Family Up And Down Quotes & Sayings

Planning complex, beautiful meals and investing one's heart and time in their preparation is the opposite of self-indulgence. Kitchen-based family gatherings are process-oriented, cooperative, and in the best of worlds, nourishing and soulful. A lot of calories get used up before anyone sits down to consume. But more importantly, a lot of talk happens first, news exchanged, secrets revealed across generations, paths cleared with a touch on the arm. I have given and received some of my life's most important hugs with those big oven-mitt potholders on both hands. — Barbara Kingsolver

You should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun ... My family's habit of living in the past seems to me pathological, even dangerous. If all greatness lies in the past, what is the point of the future? — Stephen L. Carter

You see the grandmother down there with her son and grandson? They've probably been coming here for years together. Or maybe it's their first trip. Either way, it's three generations sitting down together, laying aside their differences for one night to be a family. This is humanity, Steele. This is what we're fighting for. Family. People. Pride. It's our differences that make up our strength. BAD isn't about patriotism. It's about saving individuals. Not just those in America, but all the ones who are out there going about their lives with little to no care about politics. Men, women, and children who only want to live peacefully while others are looking for ways to use them as pawns in a deadly game they don't even want to play. (Joe) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

This obsession is a curious thing. Sometimes wonder about the merits of devoting so much of myself to a singular climbing objective. Much of the time it beats me down, leaves me hanging my head in despair. But then there are the moments that bring me to life. When excitement wells up inside my chest in a way that doesn't happen in every day life. Today my fingertips were cracked and bleeding. I made no progress despite great conditions. Now I am on the ground and can hardly contain my excitement to get back on the wall. It's a crazy rollercoaster and I owe my family and partners a great deal for encouraging me through it all. — Tommy Caldwell

I am tired, I want to go home. I want to continue my art work, I want to plant a garden, I want to walk in the forest, I want to walk in the fields, I just want to lie down on the grass and feel the sun against my skin. I want to be able to hold my family close to me and not have someone tell me time's up. — Leonard Peltier

The reason why she had chosen journalism was because of those who had done so before her. Stalwart women and men who reported stories in the days before the Internet. Before it was fashionable to learn Mass Communication. A long time before being a TV reporter and calling up your family to see your face beamed to their homes was an in thing. They were those who had left their families behind as they pursued the truth, opting to go to jail when the government hounded them to reveal their sources. Men and women that would rather quit than write editorials the management wanted them to write. Journalists who never wrote a word they would have to disown. Journalists who took their last breath as they wrote an article was true to what they believed in. They would never sit down and take stock of the stories they had covered and written saying, So what if twenty of these are non-stories, I at least had five I believed in. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Everything has a past, a voice, existed at some point, even things as small and seemingly meaningless as a house in a huge suburb. It's a house like every other house ... but at some point a family lived there, made it theirs, made it important. When people forget that history, that somebody at some point thought the house mattered, it just becomes an empty pile of nailed wood and brick and concrete that gets torn down for some strip mall or chain store to take its place ... and that's what happens more and more now, everything is disposable, always replaced with no thought at all. That's where things get lost, memories get lost, humanity slips through the cracks, because when we all fail to pay attention to the things that make up our lives, we're no longer human at all, not really. — Rebecca McNutt

On the Monday morning, with the rain still pouring down, Ross went in to see Drake, who was sitting up in bed and, apart from the bandaged shoulder and the plastered fingers, was now looking more substantial than Dwight. Perhaps this too was not surprising. At nineteen, if a man does not die from a wound, he quickly gets better. 'So,' said Ross. 'I thought I might have had to take your sister home some bad news.' Drake smiled. All the damned family, Ross thought, had this wonderful smile. They had certainly not inherited it from their father. 'No, sur. I — Winston Graham

He watched in awe as she stacked up an enormous armload of music. "There," she finished, slapping Frank Zappa's Greatest Hits on top of the pile. "That should do for a start."
"You are a music lover," said the wide-eyed cashier.
"No, I'm a kleptomaniac." And she dashed out the door.
He was so utterly shocked that it took him a moment to run after her.
With a meaningful nod in the direction of the astounded Cahills, she barreled down the cobblestone street with her load.
"Fermati!" shouted the cashier, scrambling in breathless pursuit.
Nellie let a few CDs drop and watched with satisfaction over her shoulder as the clerk stopped to pick them up. The trick would be to keep the chase going just long enough for Amy and Dan to search Disco Volante.
Yikes, she reflected suddenly, I'm starting to think like a Cahill ...
And if she was nuts enough to hang around this family, it was only going to get worse. — Gordon Korman

Mom still has a huge, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. The whole family comes together after midnight mass and has the traditional plum cake and wine. We spend the night at mom's home, and in the morning we wake up and open the presents. In the afternoon, we sit down to have a traditional Christmas lunch. — Malaika Arora Khan

