It's All About Family Quotes & Sayings

I drive back into town with the two crinkly notes in my pocket and wonder if I could support a family this way, doomed to play dinner dances until I too have one foot in the grave. I shudder at the possibility, and think about poor Meg in her sickbed. What am I going to do? On the way back I pass a big roundabout at the end of the Coast Road. It is March, and the roundabout is covered in daffodils. I circle it twice, an idea forming in my head. I park in a nearby street. It is early morning and there is no one around. I check for police cars and head across the road to the roundabout. Half an hour later I let myself into Megan's flat and slowly open her bedroom door. My arms are full of daffodils, maybe a hundred all told, their drooping yellow trumpets lighting up the entire room. Meg starts to cry, and so do I. The next morning our prayers are answered, but our relief is mixed with a subtle, unspoken regret. — Sting

For me, there are distinct levels of friendship:
BEST FRIEND: An extremely close individual you can do anything with, talk about everything with, confide in, and be comfortable with sitting in silence on car journeys; those people you consider to be part of your family
GOOD FRIEND: A person you are comfortable hanging out with one-on-one for an extended period of time and see semiregularly; someone who shares experiences with you but not your deepest troubles and secrets
FRIEND: Someone you hang out with in a group setting occasionally
Acquaintance: Someone you know on a first-name basis and say "hi" to but that's pretty much the extent of it
STRANGERS: The rest of the world (and all your potential best friends in the future) — Connor Franta

When you focus on lack and scarcity and what you don't have, you fuss about it with your family, you discuss it with your friends, you tell your children that you don't have enough - "We don't have enough for that, we can't afford that" - then you'll never be able to afford it, because you begin to attract more of what you don't have. If you want abundance, if you want prosperity, then focus on abundance. Focus on prosperity. (Lisa Nichols)
Many people in Western culture are striving for success. They want the great home, they want their business to work, they want all these outer things. But what we found in our research is that having these outer things does not necessarily guarantee what we really want, which is happiness. So we go for these outer things thinking they're going to bring us happiness , but it's backward. You need to go for the inner joy, the inner peace, the inner vision first, and then all of the outer things appear. (Marci Shimoff)
— Rhonda Byrne

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

It isn't about the welfare check. It never was.
It isn't about sexual permissiveness, or personal morality, or failures in parenting, or lack of family planning. All of these are inherent in the disaster, but the purposefulness with which babies make babies in places like West Baltimore goes far beyond accident and chance, circumstance and misunderstanding. It's about more than the sexual drives of adolescents, too, though that might be hard to believe in a country where sex alone is enough of an argument to make anyone do just about anything.
In Baltimore, a city with the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, the epidemic is, at root, about human expectation, or more precisely, the absence of expectation. — David Simon

He had not colored the leaves in yet, and the trunk and its branches looked for the moment less like a tree and more like a great brown river, the Nile, the Amazon, the Benedetto and Flynn river of blood, and there at its isthmus was this one child, so that it seemed that all of these people, from Poland, from Italy, from Ireland and the Bronx and Brooklyn, had come together for no other reason than to someday produce Robert Benedetto, in an event as meant, as important as that one in Bethlehem that he had learned about in catechism class at St. Stannie's. — Anna Quindlen

She understood that it had never just been about talent: it had also always been about money. Ethan was brilliant at what he did, and he might well have made it even if Ash's father hadn't encouraged him, but it really helped that Ethan had grown up in a sophisticated city, and that he had married into a wealthy family. Ash was talented, but not all that talented. This was the thing that no one said, not once. But of course it was fortunate that Ash didn't have to worry about money while trying to think about art. Her wealthy childhood had given her a head start, and now Ethan had picked up where her childhood had left off. — Meg Wolitzer

Bob and Maria's kids, now grown and in high school and college, each have a quiet dignity and confidence. They also have an informal charm. [...] It is obvious they'd played the roles in the story their family was living, the roles of foreign dignitaries, traveling with their parents on the important assignment of asking world leaders what they hope in. Their STORY had given them their CHARACTER.

