If I Had A Daughter Quotes & Sayings

I recalled telling my daughter on many occasions that if she did not pick up her dirty clothes, they would walk to the wash basket themselves. I had not counted on dinner plates taking on a life of their own as well. — Caroline Mitchell

She smiled, lifted her arm, and tugged on a couple of his pain-in-the-ass curls, her expression tender enough to bring him back to cold reality. He was an ex-cop. She was the president's daughter. He was scrap metal. She was pure gold. Beyond all that, he had a dead zone a mile wide inside him, while she bubbled with life. "Lucy ... "
"Oh lord ... " She rolled her eyes and flopped to her back. "Here we go. The speech." She deepened her voice in exaggerated imitation of him. "Before this goes any further, Lucy, I need to make sure you don't get the wrong idea. I'm a cowboy, wild and free. No little filly can ever tame a man like me." She sneered. "As if I'd want to. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I was ten years old. I had noticed something was weird earlier in the day but I knew from commercials that one's menstrual period was a blue liquid that you poured like laundry detergent onto maxi pads to test their absorbency. This wasn't blue so ... I ignored it for a few hours.
When we got home I pulled my mom aside to ask if it was weird I was bleeding in my underpants. She was very sympathetic but also a little baffled. Her eyes said "Dummy didn't you read 'How Shall I Tell My Daughter ". I HAD read it but nowhere in the pamphlet did anyone say that your period was NOT a blue liquid.
At that moment two things became clear to me I was now technically a woman and I would never be a doctor. — Tina Fey

Mama said it's probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I don't think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was different before, I don't remember. — Nancy E. Turner

Agha, did you hear what Mullah Nasruddin did when his daughter came home and complained that her husband had beaten her?" I could feel him smiling in the dark and a smile of my own formed on my face. There wasn't an Afghan in the world who didn't know at least a few jokes about the bumbling mullah. "What?" "He beat her too, then sent her back to tell the husband that Mullah was no fool: If the bastard was going to beat his daughter, then Mullah would beat his wife in return. — Khaled Hosseini

I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, 'We're black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we're all brought up differently.' — Kevin Hart

For the record, there were no framed pictures of me around our house, and the only class portrait Dad had ever ordered was the one from Sparta Elementary in which I'd sat, knees glued together, in front of a background that looked like Yosemite, sporting pink overalls and a lazy eye. "This is classic," Dad said. "That they shamelessly send me an order form so I can pay $69.95 for prints large and small of a photo in which my daughter looks as if she just suffered a great blow to her head - it just shows you, we are simply strapped to a motorized assembly line moving through this country. We're supposed to pay out, shut up or get tossed in the rejects bin. — Marisha Pessl

If the standard route for creating a family had worked for me, I wouldn't have met this child. I needed to know her. I needed to be her mother. She is, in every way my daughter. — Nia Vardalos

In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent. — Darrell Scott

Ugly and ungainly. The least dependable creature you ever met. Just when you think you understand her, she changes. If only I had a son, he said bitterly.
Over and over he disparaged her, and George would have thought that Beatrice would be so used to it, she could not be hurt further. But he saw her neck grow stiffer and stiffer. — Mette Ivie Harrison

I've always had this idea that if you're going to try something, if you're going to expend that first big block of effort and energy to participate - whether it's riding the Tour de France or applying for a new job or coaching your daughter's soccer team - you might as well go ahead and give whatever else it takes to win, I mean, I'm going to be there no matter what, right? Why not go ahead and get the victory? — Johan Bruyneel

That evening, after Romer had left so peremptorily, she had gone through to the salon to talk to her father. A job for the British government, she told him. £500 a year, a British passport. He feigned surprise but it was obvious that Romer had briefed him to a certain extent.
'You'd be a British citizen, with a passport,' her father said, his features incredulous, almost abjectly so - as if it were unthinkable that a nonentity such as he should have a daughter who was a British citizen. 'Do you know what I would give to be a British citizen?' he said, all the while with his left hand miming a sawing motion at his right elbow. — William Boyd

If I had a daughter, I would tell her certain things. I would tell her that it's great to be smart, really smart - that being smart makes you strong. I would tell her that emotions are powerful, so don't be afraid to show them. I would tell her that some people may judge you on how you look or what you wear - that's just how it is - but you should keep your focus on what you say and do. I would tell her that she may see the world differently from boys, and that difference is essential and good. — Kirsten Gillibrand

My dad once told me that Winstone Churchill said that Russia was riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. According to my dad, Churchill had been talking about my mother. This was before the divorce, and he said it half-bitterly, half-respectfully. Because even when he hated her, he admired her.
I think he would have stayed with her forever, trying to figure out the mystery. He was a puzzle solver, the kind of person who likes theorems, theories. X always had to equal something. It couldn't just be X.
To me, my mother wasn't that mysterious. She was my mother. Always reasonable, always sure of herself. To me, she was about as mysterious as a glass fo water. She knew what she wanted; she knew what she didn't want. And that was to be married to my father. I wasn't sure if it was that she fell our of love or if it was that she just never was. in love, I mean. — Jenny Han