Gunner shook his head; he wasn't in the mood. He stared down at his bottle as he spoke. "Yeah, and what if I do go after it and what if I find no one, and I'm alone for the next sixty years? What then? Huh? Friends and family will get married. I'll be stuck buying gifts. Years pass: children, birthday parties. At dinner parties, I'll be odd man out, forcing people to arrange five chairs around a table instead of four or six. Or, okay, let's say maybe twenty years down the line I meet someone nice and I've already given up on ever finding true love. Let's say the girl is a few pounds overweight, has fizzy hair and an annoying laugh, but at this point, I'm also a few pounds overweight and my hair is thinning and my laughter is annoying. Maybe then the two of us get married, and both our groups of friends will say, 'See I told you that you'd find true love. It just took a while.' And we'll smile, but we'll both know it's a lie-- — Michael Anthony

Life got in the way
two years in the army, work, marriage, family responsibilities, the need to earn more and more money, all the muck that bogs us down when we don't have the balls to stand up for ourselves
but I had never lost my interest in books. — Paul Auster

This is how it needs to be in life. Solomon also wrote these words in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NIV) "Two are better than one, because if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls down and has no one to help them up." God didn't intend for us to do life alone. So let me ask you, who do you turn to when life hits you hard in the mouth? Your family? Some trusted friends? A teacher or coach? Are you building relationships today that will be there for you tomorrow when adversity comes your way? Do you have humility to look to others for strength and encouragement, or are you holding to the foolish pride that says, "I need to make it alone"? — Kirk Cousins

If you surround yourself with the good and righteous, they can only raise you up. If you surround yourself with the others, they will drag you down into the doldrums of mediocrity, and they will keep you there, but only as long as you permit it. — Mark Glamack

Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up. — Jacob Latimore

In my mind, she was Lebkuchen Spice - ironic, Germanic, sexy, and off beat. And, mein Gott, the girl could bake a damn fine cookie ... to the point that I wanted to answer her What do you want for Christmas? with a simple More cookies, please!
But no. She warned me not to be a smart-ass, and while that answer was totally sincere, I was afraid she would think I was joking or,
worse, kissing up.
It was a hard question, especially if I had to batten down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I'd probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas. I could play the boo-hoo orphan card and wish for my whole family to be together, but that was the last thing I wanted, especially at this late date. — David Levithan

For your own good, for the good of your family and your future, grow a backbone. When something is wrong, stand up and say it is wrong, and don't back down. — Dave Ramsey

I can't believe you can create such beauty."
"I can't believe I'm finally looking at my beauty. You can't see it, Lark. I know you can't. Maybe it's a girl thing or your shitty family or you do see it and are just fishing for compliments, but you are too beautiful to get right on paper. No matter how much I try," I said, cupping her face, "I can't make my art look nearly as perfect as you."
"Shit," she whispered. "Did you just think that up because it was fucking brilliant?"
Before I could answer, little Lark stepped up as far as she could on her tippy toes, pulled me down to her, and kissed me hard and deep. The girl claimed my breath like she'd already claimed my heart. No way was I imagining all of her wonderful qualities. I wasn't that damn creative. — Bijou Hunter

A cat met up with a big male rat in the attic and chased him into a corner. The rat, trembling, said, 'Please don't eat me, Mr. Cat. I have to go back to my family. I have hungry children waiting for me. Please let me go.' The cat said, 'Don't worry, I won't eat you. To tell you the truth, I can't say this too loudly, but I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat any meat. You were lucky to run into me.' The rat said, 'Oh, what a wonderful day! What a lucky rat I am to meet up with a vegetarian cat!' But the very next second, the cat pounced on the rat, held him down with his claws, and sank his sharp teeth into the rat's throat. With his last, painful breath, the rat asked him, 'But Mr. Cat, didn't you say you're a vegetarian and don't eat any meat? Were you lying to me?' The cat licked his chops and said, 'True, I don't eat meat. That was no lie. I'm going to take you home in my mouth and trade you for lettuce.' — Haruki Murakami

Chinese whisper games will start, where one woman will nod at a young dancing girl, asking a question that is passed down the row from one woman to another, before a response comes back up the line in the same manner. These women are in the business of finding wives for their sons and they offer up occasional commentary on the performance before them.
"Not so pretty. Her sister is better."
"That poor one will have a hard time, yes. The dark skin - she is already an old woman. She will have to wait, yes."
Information about the girl's family's honor, purity, and place in society is also exchanged — Jenny Nordberg

We may live in concrete nests piled on top of each other, we may file in and out of our planes and freeways in neat lines, but we are making it all up as we go along. An ant is born into a complex chemical environment where every small instruction had been laid down in advance. Mother tells the workers what to do and they do everything for the greater good of their enormous family.
In contrast, every human being is capable of working for the advancement of their own procreating, their own minuscule families. Yet we somehow recognize the value of a larger form of society, and readily respond to a larger world beyond our own narrow self-interests. With our unique creative capacity, we have modified ourselves as we have modified our physical conditions, and we have developed an extraordinary division of labor. You and I may be as different as night and day, but that is our strength, and it is precisely this diversification that makes my time in Africa so intensely satisfying. — Craig Packer

