Turner

Family is everything, although I've been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the most amazing minds over the years, including Renzo Piano, John Young, Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour. — Richard Rogers

Their hearts and guts never had a moment of peace. They were afraid that all the calculations, all the planning, all that keeping things tidy, weren't worth anything: that one day it would all be over. But what did they really think would be over? The family? The factory? The money? No, these people knew that what they were afraid of was nowhere near so simple. What they were afraid of was that one day they'd have no energy left and be too tired to hold things together ... that everything they had scraped together would fall apart, and then their "culture" would be done for. — Sandor Marai

First Globals are ready to go anywhere, experience everything, and work and live in exotic places, and for them, family life takes priority over work life and a flexible, diverse, collaborative, fun learning environment is key. — Susan Scott

Most families have increased the speed of their lives and the number of their activities gradually--even unconsciously--over time. They realize that there are costs to a consistently fast-paced, hectic schedule, but they've adjusted. And looking around, there always seems to be another family that does everything you do, and more, managing to squeeze in skiing, or Space Camp, or French horn lessons on top of everything else. How do they do it?
They do it by never asking 'Why?' Why do our kids need to be busy all of the time? Why does our son, age twelve, need to explore the possibility of space travel? Why do we feel we must offer everything? Why must it all happen now? Why does tomorrow always seem a bit late? Why would we rather squeeze more things into our schedules than to see what happens over time? What happens when we stop, when we have free time? — Kim John Payne

Over the years I've collected a thousand memories of you, every glimpse, every word you've ever said to me. All those visits to your family's home, those dinners and holidays - I could hardly wait to walk through the front door and see you." The corners of his mouth quirked with reminiscent amusement. "You, in the middle of that brash, bull-headed lot ... I love watching you deal with your family. You've always been everything I thought a woman should be. And I have wanted you every second of my life since we first met. — Lisa Kleypas

But enough daydreaming. Our desks were waiting, we had work to do. And work was everything. We liked to think it was family, it was God, it was following football on Sundays, it was shopping with the girls or a strong drink on Saturday night, that it was love, that it was sex, that it was keeping our eye on retirement. But at two in the afternoon with bills to pay and layoffs hovering over us, it was all about the work. — Joshua Ferris

As it has over the decades, the union movement stands for the fundamental moral values that make America strong: quality education for our children, affordable health care for every person-not just some-an end to poverty, secure pensions and wages that enable families to sustain the middle-class life that has fueled this nation's prosperity and strength. Union members and other working family activists don't just vote our moral values-we live them. We fight for them, day in, day out. Our commitment to economic and social justice propels us and everything we do. — John Sweeney

I'm not Dead-Eye Dan. I gave up chasin' bounties and don't plan on ever goin' back. I ain't a dime-novel hero, but I'm steady, I work hard, and I'll do my best to give you the life you deserve." Etta opened her mouth, but he shook his head at her, needing to get everything said at once. "I know I'm a good deal older than you, twelve years by my count, and most young ladies would probably wish for someone younger, less tarnished. I've seen a lot of ugliness in this life, Etta. I won't lie to you about that. I'm rather set in my ways and opinionated about how things oughta be done, but I'd like to think that God gave me some wisdom over the years, too. Wisdom that will help me be the husband and father I want to be, one who will lead his family in a way that honors the Lord." Dan — Karen Witemeyer

It wasn't until he turned that she saw him, a huge, towering man close enough to hear everything they were saying. She gasped, and Beckett laughed. "Don't scare her to death!" He pulled Candy over to the man in the shadows, smiling. "This is my security detail. Mouse, meet Candy Cox." Mouse nodded. "Hey, Candy." He stepped forward, and she noticed he was younger than she'd initially thought. His voice was high and squeaky. He made no comment about her name, and that made her like him. Beckett slapped Mouse on the arm but missed the look of pure devotion on the man's face because he'd turned back to speak to her. "If you ever see this dude around, know I sent him. He's safe." Candy held out her hand formally, like her family had ingrained in her. Mouse took it and gave her a gentle smile. "Thanks, Mouse. Nice to meet you." He nodded and stepped back, scanning the area. — Debra Anastasia

My biggest ambition over everything is to have kids. It feels great. I'd love a big family. — Rafe Spall

He had visited his family the evening before, eaten dinner with Renee and Chris, his grandson, in the pretence that everything was ordinary, but in fact to service his end-game ruse. He was going over the mountains, he'd said, to hunt for quail in willow canyons, he had no particular canyons in mind, he intended to return on Thursday evening, though possibly, if the hunting was good, he would return on Friday or Saturday. The lie was open-ended so that his family wouldn't start worrying until he'd been dead for as long as a week - so none would miss or seek him where he rotted silently in the sage. Ben imagined how it might be otherwise, his cancer a pestilent force in their lives, or a pall descending over them like ice, just as they'd begun to emerge from the pall of Rachel's death. The last thing they needed was for Ben to tell hem of his terminal colon cancer. — David Guterson

Being immortal must have a lot of attractions. You can travel all over the world, see everything, do everything. But what happens if you are immortal and your friends and family are not? You are then destined to watch them age and die. — Michael Scott

