How I Love My Parents Quotes & Sayings

Davenport stood in the middle of it with her arms out from her sides, her fingers spread as the creek churned around her. She was crying now, long sobs that made her whole body shake.
I had always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy.
But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was.
Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back.
"Yes," I said to the fiend, water spilling out of my mouth. "Yes - whatever she needs. Give her whatever she needs. — Brenna Yovanoff

My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy. — Michael Palin

That part of the press release about me asking your father's permission to marry you was true - well, partly true, anyway. I didn't ask permission - I knew you wouldn't like that, it's sexist. You're not your father's property. But I did see him before we left, to tell him I was going to propose to you this weekend, and ask for his blessing."
I was stunned. "Wait . . . is this what you meant when you said before we left that you'd talked to my parents?"
"Yes. I spoke to your mother, too, because she played an even bigger role in raising you. I thought it was the right thing to do. How do you think you got out of doing all those events - and birthday Cirque du Soleil with your grandmother - so easily? — Meg Cabot

I stop at the tune store, where I'm greeted by Javier and Jules. Half the store is Javier's, half is Jules's - they have entirely different musical tastes, so you have to know going in whether the tune you're looking for is more like Javier or Jules. They have been together for more than twenty years, and today as they offer me cider and argue the blues, I want to ask them how they've done it. To be together with someone for twenty years seems like an eternity to me. I can't seem to manage twenty days. Twenty weeks would be a stretch. How can they stand there behind the counter, spinning songs for each other day in and day out? How can they find things to say - how can they avoid saying things they'll always regret? How do you stay together? I want to ask them, the same way I want to ask my happy parents, the same way I want to go up to old people and ask them 'what is it like to live so long'? — David Levithan

Did your parents care that he was white?"
"They never met him." I couldn't imagine taking him to meet my dad. Watching them talk to each other would've been tortuous. Also, I never wanted him to see how small our apartment was. In the end, I guess I really didn't want him to know me.
With Daniel, it's different somehow. I want him to see all of me. — Nicola Yoon

Parents often ask - how do I get my child interested in books and reading?

One tried and true way that my late husband and I used was paying them to read. For each book that my sons read, we paid them $1. They soon developed a love for reading and forgot all about the money. Amazing but true! — Soraya Diase Coffelt

I hope you'll learn that no matter how bad things become, there's always light at the end of the tunnel. As long as you have faith in God, respect, and love for each other, you can make it - no matter what.
I have been extremely fortunate to be blessed with all the good things life has to offer. I had the best brothers, the kindest parents, a remarkable extended family, and of course good friends.
I married a wonderful man and together we've created our own beautiful family. I would gladly give up anything in my possession to keep them safe, and for all of this, I thank God for the blessings he has bestowed upon me and my family. — Marlies Adams Difante

In truth, I had not yet learned how to hate anyone but my parents. I was actually just standing there in love. I was not even really standing; if she had walked away suddenly, I would have fallen. — Miranda July

He's been in love with Miss Gina since high school, but he doesn't really know how to talk to girls, so he's just been ... staying around her since then. He just tends to go where she goes."
"Isn't that stalking?" Jazza said.
"Legally, no," I replied. "I asked my parents this when I was little. What he does is creepy and socially awkward, but it's not actually stalking. — Maureen Johnson

I can read it.
I can read her.
Cuz she's thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She's wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma's. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she's taking the song of my pa and she's weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.
And it hurts her, but it's an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it's good, but it hurts.
She hurts.
I know all this.
I know it's true.
Cuz I can read her.
I can read her Noise even tho she ain't got none.
I know who she is.
I know Viola Eade. — Patrick Ness

When my late father died - now I'm in mourning for my late mother - that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, I will not let you go until you bless me. — Jonathan Sacks

She laughs. "You're so much like your father. Sometimes I wonder if you got any of my DNA at all."

I've never really seen any similarities between my dad and me. Except our love of business - our drive to succeed. We've always been evenly matched in that respect. Otherwise, my father's as straight-laced as they come. A dedicated, loyal family man through and through. Pretty much the opposite of me in every way.

"I am?"

She's still chuckling. "One day I'll tell you how your dad and I really ended up together at Columbia. And I'll include all the dirty little details he never wanted you to know."

If that story involves sex in any way, I don't want to hear it.

Ever.