Troy: Why do we inflict this on ourselves?
Ben: Why? I'll tell you why, 'cause the Red Sox never let you down.
Troy: Huh?
Ben: That's right. I mean - why? Because they haven't won a World Series in a century or so? So what? They're here. Every April, they're here. At 1:05 or at 7:05, there is a game. And if it gets rained out, guess what? They make it up to you. Does anyone else in your life do that? The Red Sox don't get divorced. This is a real family. This is the family that's here for you. — Jimmy Fallon

Generally, I've observed, we seek changes that fall into the "Essential Seven." People - including me - most want to foster the habits that will allow them to: 1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol) 2. Exercise regularly 3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget) 4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car) 5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog) 6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle) 7. Engage more deeply in relationships - with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services) — Gretchen Rubin

Let's say you have $1,000,000 tied up in your little company and suddenly your advertising isn't working and sales are going down. And everything depends on it. Your future depends on it, your family's future depends on it, other people's families depend on it. Now, what do you want from me? Fine writing? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve stop moving down and start moving up? — Rosser Reeves

knowing him, most of them already were. He left the house in equal shares to Dennis and Edward - the two oldest grandsons. That maxibus - " Eve whipped the wheel, sent the DLE up. And took a corner as if in pursuit of a mass murderer. "Is behind us. Keep going." "I can tell you Dennis and Edward have been at odds over the house. Dennis wants to keep it in the family, per Bradley's wishes. Edward wants to sell it." "He can't sell it, I take it, unless Mr. Mira signs off." "That's my understanding. I don't know why Dennis came down here today - he had a full day at the university, as one of his colleagues — J.D. Robb

I love you, Godric St. John, and now I'm breaking my word. I will not leave you. You may either come with me to Laurelwood or I'll stay here with you in your musty old house in London and drive you mad with all my talking and relatives and ... and exotic sexual positions until you break down and love me back, for I'm warning you that I'm not giving up until you love me and we're a happy family with dozens of children. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Friends and family came and went, sometimes helping her with her tears, other times making her laugh. But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live. But what was the point in living when there was no life in it? These questions went through her mind over and over until she reached the point of not wanting to wake up from her dreams
they were what felt real.
Deep down, she knew it was normal to feel like this, she didn't particularly think she was losing her mind. She knew that one day she would be happy again and that this feeling would just be a distant memory. It was getting to that day that was the hard part. — Cecelia Ahern

At the end of the day, Esperanza stepped into Myron's office, sat down, and said, "I don't know much about family values or what makes a happy family. I don't know the best way to raise a kid or what you have to do to make him happy and well adjusted, whatever the hell 'well adjusted' means. I don't know if it's best to be an only child or have lots of siblings or be raised by two parents or a single parent or a gay couple or a lesbian couple or an overweight albino. But I know one thing." Myron looked up at her and waited. "No child could ever be harmed by having you in his life." Esperanza — Harlan Coben

Wherever the family was, these two dogs, both six-year-old shepherd mixes, took up their posts at the central coming-and-going point. Gil called them concierge dogs. And it's true, they were inquisitive and accommodating. But they were not fawning or overly playful. They were watchful and thoughtful. Irene thought they had gravitas. Weighty demeanors. She thought of them as diplomats. She had noticed that when Gil was about to lose his temper one of the dogs always appeared and did something to divert his attention. Sometimes they acted like fools, but it was brilliant acting. Once, when he was furious about a bill for the late fees for a lost video, one of the dogs had walked right up to Gil and lifted his leg over his shoe. Gil was shouting at Florian when the piss splattered down, and she'd felt a sudden jolt of pride in the dog. — Louise Erdrich

This is a part of post-college life that nobody ever warns you about. Your social life is no longer dropped into your lap by virtue of shared classes and extracurricular activities. Relationships, whether with friends, family, or romantic partners - from here on out, they're going to take a lot more work. No more built-in friends at the sorority, or hollering down the stairs when I need my mom. It's certainly not going to be as easy to meet guys now that I'm done with school. It's not like I can just chat up the cute guy in econ class anymore. — Lauren Layne

She waved good-bye and hurried down the street towards her family's house, thinking again that some nights had good karma and some nights were cursed, and for a few moments, tonight had seemed like the former, but it had ended up the latter. — Elin Hilderbrand

My mother said, "Arturo, stop that. Your sister's tired."

"Oh Holy Ghost, Oh Holy inflated triple ego, get us out of the depression. Elect Roosevelt. Keep us on the gold standard. Take France off, but for Christ's sake keep us on!"

"Arturo, stop that"

"Oh Jehovah, in your infinite mutability see if you can't scrape up some coin for the Bandini family."

My mother said, "Shame, Arturo. Shame."

I got up on the divan and yelled, "I reject the hypothesis of God! Down with the decadence of a fraudulent Christianity! Religion is the opium of the people! All that we are or ever hope to be we owe to the devil and his bootleg apples!"