He sighed. "You've chosen poorly, you know. When we return to England you'll be celebrated, just as I will be. If you've decided to abandon me, you might have netted someone titled, someone with enough wealth to see you esteemed and me able to continue my botanical studies. That would have been the aim of a dutiful daughter."
"I'm not abandoning you, and I chose Shaw. You're the one who declined to attend your daughter's wedding."
"You never used to speak to me like this. A dutiful child would never have accepted a proposal from the first man who asked, simply because he did ask."
"He didn't propose to me. I proposed to him."
Finally he looked more surprised than angry and frustrated. "You proposed to him?"
"Yes, because I didn't think he believed me when I said that I loved him. I can hardly blame him, since I had to think about it for an entire day after he said it to me, but I do love him. More than I can articulate to you. — Suzanne Enoch

The quotes were good, if overpolished. I find this common, and in direct proportion to the amount of TV a subject watches. Not long ago, I interviewed a woman whose twenty-two-year-old daughter had just been murdered by her boyfriend, and she gave me a line straight from a legal drama I happened to catch the night before: I'd like to say that I pity him, but now I fear I'll never be able to pity again. — Gillian Flynn

I've got to go." He hung up suddenly as if afraid of being caught. His mom had probably come into the room. The Zeemans had four sons and a daughter. The sons were all six feet or above. The daughter was five nine. They were all over twenty-one. And they were all scared of their mother. Not literally scared, but Charlotte Zeeman wore the pants in the family. One family dinner and I knew that. I — Laurell K. Hamilton

I do wonder, sometimes, if I had had a daughter, how I would have brought her up. How - when it's taken me so long to unlearn the things I believe are most damaging to the cause of women's liberation and equality - would I have raised my daughter to disobey? — Mona Eltahawy

I looked at Thalia. "You're afraid of heights."
Now that we were safely down the mountain, her eyes had their usual angry look. "Don't be stupid."
That explains why you freaked out on Apollo's bus. Why you didn't want to talk about it."
She took a deep breath. Then she brushed the pine needles out of her hair. "If you tell anyone, I swear - "
No, no," I said. "That's cool. It's just ... the daughter of Zeus, the Lord of the Sky, afraid of heights? — Rick Riordan

Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?" Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien - I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart's core. — Charlotte Bronte

i get why manufacturers play to pink- it makes good business sense. A marketing executive i spoke with at LeapFrog which is based in Emeryville, California, told me that her company even had a name for it the pink factor.
If you make a pink baseball bat, parents will buy one for their daughter, she explained. then if they subsequently have a son, they'll have to buy a second bat in a different color. Or, if they have a boy first and then a daughter, they'll want to buy a pink one for their precious little girl. Either way, you double the sales. — Peggy Orenstein

I wonder if I talk like a dead man. My daughter once came home from school very excited about some lecture -this was years ago, before I died, though just right before- and she said her English teacher had talked about what the dead sound like in Dante. This funny thing about Dante's dead, which is that they know the past, and even the future, but they don't know the present. About the present they have all these questions for Dante. And that somehow is what being alive is, to be suspended in the time. She seemed to feel that really meant something. That and also that the dead know themselves better than the living do. — Rivka Galchen

A girl nearby muttered,"If that's a lady, I'm a cat."
Reaching out, Sandry lifted the pitcher of milk from the table. Cradling it in both hands, she walked over to the mutterer.
I am Sandrilene fa Toren, daughter of Count Mattin fer Toren and his countess, Amiliane fa Landreg. I am the great-niece of his grace, Duke Vedris of this realm of Emelan, and cousin of her Imperial Highness, Empress Berenene of the Namorn Empire. You are Esmelle ei Pragin, daughter of Baron Witten en Pragin and his lady Colledia of House Wheelwright, a merchant house. If I tell you my friend is a lady, then you"- carefully she poured milk into Esmelle's plate-"you had best start lapping, kitty."
She set the pitcher down and returned to her chair. — Tamora Pierce

I did not care if Ella went to Princeton, if she was exceptionally pretty, if she grew up to marry a rich man, or really if she married at all - there were many incarnations of her I felt confident I could embrace, a hippie or a housewife or a career woman. But what I did care about, what I wanted most fervently, was for her to understand that hard work paid off, that decency begat decency, that humility was not a raincoat you occasionally pulled on when you thought conditions called for it, but rather a constant way of existing in the world, knowing that good luck and bad luck touched everyone and none of us was fully responsible for our fortunes or tragedies. Above all, I wanted my daughter to understand that many people were guided by bitterness and that it was best to avoid these individuals - their moods and behavior were a hornet's nest you had no possible reason to do anything other than bypass and ignore. — Curtis Sittenfeld