I only say this about the children because I used to believe charming people were charming because they were charming, or confident people were confident because they were confident. But all of this is, of course, circular. The truth is, we are all living out the character of the roles we have played in our stories. — Donald Miller

It's interesting that my neighbor Irv, who saw dogs so differently, knew all the kids and people on the block and could recite the family history of each house until about a decade ago. Now few of our neighbors can name more than a handful of people who live on the street. They have little to do with local government, and vote sporadically, at best. In the evenings and on weekends, they go their own ways. Their kids are repeatedly warned about talking to people they don't know. — Jon Katz

I think the people in your life are the people that - when you can make other people happy and you can give things to your family and your friends, you know, that's really obviously what life is all about. But it doesn't have to be children. It doesn't have to be a husband. It can be whatever you make it. — Chelsea Handler

I got the idea from our family's plant book. The place where we recorded things you cannot trust to memory. The page begin's with the person's picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or a painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim's cheek. My father's laugh. Peeta's father with the cookies. The colour of Finnick's eyes. What Cinna would do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late promise preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie's newborn son. — Suzanne Collins

When I was about five, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, and since then it's just been a stronghold in my life. Really, through the shark attack and all the hard times that my family and I went through, it gave us unity and perseverance to push through all this crazy stuff that we never knew was going to happen. — Bethany Hamilton

Religion and gods and beliefs - for me, it all comes down to your brother. And your brother might be the brother in your family, or it might be the guy next to you in the foxhole - it's about human connections. — Eric Kripke

That's the funny thing about writing your life story. You start out trying to remember dates and times and names. You think it's about facts, your life; that what you'll look back on and remember are the successes and failures, the time line of your youth and middle age, but that isn't it at all. Love. Family. Laughter. That's what I remember when it's all said and done. — Kristin Hannah

But he's still your family, right? You run together. See, that's important. Nothing's more important. But you can't," she coughed again, "you can't have a pack that's so big that just everybody's in it. I'm not saying you shouldn't care about people. Try to help them. But you can't take it all on yourself, girl. That's all I'm saying. — Masha Du Toit

The doorbell rang, but we all knew better than to get up. I don't know how many keys to my parent's house circulated in Montgomery. It was largely pointless as the door never seemed to be locked anyway. I wondered if my parents worried about crime, but having at least nineteen serving police officers in the family, I figured any criminal who decided to break in would probably get a standing ovation for sheer audacity. And then live to regret it. — Camilla Chafer

I saw The Sound of Music again recently, and I loved it. Probably it's a more valuable film now than when it first came out, because some of the things it stood for have already disappeared. There's a kind of naive loveliness about it, and love goes by so fast ... love and music and happiness and family, that's what it's all about. I believe in these things. It would be awful not to, wouldn't it? — Julie Andrews

It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when they do not fit and draw new ones. — John Steinbeck

Max rocked back on his heels, shoving his hands into his pockets, and said, 'So. Juliet Cavanaugh. I assume my parents have been talking your ear off for the last however many months, telling you how awesome I am, and filling your head full of stories of my impressive talents in the kitchen.'
'Um. Not so much,' Jules said, shooting a glance at Danny, who shook his head and went back to his prep work.
'No? I should take this opportunity to set the record straight, then.' Max heaved a deep sigh. 'It's all true.'
'What?'
'Everything they should've told you about me,' Max explained. 'And I don't know why they didn't, because it's all true. No exaggeration or family bias plays into it at all
I am the best chef in the entire world. — Louisa Edwards

I know absolutely nothing about where I'm going. I'm fine with that. I'm happy about it. Before, I had nothing. I had no life, no friends, and no family really, and I didn't really care. I had nothing, and nothing to lose, and then I knew loss. What I cared about was gone; it was all lost. Now I have everything to gain; everything is a clean slate. It's all blank pages waiting to be written on. It's all about going forward. It's all about uncertainty and possibilities. — Gregory Galloway

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

What I miss most about Mexico isn't the food or the customs; it's my family and the way we'd all sit around chatting together. — Javier Hernandez