My mother came after me with the broom. — John Fante

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.
As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and is not yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, had in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God, the eternal Father.
I was one of them, they were of me, and in me, and I in all of them. — Richard Llewellyn

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

My life comes down to three moments: the death of my father, meeting my husband, and the birth of my daughter. Everything I did previous to that just doesn't seem to add up to very much. — Gwyneth Paltrow

It runs in the family. And don't expect me to be ashamed. Yankees lock away loony relatives, but down here, we prop 'em up on parade floats and march 'em through the middle of town. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

You know, we're a tight family. I live right down the street from my folks. I talk to my mother every day. I'm a momma's boy. We all are. So there's no exclusion in this family. You're part of it. We embrace you and lift you up. — Emilio Estevez

We got Arbitron diaries at my house in the 1980s, when the family was down to just my mother and me, and we tried for a couple of days to fill it out (I of course treated it like we'd been asked to write a new book of the Bible), but we got really bored with it and gave it up. — Hank Stuever

Descending the stairs from her room, I was tempted to go outside and find out if the shivering gut-wrench I'd felt as I came in really meant what I thought it did. But I stayed in the warmth of the house. I felt like I knew something about myself that I hadn't before, a bit of knowledge so new that if I became a wolf now, I might lose it and not remember it whenever I became Cole again.
I wandered down the main stairs, mindful that her father was somewhere in the house's depths while Isabel stayed up in her tower alone.
What would it be like, growing up in a house that looked like this? If I breathed too hard it would knock some decorative bowl off the wall or cause the perfectly arranged dried flowers to weep petals. Sure, my family had been affluent growing up - successful mad scientists generally are - but it never looked like this. Our lives had looked ... lived in. — Maggie Stiefvater

I'm sitting in front of the TV, watching Jerry Springer, and it makes me think of how many mad people there are in the world, and whether everyone is mad deep down, they just pretend they're not, and it's the people in asylums or on Jerry Springer who are the honest ones. I have a notebook and a chewed-up pen, and I'm trying to think of a topic for the Youth Issues speech. Mrs Thomas says she thinks I have a lot to say, but I don't. Nothing I can put words to anyway. I could talk about bullying, or alcoholism, but I don't think I could speak about that out loud, it's too real, and it'd be like I was standing up there naked. More than naked. It would be like my skin was all peeled off and I was just standing there with my heart all bloody and thumping in my rib cage for everyone to see. — Megan Jacobson

Would you like to know how Charlotte got those nine stitches?" I asked suddenly, in a tone of voice that sounded perfectly normal to me. "We were up at the Lake. Seymour had written to Charlotte, inviting her to come up and visit us, and her mother finally let her. What happened was, she sat down in the middle of our driveway one morning to pet Boo Boo's cat, and Seymour threw a stone at her. He was twelve. That's all there was to it.

He threw it at her because she looked so beautiful sitting there in the middle of the driveway with Boo Boo's cat. Everybody knew that for God's sake-me, Charlotte, Boo Boo, Waker, Walt, the whole family." I stared at the pewter ashtray on the coffee table. "Charlotte never said a word to him about it. Not a word." I looked up at my guest, rather expecting him to dispute me, to call me a liar. I am a liar, of course. Charlotte never did understand why Seymour threw that stone at her. My guest didn't dispute me though. — J.D. Salinger

My mom, my father, my little sisters, and my brother - I don't got that much family. I'm not really a family person. I just do my own thing. But I've just been spending time with my mom, especially since the [September motorcycle] accident happened. I drive all the way down there to Georgia just to check up on her. You just get tired of being that person that you thought you were. I don't feel no different. I see the music, because I made it. I don't really see the fame. — Fetty Wap

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

In the old days of America when communities were separated by hundreds of miles, why were they able to thrive? Because if it was harvest time and the farmer was up in the tree picking apples and fell down and broke his leg, everybody pitched in and harvested his crops for him. If somebody got killed by a bear, everybody took care of their family. — Benjamin Carson

Once Confucius was walking on the mountains and he came across a woman weeping by a grave. He asked the woman what here sorrow was, and she replied, We are a family of hunters. My father was eaten by a tiger. My husband was bitten by a tiger and died. And now my only son! Why don't you move down and live in the valley? Why do you continue to live up here? asked Confucius. And the woman replied, But sir, there are no tax collectors here! Confucius added to his disciples, You see, a bad government is more to be feared than tigers. — Lin Yutang

When I usually go to my studio to work, I start with something that is going to take two minutes just to put some idea down and the next thing I know, ten hours have gone by and my family is screaming at me because they want me to come up to have dinner with them. — Geddy Lee

Admirable? And she's related to Rey? How come he's such a weasel then?"
"There's a messed up weasel in every family. Look at you." Lex smirked at his brother as he heaved himself off the couch and headed down the hall to the kitchen. He bent to grab a beer from the fridge and tossed one to Cade.
"Ha ha, very funny. Call me Alpha when you say that," Cade growled. — Lauren Dane

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with an head-ache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! — Jane Austen

You mean to say a family of hot-tempered Mafia people are all cosying up with each other on a Saturday night to sit down and watch a movie about a family of hot-tempered Mafia people...? Is that really what you're telling me? — Catherine Doyle

My family's going to eat as long as anybody eats. What they're trying to do is starve you Conchs out of here so they can burn down the shacks and put up apartments and make this a tourist town. That's what I hear. I hear they're buying up lots, and then after the poor people are starved out and gone somewhere else to starve some more they're going to come in and make it into a beauty spot for tourists. — Ernest Hemingway,