We got a call from across the street that a black woman had broken into this house."
"And you were going to arrest her without even knocking on the door?"
"We had to secure her first. Um. Are you okay, ma'am?"
"Of course I am. Don't you see me?"
"Because we have her in custody. You don't have to be afraid."
"I'm not afraid of my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Theon Pinkney. She's the one who should be afraid. Four big men grabbing her and putting her in chains. What's wrong with you?"
The police stood there, slightly confused. I could see that they felt justified, even righteous, for grabbing me in Marcia's driveway. There was no question in their minds that I was a criminal and that they were on the side of the Law.
Marcia glanced at me then. We'd spent hours together but it was as if she hadn't really gotten a good look at me until seeing the tableau in her driveway. — Walter Mosley

Mimesis

My daughter

wouldn't hurt a spider

That had nested
Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn't a place to call home
And you'd get to go biking

She said that's how others
Become refugees isn't it? — Fady Joudah

Alex smiled as the duke and Will began to scold her friends, causing Gavin to lean down and whisper in her ear, "I am happy to see you smiling again." She turned to him. "I remain vexed with you, my lord. I cannot believe you did not tell me about Montgrave!" "Alex, I will not argue with you. You can be angry if you need to be, but I almost lost you today and there are other things I would prefer to do than spar." "For example?" Alex asked. "For example." He wrapped his arms around her again, and her heart began to pound as he continued, "I'd prefer to remind myself that you are safe. And that you are mine." She smiled up at him. "I am yours, my lord. As much as you are mine." He clasped her to him, holding her tightly until a throat cleared from across the room, and Alex and Gavin remembered that they had an audience. "Blackmoor," the duke said, his casual tone belying his intent gaze, "perhaps you would like to explain exactly why your arms are wrapped around my daughter? — Sarah MacLean

I needed my daughter to disappear from my sight. If I could have had a wish, I would have wished her away. — Ben Marcus

I'm here, Sorcha.
I would not believe it at first; it had been so long since he had touched my mind in this way.
I'm here. Try to let go, dear one. I know how it hurts. Lean on me; let me take your burden for a while.
I could scarcely see him; he was on the far side of the fire, behind the others and half turned away, with his head still in his hands. It seemed as if he had scarcely moved at all.
How can you? How can you know?
I know. Let me help you.
I felt the strength of his mind flow into mine, and somehow he managed to close off the terrible, the dark and secret things that he had dreaded sharing with me, and fill my head with pictures of all that was good and brave. — Juliet Marillier

I'll take another stab at talking to her."
"If you can't find a way, get Cooper to do it. You know how he loves controlling things. I'm sure he'll want to help."
"True, but once he starts meddling, he won't stop. I don't need him giving me pointers for the rest of my relationship with Lark."
"Lark," my mother said, testing out the name. "She had such a sweet smile. I could look at that smile for the rest of my life. Yes, go kick fate in the balls and get me a daughter."
"You have a daughter."
"A new one, I meant. Preferably one who likes to visit more than Anna."
Grinning at the thought of my alpha chick sister, I finished my juice and stood up. "I'll focus on a first date then worry about getting you a more compliant daughter. — Bijou Hunter

Deborah did not seem quite as impressed as I was. She trailed along behind Matthews with a wicked scowl on her face, shoving at any reporter foolish enough to get in her way, and generally acting like she had just been indicted for waterboarding. I followed the happy little group through the crowd until Matthews reached the front door, where Mr. and Mrs. Aldovar were waiting to smother their wayward daughter with hugs and kisses and tears. It was an extremely touching scene, and Captain Matthews played it perfectly, as if he had been rehearsing for months. He stood beside the family group and beamed at them as the parents snuffled and Samantha scowled and finally, when he could sense that the reporters were reaching the end of their attention span, he stepped in front of them and held up a hand. Just — Jeff Lindsay

My daughter is a practicing physician so believe me I get a lot of the frustration from her. You get it from patients. For me personally, when I ask my doctor to send me my record, what I get is a scanned PDF of his hard copy! This is not good. It would be hopeless to work with a million people if you had to do this on paper, and one of the reasons this is the right time for this is because of the existence of EHRs. — Francis Collins

If I had a teenage daughter, I'd be acquitted. — Sydney Stone

The night after we talked, Jason couldn't sleep. He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence. "She's not a bad girl," my friend said. "She was just choosing the best story available to her." I pictured his daughter flipping through the channels of life, as it were, stopping on a story that seemed most compelling at the moment, a story that offered her something, anything, because people can't live without a story, without a role to play. "So how did you get her out of it? — Donald Miller