I'm glad you're here, Lila," he said. "I hope you feel that way, too."
Devon stared at me, a mix of emotions swirling through his eyes. I saw everything I had that first day at the Razzle Dazzle - the guilt, grief, sorrow, and all the other burdens he carried in his heart.
And then there was that hot spark, a little darker and dimmer than before, but still burning all the same.
"Me too," I said.
Devon smiled, and that spark brightened just for a moment, and I felt an answering bit of warmth stir in my own heart. I nodded at him, and we both went back to our food, things a little less tense between us. A few seconds later, we were laughing, along with Oscar, as Mo and Felix talked over each other nonstop.
Somewhere between those laughs and all the others that morning, I realized something.
My home. My friends. My Family.
Sometimes, good things come in threes. — Jennifer Estep

It will require you to forsake nearly everything that it means to be a Jedi. But you have already begun down that path, I think. Your grief over the deaths of the Krim family does not speak of nonattachment. — Christie Golden

When my children were growing up, we began every family meal - which included breakfast and dinner every day - with a prayer. We are Jewish and so it was the prayer over bread, when we were having bread, or the catch-all prayer for everything when we weren't. — Ezekiel Emanuel

The traditional family table is round. No corners. No sides. No head. No tail. Everything is smooth. The food is in the center, and each family member reaches over the same distance. Someone you love is next to you on each side, and no one is last or at the end. The person farthest away from you is also the person facing you. — Deng Ming-Dao

Then he leaned over and kissed his wife, holding his breath as if it could hold the moment, as well, as if this single kiss could keep his wife and family and everything he loved from ever coming to harm, from ever leaving him alone. "What was that for?" Connie asked when their lips finally separated... "For everything I don't know how to say with words. — Jason Mott

I love touring. I can't wait. Everything is just normal when you're finally on tour. I think, for me, it's my happiest thing; I love moving around, and I have friends and family all over the place. It's kind of my time. It's almost like home. It's when I get to see everybody. — Alison Mosshart

A bright haze seemed to lie over everything, and she had a feeling of unreality, but the scene itself looked almost unbelievably wholesome, like something out of a commercial. Just your average family sitting down to eat turkey, she thought. One slightly flustered aunt, worried that the peas will be mushy and the rolls burnt, one comfortable uncle-to-be, one golden-haired teenage niece and her baby sister. One blue-eyed boy-next-door type, one spritely girlfriend, one gorgeous vampire passing the vegetables. A typical American household. — L.J.Smith

Despite everything, we are good people, who can hardly live in this world that continues almost entirely at our expese. The best thing is to keep on moving arms and legs, and watch the waves, almost as though moving forward. In this way, despair turns quickly over to happiness, and back to despair again. And, if you reach the beach, walk back across it like everything is fine, toward your family who would not like to see the abyss you have just swum over. — Joanna Walsh

Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she'd mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn't really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines.
On the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne's home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from over two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being. — Mary Jane Hathaway

Which meant it was time for the centerpiece of the celebration, the reason they were all gathered on Saturday, the weekly episode of what, as far as many of the Davidsons including Jody were concerned was the greatest television show ever made. Hee Haw. While Roy and Buck sang the opening song, everyone would bicker and talk back and forth, what was better about the show, the music or the humor, what have you, the natural result of 40 people crowded around one rabbit eared television set. But once Hee Haw started, the talking was over. After that, it was all about the love. And so was everything before, really. — Brian Holers

It's the Poverty.

I lack imagination you say

No. I lack language.
The language to clarify
my resistance to the literate.
Words are a war to me.
They threaten my family.

To gain the word
to describe the loss
I risk losing everything.
I may create a monster
the word's length and body
swelling up colorful and thrilling
looming over my mother, characterized.
Her voice in the distance
unintelligible illiterate.
These are the monster's words. — Cherrie L. Moraga

She expected a lot of me. When I was in fourth grade working on a book report, she made me start the whole thing over when she read it and said it was barely even legible. "What's wrong with it?" I asked her. "It's not good enough yet. You have to try harder," she said, her voice gentle. "You have to try hard at everything you do. That's all I ask." I rolled my eyes and revised it, and over time her approach wore off on me and I became like her too - wanting to do my best, expecting my best. — Daisy Whitney

When my friends began to have babies and I came to comprehend the heroic labor it takes to keep one alive, the constant exhausting tending of a being who can do nothing and demands everything, I realized that my mother had done all of these things for me before I remembered. I was fed; I was washed; I was clothed; I was taught to speak and given a thousand other things, over and over again, hourly, daily, for years. She gave me everything before she gave me nothing. — Rebecca Solnit

Shortly after her older brother died, Chloe (who had just celebrated her eighth birthday) went through a deeply philosophical stage. "I began to question everything," she told me, "I had to figure out what death was, that's enough to turn anyone into a philosopher." Chloe would put her hand over her eyes and tell the family her brother was still alive because she could see him in her mind just as well as she could see them. — Alain De Botton