We're all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet. Who can ever understand exactly why or how it comes down as it does? The bottom line is, here we are. Whatever, wherever we are, this is what we've got. It's up to us whether we do it as easy time or hard time. — Bo Lozoff

In the Latina/o culture, blessing is a big deal. Growing up, I was brought up to see the blessings that surrounded me and my family. As a child, after I'd said my prayers, my mom would send me to bed with a blessing for a good night's rest. Whenever I would leave my abuelita's (grandmother's) house, she would tell me, "Dios te bendiga, mijito" ("God bless you, my little one"). In my family and in many Latina/o households, the women are the vessels of God's blessing, and thus bestowers and distributors of this blessing to their families. To this day, even though I am grown and have two children of my own, whenever I travel somewhere distant or am undertaking a major project, my mother will sit me down, lay hands on me, and say a prayer of blessing. — Francisco J. Garcia Jr.

By the time I walked down the aisle - or rather, into a judge's chambers - I had lived fourteen independent years, early adult years that my mother had spent married. I had made friends and fallen out with friends, had moved in and out of apartments, had been hired, fired, promoted, and quit. I had had roommates I liked and roommates I didn't like and I had lived on my own; I'd been on several forms of birth control and navigated a few serious medical questions; I'd paid my own bills and failed to pay my own bills; I'd fallen in love and fallen out of love and spent five consecutive years with nary a fling. I'd learned my way around new neighborhoods, felt scared and felt completely at home; I'd been heartbroken, afraid, jubilant, and bored. I was a grown-up: a reasonably complicated person. I'd become that person not in the company of any one man, but alongside my friends, my family, my city, my work, and, simply, by myself. I was not alone. — Rebecca Traister

What the fuck is that?" Rafe recoiled at the wrinkled green ball sac of a squash in Quinn's hand. "Dude, put that down before it releases its tentacles and sucks the salt out of your body."
Rafe's aversion to all things vegetable was well known in the family, but Quinn liked poking at him for it all the same. "It's bitter melon. Supposed to be good for you."
"So's shoving coffee up your colon, but I don't do that either." Rafe bared his teeth and took a step back. — Rhys Ford

The first thing you do is sit down with your wife and say something like this, Honey, I've made a terrible mistake. I've given you my role. I gave up leading this family ... I'm not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I'm urging you to take it back ... Be sensitive. Listen. Treat the lady gently and lovingly. But lead! — Tony Evans

Growing up, dinner was when we would sit down, the whole family, and we would talk about our days and just create memories with one another. Now some of my favorite memories are eating and making food with my son. — Tia Mowry

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

I've watched my dad move our family from extreme poverty to extreme wealth and then everywhere in between. Never once did I see or hear him be anything but a cheerleader for the accomplishments of others. It didn't matter if he was down or up in life, he wanted everybody around him to succeed. I've even watched him praise the very people that have tried to destroy him over the years and then very publicly wish them success and happiness. He taught me the enthusiasm that should always come at the success of others. He constantly taught me that when others succeed, it gives us all more opportunity to succeed. He taught me that when there is conflict, minor or major, you can almost always walk away at the end with a handshake. — Dan Pearce

Fair enough." She lowered her knees, stared down as she buttoned her shirt again. "Ty, I'm really
sorry. I'd never do anything to upset Eli, or to cause trouble between the two of you."
"I know." He pushed to his feet and after a brief hesitation held out his hand to help her up.
"I want to make love with you."
His already jangled system suffered. "I think what we both want's pretty clear. I just don't know
what we're going to do about it. I have to go after him."
"Yes. — Nora Roberts

Sally at this time gave up any notion of being a co-operative member of a family, named herself "Tiger" and settled down to an unceasing, and seemingly endless, war against clothes, toothbrushes, all green vegetables, and bed. — Shirley Jackson

Call it arrogance or male chauvinism, the male ego just doesn't allow a woman to participate in key issues in family. Men seldom realize that it's the housewife who has the most difficult job in the world: waking up early, preparing breakfast, getting the children ready for school, preparing lunch, cleaning up the mess at home and so much more. Even before they can some rest, the doorbell would ring and the children are back from school. Then, the routine again, and by the end of the day, they were tired. Women in the family are the last to sleep and the first to wake up. Sometimes, even during a crisis in the family or when there is a dispute, it's the lady of the house that stands rock solid to calm things down and face challenges head on. — Jagdish Joghee

As a child, William Beebe was my hero, and I used to read about him going down in the bathysphere, and I wanted to do that too. And I told my family, I said, 'I'd like to go down and be like William Beebe,' and they said, 'Well, maybe you can take up typing and get to be the secretary of William Beebe or somebody like him.' — Eugenie Clark