As far as I'm concerned, my parents have had sex two times in their entire lives. Once for Alexandra and once for me. That's it. On some level I realize I'm deluding myself, but this is one topic where I prefer to live in denial. — Emma Chase

Playing sport was somewhat frivolous, but I liked it. I rebelled a little bit, and wouldn't go to music lessons and things like that, but I would go and play ball. My parents learned to love it because they saw how much I got out of it. — Mike Krzyzewski

My parents taught me what real love is. Sure, it's important to feel passionate and head-over-heels for your partner, but those are fleeting emotions. Real love is something much more solid and consistent. It's something you feel for your partner even when they are driving you up the wall. What I learned from my parents is that the most important parts of a marriage are how you interact with each other during the really tough times. — Kim Quindlen

What was the difference between Anne Frank and any other 15 year old girl living the same nightmare? Nothing! Aside from the fact that Anne spoke through her writings while others kept silent. Someone very special to me recently asked how can I write such personal things as child abuse, relationship problems, sexual addiction, and not fear how the family will feel about these revealings. I have the audacity to write such things because it's MY story. Not my parents, not my brothers, not my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents... MINE. Note to those contemplating writing nonfiction. Write the story. It's yours to tell. Nevermind how your family will feel. Those that love you will not judge you. I promise. Do not let your testimony be in vain. — Katandra Jackson Nunnally

The first thing he taught me was how to make love.
Before you laugh, know that I'd always hated that phrase. It sounded so corny, so old. Hippies made love. People my mom's age, though I preferred to believe I was an immaculate conception.
People my age hooked up, fucked, had sex. We didn't attach frilly ideas of oneness and eternity to a basic biological act. Most of us were from single-parent homes. Those who weren't wished they were when their parents screamed and beat the shit out of each other. We grew up sexualized, from toddler beauty pageants to the constant reminder that adults were waiting to lure us into vans with candy. The invention of MMS gave us a platform for the distribution of amateur porn.
That's a lot of conditioning to break through. — Leah Raeder

In the heat of an argument, my mother once told me, "Someday you can go to a therapist and tell him all about how your terrible mother ruined your life. But it will be your ruined life you're talking about. So make a life for yourself in which you can feel happy, and in which you can love and be loved, because that's what's actually important." You can love someone but not accept him; you can accept someone but not love him. I wrongly felt the flaws in my parents' acceptance as deficits in their love. Now, I think their primary experience was of having a child who spoke a language they'd never thought of studying. — Andrew Solomon

I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. — Beth Revis

I really thank my parents for giving me the good sense to not get into anything wrong. There are many people around who like controversies, and I actually wonder how do they do it. I don't have the courage to get into controversies. There are people who love it; I find it silly. — Saina Nehwal

The Skinny Woman Who Is Beautiful and Toned but Also Gluttonous and Disgusting
Again, I am more than willing to suspend my disbelief for good set decoration alone. One pristine kitchen from a Nancy Meyers movie like "It's Complicated" compensates for five scenes of Diane Keaton being caught half naked in a topiary. But I can't suspend disbelief enough, for instance, if the gorgeous and skinny heroine is also a ravenous pig when it comes to food. And everyone in the movie - her parents, her friends, her boss - are all complicit in this huge lie. They constantly tell her to stop eating. And this actress, this poor skinny actress who obviously lost weight to play the likable lead character, has to say things like "Shut up, you guys! I love cheesecake! If I want to eat an entire cheesecake, I will!" If you look closely, you can see this woman's ribs through the dress she's wearing - that's how skinny she is, this cheesecake-loving cow. — Mindy Kaling

I'm not saying it'll be easy. It will probably be really hard. Between my parents, and the distance between us, it'll be really hard. But ... sometimes it's worth it. To have someone there. And I felt like ... like we worked together. Today. It felt right. And I might be full of crap but I do know one thing: I know how to love. — Alysha Speer

I was the subject of an experiment in love. I lived my life under her gaze, undergoing certain trials for her so that she would not have to undergo them for herself. But, how are our certainties forged, except by the sweat and tears of other people? If your parents don't teach you how to live; you learn it from books; and clever people watch you learn from your mistakes. — Hilary Mantel