Maybe the idea of the world as flat isn't a tribal memory or an archetypal memory, but something far older
a fox memory, a worm memory, a moss memory.
Memory of leaping or crawling or shrugging rootlet by rootlet forward, across the flatness of everything.
To perceive of the earth as round needed something else
standing up!
that hadn't yet happened.
What a wild family! Fox and giraffe and wart hog, of course. But these also: bodies like tiny strings, bodies like blades and blossoms! Cord grass, Christmas fern, soldier moss! And here comes grasshopper, all toes and knees and eyes, over the little mountains of the dust.
When I see the black cricket in the woodpile, in autumn, I don't frighten her. And when I see the moss grazing upon the rock, I touch her tenderly,
sweet cousin. — Mary Oliver

Both my parents came with their parents during the revolution in Cuba. Both my parents were born in Cuba. They left everything over there. My family got stripped of everything - of their land, of their jobs, everything. — Dominik Garcia-Lorido

James, you are all the family I have. I would die for you. You know that. I would die without you. If it were not for you, I would be dead a hundred times over these past five years. I owe you everything, and if you cannot believe I have empathy, perhaps you might at least believe I know honor
honor, and debt
— Cassandra Clare

Once upon a time," Nora said, as she fluttered a series of kisses over his shoulders that sent every nerve in his body reeling, "a very poor girl from a fucked-up family became a famous writer with a wicked pen and an even more wicked tongue who made seven figures a year. And she went everywhere she wanted to and did everything she wanted to. And nobody ever tried to stop her. And she had her own pet Angel who needed to learn how to talk. So guess what she did?"
"What?" Michael asked. He laughed in surprise as Nora slammed him down onto his back and slid on top of him. She brought her mouth onto his and forced his lips apart.
"She gave him her tongue. — Tiffany Reisz

A carpenter is hired- a roof repaired, a porch built. Everything that can be fixed. June, July, August. Everyday we hear their laughter. I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes. — Mary Oliver

After years of imprisonment, physical and emotional abuse, and separation from his family, Mandela said, "I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away." So Mandela's story is really the story of those two things he never gave away: his brilliant mind, and his great heart. — Nelson Mandela

But I can't control my dreams. I can't even remember them. For all I know I'm having the time of my life when I sleep, but I just can't remember. So I'm forced to live in a life I have no control over. A life where I'm either numb to everything or terrified of every thought that crosses my mind. If this is all just a dream, then it sure is a disappointing one.

But I still have time to try and control my dreams. I have time to try and make my dreams a reality in this waking life as well. The one bloody thing I have is time. I've got to remember that. I still have time. And despite everything, there is something reassuring about that. — F.K. Preston

I was in the most restricted prison in China, the most tough. The design of the prison is modeled for internal crimes of the Communist party, so it's like a mafia family's law. It's independent to the law this nation openly applies. It's the place they take you before they give you over to the judicial system. You stay there for a year or two and they make you really suffer to confess everything. — Ai Weiwei

If the Holy Spirit takes over your family, your business or your health, it doesn't matter what troubles you've been experiencing or what's been going wrong, you will begin to go from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from faith to faith, from success to success and from greatness to greatness. When the Holy Spirit takes over your life, He'll drive every sickness out of your body; He'll make right everything that was wrong. — Chris Oyakhilome

God wants you to live a life where you are madly in love with Jesus Christ. Where Christ excites you, you fear Him, you love Him, you find Him beautiful. You love Him more then your family and more then money. You love Him above everything. And because of that love that spills over, with joy you seek to serve Him. Isn't that the kind of life that God wants from you? — Tim Conway

I have a feeling a lot of artists' work got lost [because of AIDS]. Howard was fortunate because his family and friends supported him, but a chilling thing I remember was these guys at St. Vincent's [Hospital] who would call out for someone to listen to them, just for a moment. They were dying alone. Who knows what happened to their work? It's been a process to follow the thread to find out everything Howard did. It's getting over that shock. — Aaron Brookner

I don't . . ." I sound like I am being strangled. "My family is all dead, or traitors; how can I . . ." I am not making any sense. The sobs take over my body, my mind, everything. He gathers me to him, and bathwater soaks my legs. His hold is tight. I listen to his heartbeat and, after a while, find a way to let the rhythm calm me. "I'll be your family now," he says. "I love you," I say. — Veronica Roth

And that's how it was with Garrett. Because he understood me, the me I wanted so desperately to be. Think about your best friend - how you tell them everything, how they're the person who knows you best, all your deepest fears and insecurities. They're the one you call when something amazing happens or when everything falls apart and you need someone to come over and watch movies and tell you that everything's going to be OK. It's not like family, who are obligated to love you and even then sometimes fail to be everything they're supposed to be. Your true friend has chosen you, and you them, and that's a different kind of bond.
That's Garrett to me. I'm used to talking to him all the time, about the most meaningless stuff. To have him gone feels like a loss, an absence haunting me every day. Without him, there's just the empty space that used to be filled with laughter and friendship and comfort.
Can you really blame me for finding it so hard to let go? — Abby McDonald