When you're dying, the unicorn up in heaven gets a note from an angel telling her there's a person who's going to need a ride up soon. The unicorn finds out what the person likes. Favorite foods and books, colors and activities, pets and games. She gets a room ready for him, or her, near people who she knows they'll enjoy being with, maybe other friends and family who have died before.
When the unicorn is done, she jumps off of heaven's perch, flies through the blue sky, around the clouds, over any rainbows, and down to the person. She's invisible to everyone. She patiently waits. When the person dies, she gathers them up on her back, using her hooves and horn. All of a sudden, they sit up straight and smile, they laugh, because they're on top of a unicorn and alive again. They hold on tight to her golden reins and the unicorn takes them to their new home, where they're happy. — Cathy Lamb

the chambers and passages of the cave system. A track led past both entrances, and round up onto the hill-top, up which sloping trail Yana now wearily pulled herself. Some huts were private dwelling places while others were the domain of certain crafts. Community meetings were held either outside in a large space deliberately left clear in the centre of the huts, or during cold or inclement weather, in the larger of the two entrance chambers of the cave system. Yana moved aside the leather windbreak sheltering the entrance to the hut which was her family's home and walked down the four stone-flagged steps to the floor of the sunken hut. A strong herbal odour hung in the air. Ignoring it, Yana dropped her kill by the fire, and made her way to the occupied sleeping platform at — Julie Reilly

Probably not." He looked down at his watch. "It's about time for dinner. Do you want to come
down and eat in the lodge? We deliver up to the cabins too, but we also do a family-style dinner."
"Um ... " Did she really want to spend more time with Cole today? Strangely, she found she did.
"That sounds great. — Maisey Yates

Have a look at the results when Australians are asked if they agree or disagree with the statement: 'It is better for the family if the husband is the principal breadwinner outside the home and the wife has primary responsibility for the home and children.' In 1986, just over 55 per cent of men agreed with that proposition. That proportion swan-dived down to about 30 per cent by 2001, but by 2005, it had gone up again, to 41.4 per cent. Women subscribe to that view less enthusiastically than men on the whole, but they too have waxed and waned over the last 30 years. In 1986, 33 per cent of them thought it was better for men to work and women to keep house. By 2001, that had dipped to 19 per cent. But by 2005, it had bobbed back up to 36.4 per cent.17 — Annabel Crabb

I? I am the wind,' said Thowra. 'I come, I pass, and I am gone.' The strange feathers moved up and down, the strange voice said tartly: 'And are your sons the same?' 'My son is the lightning that strikes through the black night. My grandson is light that pierces the dark sky at dawning.' 'Ah,' said the first emu, 'and we know your daughter is the snow that falls softly from above and clothes the world in white. You want but the rainbow - that is and was and never will be, and is yet the promise of life - and the glittering ice which is there and is gone: then you and your family will possess all magic. — Elyne Mitchell

As we weep for what we have lost, and as we grieve for family and friends and we confront the challenge that is before us, I want us to remember who we are. We are Queenslanders. We're the people that they breed tough, north of the border. We're the ones that they knock down, and we get up again. — Anna Bligh

People who run for office and are defeated aren't rejected in the usual sense of the word. They're just defeated because they couldn't get enough votes that one time. It doesn't mean the public despises them. It's a preference for somebody else for that particular office at that particular moment, that's all. The examples I've given have shown that when those men were passed up, they were still highly thought of and were still great men. There were a good many like that. You take the Adams family. After John Quincy Adams passed on, there were Adams descendants in Lincoln's cabinet. They wrote important histories and things of that kind. Even in the states, some good men are governors who have been defeated previously in elections, even in previous tries for governor. If they don't become pessimists and decide to lay down and take it, if they get up and start over again, why, they don't have any trouble. — Harry Truman

Quinn would have closed the bar down if needed. There was nothing in this world that was more important to him than his family. He would always come when any of them, even Avalon, who barely ever came home, needed him. He would stand up for them, whether they were right or wrong. He would pick them up if they fell and he would always be proud of them - no matter how small their accomplishments. He was, and always would be, their elder brother, father figure, friend, or whatever role they needed him to be. — Alex Morgan

We tiptoe around like we're the Frank family and the Gestapo is downstairs. The baby monitor is in our room, and the unspoken rule is that when the kids go down, so do we. So at seven P.M., I'm in bed waiting for the sandman to come. I can't watch TV, because the noise may wake up the kids; I can't listen to music with my iPod earbuds, because then I can't hear the monitor; and I can't have sex, because that could wake up Janice. — Billy Crystal

I can't just open myself up the way some people can. And down here, you're raised a certain way. You're taught to keep some things private, family matters especially. It's just the way it's done."

"Everyone worships the past but no one really wants to talk about it. — Cathy Holton

Great works of art can be produced in barbarous societies in fact the very narrowness of primitive society gives their ornamental art a peculiar concentration and vitality. At some time in the ninth century one could have looked down the Seine and seen the prow of a Viking ship coming up the river. Looked at today in the British Museum, it is a powerful work of art; but to the mother of a family trying to settle down in her little hut, it would have seemed less agreeable as menacing to her civilisation as the periscope of a nuclear submarine. — Kenneth Clark

I didn't know what I wanted to Be ... A sense that I had permanently botched things already, embarked on the trip without the map. and it scared me too, that I might end up as a mother of 3 working in a psychiatrist's office, or renting surfboards ... I guess I saw their lives as failed somehow, absent of the Big Win ... What is fate was an inherited trait? What if luck came through the genetic line, and the ability to "succeed" at your chosen "direction" was handed down, just like the family china? Maybe I was destined to be a weed too. — Deb Caletti