If I had a daughter, here's what I'd tell her:
One day, when you've worked hard for what you want, when people see that you are confident and intelligent and that you recognize your own self-worth, when you take care of yourself, support yourself, and stand up for yourself, that is the day that the world will call you "a cruel and selfish bitch."
It's a tough title to earn and you should be and proud of it. — PatriciaV. Davis

Megan wanted to groan. "You guys are smothering me."
Braden leaned against the wall, watching it all, never speaking. Sexy and silent. Okay, so he had a few things going for him.
"Get used to it," Her father's voice brooked no refusal. "Until I leave this world, you are still my daughter and still under my protection."
"Protect Lance." She waved her hand at her smirking cousin. "He's in more danger than I am if he keeps pissing me off. Share the love, Dad. — Lora Leigh

And put myself in the hands of total strangers?"
She snapped the lid shut, "What do you take me for? Of course I checked out their stories. I am a researcher, you know. They are who they say they are, and their stories are verifiable. You have nothing to fear. I wouldn't put my daughter in any danger."
"Any danger!" I cried. "what do you call hunting unicorns? Big, sharp horns; fangs ... " And those were just the goat-sized ones.
"I call it your birthright." Lilith stood tall. "Honey, I know you've been down ever since that stupid boy broke up with you but this is about more than a prom date. Don't you realize that? You have a destiny. Most people would kill for something like that."
If Lilith and this Cornelius guy had their way with me at this boot camp, I was going to kill. — Diana Peterfreund

I think encouraging young people to twerk might be a bad thing. It's a stripper's move. If I had a daughter of nine, I wouldn't want her twerking. — Ed Sheeran

I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time. — Jane Campion

The other part of me wanted to get out and stay out, but this was the part I never listened to. Because if I ever had I would have stayed in the town where I was born and worked in the hardware store and married the boss's daughter and had five kids and read them the funny paper on Sunday morning and smacked their heads when they got out of line and squabbled with the wife about how much spending money they were to get and what programs they could have on the radio or TV set. I might even get rich - small-town rich, an eight-room house, two cars in the garage, chicken every Sunday and the Reader's Digest on the living room table, the wife with a cast-iron permanent and me with a brain like a sack of Portland cement. You take it, friend. I'll take the big sordid dirty crooked city. — Raymond Chandler

If she could take my strength. He put his hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. If she could have some of my heart's strength. I'd give years of my life, Lord, if she could use them." He looked at her peaceful face, again looking at her beating pulse. Life seemed so fragile to him. She had become, in such a short time, infinitely precious to him. "A daughter of God. Your daughter, Lord. My wife. — Jan Holly

If we step back from the progressive argument and put it in any other context, its absurdity immediately becomes apparent. Imagine if I were to say to my daughter, who got a high score on the SAT, "You don't deserve your scores at all. You didn't build that. After all, young lady, you had teachers who helped you with vocabulary and math. Moreover, you took the public roads to the test. Had your car been held up along the way or caught fire, you would count on the services of the police and the fire department. So society deserves a large part of the credit for those scores. They don't reflect your accomplishment but society's accomplishment." If I said this I am sure my daughter would think I was talking like an insane person. In fact, of course, I would be talking like a progressive. — Dinesh D'Souza

If I had had a daughter, I always knew what I would tell her. First of all, I would try to counter all outdated stereotypical claptrap that girls are commonly told about their sex--that women are valued far more for their sexual characteristics than their character and brains--and encourage her to be a truly independent person. Only knowing who she is herself will she be able to find find her own life's work and make good decisions in choosing a partner and having children. — Doris Anderson

I'm Edward Clark. Born Edward Delacey. Now, apparently, Viscount Claridge." He shut his eyes. "You can address me by my preferred title: 'you idiot'."
Marshall's eyes were narrowing on this. "What have you done to my daughter, you idiot?"
"To my great regret, I ... " Edward's hands were clammy. "It's ... " God, it would be better if lightning could just strike him now. "I can't - that is, I seem to have married your daughter."
Marshall looked about the yard, as if searching for Free. When he didn't find her, he turned back to Edward.
"You regret marrying my daughter." His voice sounded calm, if one could call the cold, black embers after a fire had burnt out calm.
"No," Edward said. "Never that. She regrets marrying me. — Courtney Milan

My daughter, Carly, has been in and out of drug treatment facilities since she was thirteen. Every time she goes away, I have a routine: I go through her room and search for drugs she may have left behind. We have a laugh these days because Carly says, So you were lookingfor drugs I might have left behind? I'm a drug addict, Mother. We don't leave drugs behind, especially if we're going into treatment. We do all the drugs. We don't save drugs back for later. If I have drugs, I do them. All of them. If I had my way, we would stop for more drugs on the way to rehab, and I would do them in the parking lot of the treatment center. — Dina Kucera