The orange turns to dull bronze light and continues to show what it has shown all day long, but now it seems to show it without enthusiasm. Across those dry hills, within those little houses in the distance are people who've been there all day long, going about the business of the day, who now find nothing unusual or different in this strange darkening landscape, as we do. If we were to come upon them early in the day they might be curious about us and what we're here for. but now in the evening they'd just resent our presence. The workday is over. It's time for supper and family and relaxation and turning inward at home. We ride unnoticed down this empty highway through this strange country I've never seen before, and now a heavy feeling of isolation and loneliness becomes dominant and my spirits wane with the sun. — Robert M. Pirsig

...On their first day in the new house, Addams had gotten up in the dark. From the surrounding swamp came bloodcurdling screams - the sound of possums mating, Tee later speculated, though it was perhaps a fisher, the dark-colored marten who stalked the wetlands, rooting rabbits from their nests. Addams returned to bed. "Someone is murdering babies in the swamp," he said. "Oh darling," came the sleepy reply from the pillows, "I forgot to tell you about the neighbors."

"All my life I wanted to live in one of those Addams Family houses, but I've never achieved that," Addams had recently told a reporter. "I do my best to add little touches," he said. ...Still, he conceded, "it's hard to convert a ranch-type house into a Victorian monster." — Linda H. Davis

The second rule is family is a choice."
I thought about that. "You can't choose your family. It's all blood relations."
"Family consists of people you care about, who care about you, who try to make an effort. — C.L.Stone

Roebling rejoined the Army of the Potomac in February 1863 back at Fredericksburg, where he was quartered late one night in an old stone jail, from which he would emerge the following morning with a story that would be told in the family for years and years to come. The place had little or no light, it seems, and Roebling, all alone, groping his way about, discovered an old chest that aroused his curiosity. He lifted the lid and reaching inside, his hand touched a stone-cold face. The lid came back down with a bang. Deciding to investigate no further, he cleared a place on the floor, stretched out, and went to sleep. At daybreak he opened the chest to see what sort of corpse had been keeping him company through the night and found instead a stone statue of George Washington's mother that had been stored away for safekeeping. — David McCullough

But it's also a human tendency - and a pronounced tendency in America - to become enamored of our tools and lose sight of their place. Think about a couple of the basic functions of any community: educating children and policing the streets. Today we spend huge effort and millions of dollars to bring more technology into the classroom, when the great majority of students in the great majority of circumstances can learn almost all of what they need to know with a supportive family, a pencil, some paper, good books, and a great teacher. The schools that produced Shakespeare and Jefferson and Darwin had some writing materials, some printed books - and that was it. — Eric Greitens

From Genesis to Revelation, holy text is all about relationships and the limitless flavors of those relationships. It is the duty of mankind to tap into our women's unique talents
their genius for 'relationships.'
pg vii — Michael Ben Zehabe

When I was a little girl,' I said, sitting down, 'the wallpaper in my room had pictures of Noah's story.' [ ... ]
You know what's weird though? It's weird that the ark would be such a kids' story, you know? I mean, it's ... really a story about death. Every person who isn't in Noah's family? They die. Every animal, apart from two of each on the boat? They die. They all die in the flood. Billions of creatures. It's the worst tragedy ever,' I finished, my voice tied off by a knot in my chest.[ ... ] 'What the hell,'I said, 'pardon my language, was that doing on my wallpaper? — Adam Rex

It doesn't matter what you all think, what you all say about me, because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face, my family that I love, that's all that really matters to me. — Marshawn Lynch

Putting on a movie is like going to war - for me, at least. It's all about time; time is money, and we don't have it. So it's all about getting to know each other intimately quickly. You are with family members that you like or don't like, but you can't leave them because you're stuck with them. — Lee Daniels

Making a beautiful, happy home is not about what we don't have or what we want to buy. It's all about what we do have, and how incredibly precious it all is. It's about how we spend the days we're given with this family of ours, and making the home we share a place our kids will love to describe to our grandchildren. It's about making our kids' memories delightful. — Gabrielle Stanley Blair

With love like that, you can't get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is that it's there. Better late than never. — Sarah Dessen