I know when people think of New York, they think of theater, restaurants, cultural landmarks and shopping," I told him. "But beyond the iconic skyline and the news from Wall Street, New York is a collection of villages. In our neighborhoods, we attend school, play Kick the Can, handball and ride our bikes. I grew up knowing the names and faces of the baker, the shoe repair family, the Knish man and the Good Humor man who sold me and the other kids in my neighborhood half a popsicle for a nickel. My father took me to the playground where he pushed me on the swing, helped balance me on the seesaw and watched as I hung upside down by my feet on the monkey bars. Yes," I told the interviewer, "people actually grow up in New York. — Gina Greenlee

TV families and your own are hard to tell apart, except your isn't interrupted every six minutes by commercials and theirs don't get bogged down into nothingness, a state where nothing happens, no skit, no zany visitors, no outburst on the laugh track, nothing at all but boredom and a lost feeling, especially when you get up in the morning and the moon is still shining and men are making noisy bets on the first tee. — John Updike

What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set for you. The grades become too important, the competition too frantic, the fear of disappointing those who believe in you turns into an overwhelming nightmare. And it is desperately unfair to the boy. He cannot live his parents' life over again for them. He cannot make up for their own lacks, their own unfulfillments. He cannot carry their torch
only his own. — Sydney J. Harris

I always prayed the same way at night: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please bless my mother, father, sister, everyone in the word, and me. And please make my father quit drinking."
As a child growing up in a family battling alcoholism, this is what I know: Something bad is coming; it always does. I can't ask for help; I'm too ashamed. I can't talk about our secrets; no one understands. I can't trust anyone; they always leave.
Questions bounced off my self-constructed wall of values
a barricade I'd made from the fears I'd pushed into my darkness.
How could Ryan, a professional baseball player, really resist all those women? How could I really trust Jerry, my childhood friend? I'd barely awakened to sex and already boys were the seventh wonder of the world. Did anyone really trust another person? I needed proof. That proof hadn't revealed itself ... yet. — Pamela Taeuffer

When I was tiny, the county fair came through town. Our parents took us, and got tickets for the rides, even though I was scared to death of all of them. Edward was the one who convinced me to go on the merry-go-round. He put me up on one of the wooden horses and he told me the horse was magic, and might turn real right underneath me, but only if I didn't look down. So I didn't. I stared out at the pinwheeling crowd and searched for him. Even when I started to get dizzy or thought I might throw up, the circle would come around again and there he was. After a while, I stopped thinking about the horse being magic, or even how terrified I was, and instead, I made a game out of finding Edward.
I think that's what family feels like. A ride that takes you back to the same place over and over. — Jodi Picoult

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

Oh maturity's a wrapped up package deal so it seems
And ditching teenage fantasy means ditching all your dreams
All your friends and peers and family solemnly tell you you will
Have to grow up be an adult yeah be bored and unfulfilled
Oh when no ones yet explained to me exactly what's so great
About slaving 50 years away on something that you hate, about meekly shuffling down the path of mediocrity
Well if that's your road then take it but it's not the road for me. — Frank Turner

When our society lost this communal network, many aspects of our culture died, including the fact that we lost contact with older family members who could give us perspective on our lives. Without that perspective, we've become overscheduled, hyperstimulated, and culturally grumpy. We are so burdened by the pace of our lives that when we must interact with older people who cannot keep up, we run out of patience trying to fit them into our schedules. We have forgotten - or never learned - how to value our senior adults' advice. As they begin to slow down, we push them aside so they don't impede our progress. While we may accomplish a lot every day, we don't necessarily feel good about our achievements because no one is there to tell us about the longer-term implications of choices we make. Many of us assume some things about senior adults that aren't true, and then can't understand why we aren't getting along better with this aging population. — David Solie

So we did the only thing we knew to do. We got in the car and drove to Dallas to be at the funeral with Jen. As she and her family walked down the center aisle behind her dad's casket, she smiled at us despite the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks. And that's when I learned one of the most important lessons I've ever learned about what it means to be a good friend: you show up for your people. You don't wait for your friend to ask you to come; you get in your car and go. You don't have to know the right words to say, you don't have to offer sage wisdom about loss and love; you just show up. You hold her hand and hug her neck and wipe her tears. You let her know that you hurt because she is in pain, and you'd do anything to take it from her if you could. You listen.... You show up for your friend, in the good times and the bad times. — Melanie Shankle

I've certainly been someone who has loved to mine the trials and tribulations of growing up in general, and the people who are in our lives, and I don't mind pulling from them and writing things down on my phone that my family says. — Jim Rash