Whose boys are those with the holes in their pants?"
I cringed. How would my grandpa answer such an embarrassing question?
"Those are my daughter's children, my grandchildren," Grandpa spoke as if he'd just been asked who had won first place in a foot race or just been baptized into the church.
"Those pants are very well ironed," the stranger said. — Elizabeth Byler Younts

You won't be the reason our family falls apart because I wouldn't allow a woman who loves my son as much as you do to walk out of his life." Stepping closer, Lillian placed a tentative hand on Emily's shoulder, her eyes spilling over with tears. "I wouldn't allow you to walk out of our lives. What you were about to give up, though it would've hurt my son, was selfless. I once knew a girl who loved a man so much it scared her, too." Lillian paused, her gaze falling on Chad. The corner of her mouth turned up in a small, sad smile as he made his way toward her. Bringing her eyes back to Emily's, Lillian shook her head. "It would've killed me if I had to give up those stolen breaths before he kissed me. Whether or not the baby you're carrying is my grandchild, I'd be honored to call you my daughter. — Gail McHugh

My father had died when I was young, before I learned that there was anything stronger than he was. I'd been operating without that kind of support for my whole life. Molly was only now realizing that, in some ways, she was on her own.
I wondered if my daughter even knew that she had a father, if she knew that there was someone who wanted, desperately, to Show Up.
"You get yourself an apartment and your plumbing goes bad, he'll still be there," I said quietly. "Some guy breaks your heart, he'll come over with ice cream. A lot of people never have a dad willing to do that stuff. Most of the time, it matters a hell of a lot more. — Jim Butcher

She sighed and put on a good sulk. Actually, she had no desire to get her nose pierced but she did
want a third piercing in her left earlobe. Working down to it, or over to it, from the nose was good
strategy. The kind, she thought, her father would appreciate if he knew about it.
"It's my body."
"Not until you're eighteen, it's not. Until that happy day, it's mine. Go nag your brother."
"I can't. I'm not speaking to him."
She rolled onto her back on her father's — Nora Roberts

Clyde, she said it's fine. What? Really?" Mom huffed. "Your dad wants to know if 'fine' is
code for 'please come home, I'm being held hostage by hormonal maniacs.'" Pause. "And if said
hormonal maniacs are listening he wants them to know he will cut off vital body parts and watch them
bleed out a slow and torturous death then bury said body parts on different continents throughout the
world so he will never be brought to justice and will revel in their excruciating demise for the rest of
his life because they had the nerve to cause his daughter any discomfort whatsoever."
I grinned. "Mom, Dad didn't say that."
"I may have ad-libbed that last part. But he did ask about the hormonal maniacs. — A&E Kirk

A nod at Beatrice who held absolutely still. "She said she would come with me. She insisted on it. She stamped her little foot at me."
He pointed down to her toes as if she were a child yet.
Then he straightened his shoulders. "But I sent her back to the nursery, where she belonged, and told her to play with her dolls instead. As everyone knows, a female on a hunt is a distraction at best and bad luck at worse."
Which explained why Beatrice went into the woods with her hound alone, George thought. She looked now as though she had gone to some other place where she could not hear her father's words and thus could not be hurt by them. George wondered how often she was forced to go to that place.
Did King Helm not see how much she was like him? It seemed she was rejected for any sign of femininity yet also rejected for not showing enough femininity, How could she win? — Mette Ivie Harrison

A friend of mine once saw Mandela in a South African airport and told me this story. The president had noticed a lady who was walking by with her daughter, a beautiful five- or six-year-old girl, with blond hair and blue eyes. Mandela walked up to this little girl and leaned down and shook her hand, and he said, "Do you know who I am?" And the child smiled and said, "Yes, you are President Mandela." Mandela said, "Yes, I am your president. And if you work very hard in school and you learn a lot and you are nice to everybody, you too could grow up to be President of South Africa." Just — Nelson Mandela

I have lost years that I will never get back. Only now am I just beginning to live, on the verge of old age. It is painful and unfair. But today I have a different attitude to life: it can't be constructed from superficial things, no matter how attractive they may appear. Neither wealth not appearances have any importance now.
Pain gave me new life. It took a long time for me to die as Malika, General Oufkir's eldest daughter, the child of a powerful figure, of a past. I've gained an identity. My own identity. And that is priceless.
If there had not been all that waste, all that horror ... I'd almost venture to say that my suffering made me grow. In any case, it changed me. for the better. It's as well to make the best of things. — Malika Oufkir

A woman in Bower Bank, Jamaica, had eight children. The father was in jail in the United States, no longer sending remittances.