Look around you. Watch how people function and interact with one another. You'll see this is going on everywhere all the time. People devour each other in the name of love, or family or country. But that's an excuse; they're just hungry and want to be fed. Read their faces, the newspapers, read what it says on their T-shirts! 'I think you're mistaking me for someone who gives a shit.' 'My parents went to London but all they brought me back was this lousy T-shirt.' 'So many women, so little time.' 'Whoever dies with the most toys, wins.' They're supposed to be funny, witty, and postmodern, Miranda. But the truth is they're only stating a fact: Me. I come first. Get out of my way. — Jonathan Carroll

I'll just go over to the Duke's," I said. "Her parents already told me I could stay there. I'll go over there and open all my presents, and talk about how my parents neglect me, and then maybe the Duke will give me some of her presents because she feels so bad about how my mom doesn't love me. — John Green

My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seemed so perfectly content. If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you're lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years. — Patrick Rothfuss

I know you don't love me that way. Don't you think I know that by now? But you don't know how I feel about you. No one does."
"Tell me, then."
"Day, you mean more to me than some crush. When the entire world turned its back on me and left me to die, you took me in. You were the person that cared about what might happen to me. You were everything. Everything. You became my entire family - you were my parents and my siblings and my caretaker, my only friend and companion, you were both my protector and someone who needed protecting. You see? I didn't love you in the way you might've thought I did, although I can't deny that was part of it. But the way I feel goes beyond that. — Marie Lu

I love being the person my kids depend on to learn. Everything they learn, for the most part, comes from you - how they treat people, how they look at the world, how they process things. I love being that example for them, just like my parents were for me. — Michael Strahan

Everything just feels so empty without her. She was more a parent to me than my birth parents were. She took me in, fed, dressed me, but most importantly, she treated me with respect. She taught me that my abilities were nothing to be ashamed of, nothing I should try so hard to deny. She convinced me that what I had was a gift-not a curse- and that I shouldn't let other people's narrow minds and fears determine how I love, what I do, or how I perceive myself in the world. She actually made me believe that in no way, shape, or form did their uninformed opinions make me a freak. — Alyson Noel

My parents had never been showy or romantic; it was only after the loss of my father that I began to understand how truly in love they had been, in their quiet way. — Anonymous

I'm a surfer at heart. Both my parents moved to Hawaii in the 1970s, where they met and became Christians. Then they taught me and my two brothers how to love the Lord - and how to surf! — Bethany Hamilton

I think the love between a child and parent is wonderful. You know, Mei ... I haven't seen my mother for over two years. I used to live with her ... but now I live with my father. I used to be sad and wonder why it happened ... but parents have a lot of things they have to deal with too. I saw how they were suffering ... and I know they both love me a lot. You can't let loneliness harden your heart. Mei, you know ... Misuzu loves you, don't you? — Bisco Hatori

At the bottom of the box were two big fairy-tale collections our father had sent us sometime after our parents divorced in 1963. I was four and my sister was five. We never saw him again. One book was a beautifully illustrated collection of Russian fairy tales inscribed, "To Rachel, from Daddy." The other, a book of Japanese fables, was inscribed to me. It had been years since I had opened them. I stared at the handwriting. Something seemed a bit off. Then it dawned on me - both inscriptions bore my own adolescent scrawl. I had always remembered the books and our father's dedications as proof of his love for us. Yet, how malleable our memories are, even if our brains are intact. Neuroscientists now suggest that while the core meaning of a long-term memory remains, the memory transforms each time we attempt to retrieve it. In fact, anatomical changes occur in the brain every single time we remember. As Proust said, "The only paradise is paradise lost. — Mira Bartok

Let us open the doors to the Spirit, let ourselves be guided by him, and allow God's constant help to make us new men and women, inspired by the love of God which the Holy Spirit bestows on us! How beautiful it would be if each of you, every evening, could say: Today at school, at home, at work, guided by God, I showed a sign of love towards one of my friends, my parents, an older person! How beautiful! — Pope Francis

It is at this moment that I realize the best thing I ever did in my life was to marry this woman.
She is willing to give up her life for her child. I know most parents would do the same. But how many mothers would give up everything that they love, everything that they will ever be able to do in the future for the "possibility and not the guarantee" of getting their child better.
Now reduce the odds of success to less than 1%.
How many mothers are still standing?
She is. — JohnA Passaro

A few minutes ago, I felt as if I was back in Paris,
sitting in a park.
It is funny how our mind sometimes wanders
back to times past.

When each of my parents was dying,
floating in a sea of pain medication,
their minds drifted back to their early twenties
when they were newly in love.
They both talked as if they were lost,
and they had to find each other.