Rose leaned against the bathroom door. Here it was - her real life, the truth of who she was, barreling down on her like a bus with bad brakes. Here was the truth - she wasn't the kind of person Jim could fall in love with. She wasn't what she'd made herself out to be - a cheerful, uncomplicated girl, a normal girl with a happy, orderly life, a girl who wore pretty shoes and had nothing more pressing on her mind that whether ER was a rerun this week. The truth was in the exercise tape she didn't have time to unwrap, let alone exercise to; the truth was her hairy legs and ugly underwear. Most of all, the truth was her sister, her gorgeous, messed-up, fantastically unhappy and astoundingly irresponsible sister. — Jennifer Weiner

Funny how worried you are that Dani's not a Buchanan when you're not one yourself. If I remember my history correctly, you married into this family. You were a poor nobody. What? A hotel chambermaid?" Gloria stiffened. Penny allowed herself a slight smile. "Oh, yeah. I did my research on you years ago. I know all about your affair with Ian Buchanan and how when that ended, you married his son. Tell me, Gloria. Were you still banging Daddy when you walked down the aisle with the son?" "You slut," Gloria hissed. "You should know." "I'll destroy you." "You can try. I'm up to the fight. But before you waste your effort on that, let me share one thing with you. — Susan Mallery

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams. When my first pen pal, Tomoko, stopped writing me after three letters she was the one who laughed: You think someone's going to lose life writing to you? Of course I cried; I was eight and I had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt me. My mother of course saw clean into the marrow of those dreams, and laughed. I wouldn't write to you either, she said. She was that kind of mother: who makes you doubt yourself, who would wipe you out if you let her. But I'm not going to pretend either. For a long time I let her say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her. — Junot Diaz

I'm getting off the boat at Coconut Grove. It's six and you're not on the dock. I finish up, and start walking home, thinking you're tied up making dinner, and then I see you and Ant hurrying down the promenade. He is running and you're running after him. You're wearing a yellow dress. He jumps on me, and you stop shyly, and I say to you, come on, tadpole, show me what you got, and you laugh and run and jump into my arms. Such a good memory.
I love you, babe. — Paullina Simons

Winfree came from a family in which no one had gone to college. He got started, he would say, by not having proper education. His father, rising from the bottom of the life insurance business to the level of vice president, moved family almost yearly up and down the East Coast, and Winfree attended than a dozen schools before finishing high school. He developed a feeling that the interesting things in the world had to do with biology and mathematics and a companion feeling that no standard combination of the two subjects did justice to what was interesting. So he decided not to take a standard approach. He took a five-year course in engineering physics at Cornell University, learning applied mathematics and a full range of hands-on laboratory styles. Prepared to be hired into military-industrial complex, he got a doctorate in biology, striving to combine experiment with theory in new ways. — James Gleick

You would like a large family, Louisa? You want lots of babies of me? They'll grow up, you know, and turn into shrieking, banister-sliding, pony-grubbing little people, all of whom must have shoes and books and puppies. They'll eat like a regiment and have no thought for their clothes - which they'll grow out of before the maids can turn the first hem. They'll skin their knees, break their collarbones, and lose their dolls. Do you know what a trauma ensues when a six-year-old female loses her doll? I have a spare version of Missus Whatever-Hampton Her Damned Name Is, but Amanda found her and said a spare would never do, because the perishing thing didn't smell right - you find this amusing?" "I find you endearing." His brows came down. "I will never understand the female mind." "I — Grace Burrowes

You have no idea how humiliating it was, as a boy, to suddenly have all your clothes, your toys, snatched by the bailiff. I mean we were a middle-class family, it's not as if it was happening up and down the street. It made me ashamed, I felt dirty. — John Le Carre

The TV is often on in our house, but I really only keep up with three shows: 'American Idol,' 'Modern Family' and 'The Walking Dead.' Sometimes I'll sip red wine - it's a nice way to slow down and relax. — Carrie Underwood

Before Community started up again for the season, we had the chance to go on a long family vacation where we drove for ten days down the coast. I was like wow, look at these people that I am related to and am actually spending some quality time with! So it was great to be with them, but now my schedule is really difficult so I have to take what I can get. — Joel McHale

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off. — Stephen King

If the same family were always on the bottom, then you'd have big resentments. But if DuPonts go down and Pampered Chef up, [that's good]. That much churn makes people think the system is fairer. Buffett: We don't like churn now, but we liked it more 30-40 years ago. — Charlie Munger

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

When you look at 'Obamacare,' the Congressional Budget Office has said it will cost $2,500 a year more than traditional insurance. So it's adding to cost. And as a matter of fact, when the president ran for office, he said that, by this year, he would have brought down the cost of insurance for each family by $2,500 a family. Instead, it's gone up by that amount. So it's expensive. Expensive things hurt families. So that's one reason I don't want it. — Mitt Romney

He held up his hand, and in it was ...
Oh, God.
The neon-pink vibrator, glowing in the dark now. It was following her, stalking her, all the way down the yellow brick road to hell. — Jill Shalvis

We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child! — Mark Twain

I believe that family is closer to God's heart than anything else, the support system he has given us to build us up in faith, and to support us when we falter. If we want our family lives to conform to God's will, Jesus must be our priority, our focal point, in our home as well as in our ministries.
That doesn't mean that it's always easy to live together: home can be the hardest place to live a Christian life. That's were people see us when we're tired and our defences are down. — Angus Buchan