Her fourteen-year-old daughter "get burn up from her face, breast, chest, down to her legs with boiling water February 2 1999. That night just because I never have any money earlier to cook, me go town and get a money, buy something to cook cause them never eat from morning. Me daughter bend down, to pick up something near the stove and bounce off the pot of boiling water pan herself. Me tek her to hospital and me never have the money fe register her. Me beg somebody the money and register her. Me owe the hospital $10,500 for the bill, a caan [can't] pay it. She's to go back for treatment because her hand caan stretch out or go up, but the hospital will not see her if I don't pay the bill. — William Easterly

Before either of us knew it, we were in the same room and in each other's arms. I kissed and held my wife for the first time in all these many years. It was a moment I had dreamed about a thousand times. It was as if I were still dreaming. I held her to me for what seemed like an eternity. We were still and silent except for the sound of our hearts. I did not want to let go of her at all, but I broke free and embraced my daughter and then took her child into my lap. It had been twenty-one years since I had even touched my wife's hand. — Nelson Mandela

Although Jillian had known what Grimm was before that moment, she was briefly immobilized by the sight of him. It was one thing to know that the man she loved was a Berserker-it was another thing entirely to behold it. He regarded her with such an inhuman expression that if she hadn't peered deep into his eyes, she might have seen nothing of Grimm at all. But there, deep in the flickering blue flames, she glimpsed such love that it rocked her soul. She smiled up at him through her tears.
A wounded sound of disbelief escaped him.
Jillian gave him the most dazzling smile she could muster and placed her fist to her heart. "And the daughter wed the lion king," she said clearly.
An expression of incredulity crossed the warrior's face. His blue eyes widened and he stared at her in stunned silence.
"I love you, Gavrael McIllioch."
When he smiled, his face blazed with love. He tossed his head back and shouted his joy to the sky. — Karen Marie Moning

There are so many things to grieve ... All the dogs & cats & birds & snakes we have loved & lost, & old lovers, but what else? ... it took me forever to see that one of them was my own daughter, my baby, a young woman I thought of only as a girl, a child, & there she was, suddenly a woman, & I felt this ache gnaw at me as if I hadn't eaten in a year ... I stood there watching my daughter gesture & move & laugh with the grace of a grown-up, & I just started crying like a baby. It wasn't unlike the same type of sorrow we all feel when we realize something we once had that was very precious is not longer there. That it is forever lost, changed, deceased. Like a baby, gone, except in your memory ... My own daughter is now a woman. I get it. Another passage, another form of loss, another reason to grieve, another part of this life process. — Kris Radish

If Rosie's mother had known that eye colour was not a reliable indicator of paternity, and organised a DNA test to confirm her suspicions, there would have been no Father Project, no Great Cocktail Night, no New York Adventure, no Reform Don Project - and no Rosie Project. Had it not been for this unscheduled series of events, her daughter and I would not have fallen in love. And I would still be eating lobster every Tuesday night.
Incredible. — Graeme Simsion

But it isn't easy to find the right person. It would have to be someone good with kids and horses, and ho'd be able to pitch in with the administrating to some extent and wouldn't quibble about shoving manure.Plus I'd have to be able to depend on them, and get along with them. And they'd have to be diplomatic with parents, which is often the trickiest part."
Travis picked up his soft drink again. "I might be able to point you in the right direction there."
"Oh? Listen, Dad, I appreciate it, but you know, a friend of a friend or the son or daughter of an aquaintance. That kind of thing gets very sticky if it doesn't work out."
"Actually, I was thinking of someone a little closer to home.Your mother."
"Ma?" With a half laugh, Keeley sat again. "Ma doesn't want this headache, even if she had time for it."
"Shows what you know." Smug now, he drank. "Just mention it to her, casually. I won't say a word about it. — Nora Roberts

I often wonder: suppose we could begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light ... I have a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry ... No, no! — Anton Chekhov

Rose sighed softly, in a way that seemed to signal a close to the conversation. "I love him, Mamma."
Adeline closed her eyes. Youth! What chance had the most reasonable arguments against the arrogant power of those three words? That her daughter, her precious prize, should utter them so easily, and about such a one as he!
"And he loves me, Mamma, he told me so."
Adeline's heart tightened with fear. Darling girl, blinded by foolish thoughts of love. How to tell her that the hearts of men were not so easily won. If won, rarely kept.
"You'll see," Rose said. "I shall live happily ever after. — Kate Morton

I had Sophie in my arms when Eric came in. He went straight to Delia and kissed her on the mouth, then bent his forehead against hers for a moment, as if whatever he was thinking may be transferred by osmosis. Then Eric turned, his eyes locking on his daughter. "You can hold her," Delia prompted.
But Eric didn't make any move to take Sophie from me. I took a step toward him, and saw what Delia must have overlooked
Eric's hands were shaking so hard that he had buried him in his coat pockets.
I pushed the baby against his chest, so that he'd have no choice but to grab hold. "It's okay," I said under my breath-To Eric? To Sophie? To myself?-and as I transferred this tiny prize to Eric's arms, I held long longer than I had to. I made damn sure he was steady, before I let go. — Jodi Picoult

It's a strange thing, having a child," he said. It completely alters your most fundamental priorities. When my eldest daughter was born, I realized that I would do anything - anything - to protect her. If I had to set myself on fire to save her from something, I would do it with the utmost relief and gratitude. It's quite a thing, quite a privilege, to care about someone so much that the measure of worth of your own life is changed so much."