In one corner of my house,
I display some things that my parents cherished:
my mother's china
and my father's fishing gear.
I don't know if there is an afterlife,
but if their ghosts visit me someday,
then their cherished things will be waiting for them.
I also display photographs of my late parents,
not when they were old,
but when they were a newlywed couple,
young, happy, smiling
and full of hope
and love. — Jeffrey A. White

The only thing I know is that no one ever sat in a therapist's or a psychiatrist's room saying, 'My parents just loved me too much.' The only thing you can do is love them and be around. Kids don't really care what your car is like or how big their house is. All they really care about is that you are around. — James Corden

My entire life has been one big, fat whopper of a lie, and my parents betrayed me in the worst possible way.
I don't care if they believed they were protecting me.
You don't lie to the people you profess to love, no matter how painful the truth is. — Siobhan Davis

For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget. — Nicholas Sparks

Teach me how to love you so good
our hearts will be beating
thunderously
against our ribcages
straining to get out.
For so long I have only known
how to hurt.
There are scars on my body like
constellations.
The one on my hip was from when I was six
and I learned my parents were
the Titanic and the iceberg.
My wrist has a faint bruise
reminding me of when I gave myself
to a boy who crashed and burned
and took me down with him.
Heartbreak sounds a lot like
a slamming door.
Show me it doesn't have to be this way,
I want to be proven wrong.
Teach me how to love right. — Tina Tran

Easily he had turned studying my least favorite subject in history into my now most memorable one. Then there was his want to make our relationship more real than superficial, something very new to me. Though I was one relationship more knowledgeable than he was, it always felt like he knew more than I did of how relationships where built for the long run. Then again, he could have just learned that from watching his parents or maybe the innocence of our relationship just made him want to keep it pure and real. Like digging deep and wanting to get to know me, not just make out sessions every time we were together. Augusto knew more of the real me, the girl who wants to be a history teacher, enjoys her fries with garlic and cheese, and appreciates when a boy doesn't complain when plans are made with my friends and he isn't a part of them. — Christina Marie Morales

My childhood was epitomized by my parents who were uneducated but had a doctorate in love. My dad pressed coats and through my mom and dad I learned about love, family and respecting people. They never went to high school but they had within them every element that makes a great American. They had pride and a great work ethic and they knew how to do things the right way. — Dick Vitale

Adoption is outside. You act out what it feels like to be the one who doesn't belong. And you act it out by trying to do to others what has been done to you. It is impossible to believe anyone loves you for yourself.

I never believed that my parents loved me. I tried to love them but it didn't work. It has taken me a long time to learn how to love - both the giving and the receiving. I have written about love obsessively, forensically, and I know/knew it as the highest value.

I loved God of course, in the early days, and God loved me. That was something. And I loved animals and nature. And poetry. People were the problem. How do you love another person? How do you trust another person to love you?

I had no idea.
I thought that love was loss.
Why is the measure of love loss? — Jeanette Winterson

Looking at those photographs, I remembered how my parents had never said "I love you" to each other. How they had said only "I miss you." At the time, I hadn't been able to figure out what this meant. But now it seemed clear: this was how they defined their love - by how deeply they missed each other when they were together. They felt the loss before it happened, and their love was defined by that loss. They hungered even as they ate, thirsted even as they drank. My mother once told me to live my life as if I were already dead. "Live each day as if you know it's gonna be gone tomorrow," she had said. That was how my parents loved each other, with a desperate, melancholy love, a fierce nostalgia for the present. — Danzy Senna

There are moments in history that seem like a mist, as if what really happens matters less that what should have happened. The mists lift suddenly and there we are, my good parents and their good children, their grateful children who phone for no reason but to talk, say their good-nights with a kiss, and look forward to home on the holidays. I see how, in a family like mine, love doesn't have to be earned and it can't be lost. Just for a moment I see us that way; I see us all. Restored and repaired. Reunited. Refulgent. — Karen Joy Fowler

What if all I'd ever known was how it had been for the past three years - me being an unwanted outsider in my own family?
I might have turned out like Aphrodite, and I might still be letting my parents control me because I was hoping desperately that I would be good enough, make them proud, so that some day they would really love me. — P.C. Cast

What else can you tell me?" Dad stares at me. "What have you learned while you were awake?"
I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. "Nothing much," I mutter. — Beth Revis