Tatsu. — Barry Eisler

Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so clear to me. If you care to imagine what any inadequate or cruel man might do, given unlimited power over a woman, then anything that you can bring yourself to suspect was what became routine in ESMA, the Navy Mechanics School that became the headquarters of the business. I talked to Dr. Emilio Mignone, a distinguished physician whose daughter Monica had disappeared into the precincts of that hellish place. What do you find to say to a doctor and a humanitarian who has been gutted by the image of a starving rat being introduced to his daughter's genitalia? Like hell itself the school was endorsed and blessed by priests, in case any stray consciences needed to be stilled. — Christopher Hitchens

I ached for him, my stomach twisting painfully. He looked so desolate standing there alone facing a mad queen and several thousand angry fey. His voice was flat and resigned, as if he'd been pushed into a corner and had given up, not caring what happened next. — Julie Kagawa

We were pregnant at the time, and while I was out there I started to realize that if I had a daughter, there would come a day when I would have to apologize to her for my profession. I would have to apologize for the way it treats and speaks to women readers, and the way it treats its female characters. — Matt Fraction

The Republic is six months old, and it's flying apart. It has no cohesive force - only a monarchy has that. Surely you can see? We need the monarchy to pull the country together - then we can win the war."
Danton shook his head.
"Winners make money," Dumouriez said. "I thought you went where the pickings were richest?"
"I shall maintain the Republic," Danton said.
"Why?"
"Because it is the only honest thing there is."
"Honest? With your people in it?"
"It may be that all its parts are corrupted, vicious, but take it altogether, yes, the Republic is an honest endeavor. Yes, it has me, it has Fabre, it has Hebert - but it also has Camille. Camille would have died for it in '89."
"In '89, Camille had no stake in life. Ask him now - now he's got money and power, now he's famous. Ask him now if he's willing to die."
"It has Robespierre."
"Oh yes - Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter's daughter, I don't doubt. — Hilary Mantel

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King's daughter, I would have gone nevertheless. — Joan Of Arc

I was the dhampir daughter of the family patriarch, the little known stain on an otherwise immaculate record. Louis-Cesare, on the other hand, was vamp royalty. The only Child of Mircea's younger, and far stranger, brother Radu, he was a first-level master
the highest and rarest vampire rank.
A month ago, the prince and the pariah had crossed paths because we had one thing in common: we were very good at killing things. And Mircea's bug-eyed crazy brother Vlad had needed killing if anyone ever had. The collaboration hadn't exactly been stress free, but to my surprise, we eventually sorted things out and got the job done. By the end, I'd even started to think that it was kind of nice, having someone to watch my back for a change.
Sometimes, I could be really stupid. — Karen Chance

At one point I emailed to ask if it was true, as my daughter had told me, that the Apple logo was an homage to Alan Turing, the British computer pioneer who broke the German wartime codes and then committed suicide by biting into a cyanide-laced apple. He replied that he wished he had thought of that, but hadn't. — Walter Isaacson

I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 13 years ago-crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter's future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had-that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father. I knew that day that my own life wouldn't count for much unless she had every opportunity in hers. — Barack Obama

I hold my daughter in my arms and thank God for bringing her to me. If the standard route for creating a family had worked for me, I wouldn't have met this child. I needed to know her. I needed to be her mother. I know now why all those events happened. Or didn't happen. So I could meet this little girl. She is, in every way, my daughter. I am carrying my Funny Gift from God and all is good. — Nia Vardalos

Sometimes, she wondered what she was missing, if her life was somehow incomplete because she didn't see the reflection of her face in the face of a son or daughter. Maybe. That's what mothers told her: Oh, you don't know what you're missing; it's spiritual; I feel closer to the earth, to the creator of all things. Perhaps all of that was true
it must be true
but Grace also knew that mothering was work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. She'd known too many women who'd vanished after childbirth; women whose hopes and fears had been pushed to the back of the family closet; women who'd magically been replaced by their children and their children's desires. — Sherman Alexie

Will I have to explain to my daughter that her brother is gonna make more money doing the exact same job because he's a man? If they both played sports since they were three years old, they both worked just as hard, but because he's a boy, they're gonna give him more money? Like, how am I gonna explain that to her? In tennis we've had great pioneers that paved the way - including Venus [Williams], who fought so hard for Wimbledon to pay women the same prize money they pay men, and Billie Jean King, who is one of the main reasons Title IX exists. — Serena Williams

I never married, but if I had done so, I'm sure I'd have divorced the sod a long time ago. Life is simply too short to hang around with annoying people. That may be why I have so few friends. I'm sure my daughter concurs. — Pansy Schneider-Horst

My sister learned she was a carrier for a recessive disease, Bloom syndrome, late in one of her pregnancies. I remember the panicked call and the weeks of worry as she and her husband awaited his test results; if he was also a carrier, this meant their daughter had a one in four chance of being born with the disorder. — Anne Wojcicki

But what made him still more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary gifts with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen she was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad through all the villages around - but why do I say the villages around, merely, when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls of royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from all sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or some wonder-working image? — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

This I need to be told?" she'd snapped. As if, sitting in this kitchen where she felt the disapproving presence of his dead mother, she could forget where he'd grown up. Cole was the youngest of six children, with five sisters who'd traveled no farther than the bottom of the hollow, where Dad Widener had deeded each daughter an acre on which to build a house when she married, meanwhile saving back the remainder of the sixty-acre farm for his only son, Cole. The family cemetery was up behind the orchard. The Wideners' destiny was to occupy this same plot of land for their lives and eternity, evidently. To them the word town meant Egg Fork, a nearby hamlet of a few thousand souls, nine churches, and a Kroger's. Whereas Lusa was a dire outsider from the other side of the mountains, from Lexington - a place in the preposterous distance. And now she was marooned behind five sisters-in-law who flanked her gravel right-of-way to the mailbox. — Barbara Kingsolver

The biggest challenge is to convince a woman that it's not her fault. My daughter is 25; my stepdaughter is 22. As a mother, I want them to know that if a boyfriend is abusive, you cannot ignore it ?- 'Oh, he's been drinking,' or 'He had a bad day.' There is no excuse for a man hitting a woman. Ever. — Debbie Stabenow

It looks as though your shop is doing well," Luka said gazing around, "Could you help me find a gift for a lady friend of mine?"
My heart plunged to my grenn satin slippers, and I had to stare down at Azarte for a minute, petting him hard. Naturally Luka had a "lady friend." She was probably nobly born: the daughter of a count or a duke. I imagined her having thick dark hair and clear skin, and was bitterly jealous. "Of course," I stammered after a time. "What would she like? A gown? A sash?" If she came in for a fitting, I decided to "accidentlly" poke her with every pin. — Jessica Day George

Being honest, if I had a daughter I wouldn't want her listening to a Nicki Minaj CD until she was a certain age. Even when I meet my fans and they tell me they are 12, I cringe a little. I always say, 'Listen. I don't want you saying the bad words, put school first.' — Nicki Minaj

As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only wondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a fortune. This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical genius not having been scientifically developed in his youth. 'For why,' argued Mr Plornish, 'why go a-binding music when you've got it in yourself? That's where it is, I consider.' Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain sumptuous way - an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring audience to witness that he really could — Charles Dickens

I got what I wanted, I guess. I'm here, in this home that I worked so hard to insulate from the problems of the world, our happy little bubble. The girls have their father every night. Adam has a newfound respect for me, the New Rachel, for the glittering, sharp edge that's emerged like a razor in the grass. When I think about my old self, I feel pity and yearning at the same time. Poor Old Rachel, the sweet, naive idiot. And lucky Old Rachel, so completely happy. There's one niggling thought I can't shake, one that keeps me awake at night. What would I tell my daughters if they came to me with the news that their husband had a mistress? That he told her, my precious daughter, that sex with the other woman was amazing? Stay and work things out. Oh, and get that STD panel ASAP, darlings! But do stay. Take all that hurt and betrayal and just ball it up and swallow it. Want to bake cookies? — Kristan Higgins

The way Mom saw it, women should let menfolk do the work because it made them feel more manly. That notion only made sense if you had a strong man willing to step up and get things done, and between Dad's gimp, Buster's elaborate excuses, and Apache's tendency to disappear, it was often up to me to keep the place from falling apart. But even when everyone was pitching in, we never got out from under all the work. I loved that ranch, though sometimes it did seem that instead of us owning the place, the place owned us. — Jeannette Walls

Given the lack of sexual activity in your apartment and your refusal to take even one peek at my knickers, I'm curious if you've ever had sex before. I mean, I know you have a daughter but you hear about these virgin births all the time. — Karina Halle

I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter, and able to give people a clean drink of water. I don't want images of starving babies at the breast in my mind. I want that to change. And if I want that, I had better do something about it. — Emma Thompson

If, for example, I saw my grandparents or my daughter for an instant, would I recognize them? Probably not, because in looking so hard for a way to keep them alive, remembering them in the most minimal details, I have been changing them, adorning them with qualities they may not have had. I have given them a destiny much more complex than the ones they lived. — Isabel Allende

If I had a daughter, and some guy came home with her, I'd be on him like a hawk. When I meet people's parents, I know my place. It's not that hard. — Zac Efron