After we did [All In The Family], that ended up being a real love fest all around. Me and Norman, Norman [Lear] and me, Rob Reiner, everybody liked everybody. So about six or seven months later I moved out to L.A. and I got a call that Norman wanted to see me. I came in and he said "ABC has given me a property that they just optioned to make into a TV series. It's from a play called Hot L Baltimore, and I want you to be in it." — Richard Masur

African-Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem. — Bebe Moore Campbell

The box had been built effectively. It floated barge-like in the water, about two thirds of it below the waterline. It was a drift ship or a current rider, not a sailing vessel. Elohim would be its rudder. Inside, Noah's family settled in for a long voyage. They did not know exactly how long it would be, but Elohim had told them it would rain for forty days and forty nights. They knew the terrible truth that he was going to blot out all living things in the land. They knew they would be the only survivors. They knew they would start anew Elohim's plans for the human race. — Brian Godawa

He [Ryan White] had a kind of angelic aura about him. And his family, too, it's like, they are going through all this suffering, and I'm living this "Life of Riley" and I'm complaining about everything, and they are living this horrific life and complaining about nothing. — Elton John

People are flawed," said Jace. "Not every member of your family is going to be awesome. But when you see Tessa again, and you will, she can tell you about Will Herondale. And James Herondale. And me, of course," he added, modestly. "As far as Shadowhunters go, I'm a pretty big deal. Not to intimidate you."
"I don't feel intimidated," said Kit, wondering if this guy was for real. There was a gleam in Jace's eye as he spoke that indicated that he might not take what he was saying all that seriously, but it was hard to be sure. "I feel like I want to be left alone. — Cassandra Clare

It's all about family [jake]. It was always about family. It will always be that way if I have anything to say about it. — Fern Michaels

I don't know what I'm trying to say. I don't know what any of this is really about. Why we bother. Why we're here. Why we love. I had a family, and they were everything to me, and I didn't even know it when I had them. I had a girl, and she was everything to me, and I knew it every second I had her. I lost them all. Everything a guy could ever want. I found my way home again, but don't be fooled. Nothing's the same as before. I'm not sure I'd want it to be. — Kami Garcia

One of the things I want to do with 'Desi Rascals' is go a bit deeper into the characters and their family lives and have a bit more heart and a bit more inter-generational story-telling, so it's not all about young people. — Gurinder Chadha

It doesn't matter whether you have the happiest upbringing ... the young Joe Scot had the most dysfunctional family there could be but it's still a family and it's a really good, strong family. But in spite of that he runs away from home. I relate to all of those things very directly. I hit 40 this year but I still think about being a teenager and hopefully I will for the rest of my life. They are important years. — Daniel Craig

I always say about my daughters, they save me from my miserable self. They take me out, you know, a comedian, you could live in your head a lot. And you're writing and you're doubting. But when I'm with my kids and my family, it's all about them. — Chris Rock

I don't know what story y'all trying to get out of me. I don't know what image y'all trying to portray of me. But it don't matter what y'all think, what y'all say about me because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face - my family that I love, that's all that really matter to me. — Marshawn Lynch

I'm tired," I said. My voice shook as I tried to restrain my tears. "I'm tired of all of it. The running, the paranoia, being scared all the time, and the sleepless nights. I want a normal life. Is that too much to ask?"
"No, it's not. More than anyone, I believe you deserve it. The friends, the family - the house with a white picket fence, if you want it - you should have all of it."
I shook my head. "I am not talking about those things. I just want to live without fear, love without consequence, and not be blamed for the actions of my past in my future. I want to experience being me. — Loni Flowers

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

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

That's a much better kiss than the one you gave her when you won the shooting match!"
"And a much better proposal of marriage than the one you gave her yesterday morning!" Minerva chimed in.
"Leave him be!" Celia chided as Jackson went red about the ears. "He saved my life twice, figured out who killed Mama and Papa, and taught Gran some humility. We can't all be good at everything, you know."
Amid the laughter, he kissed her again, but her family didn't let that go on for long. It was cold outside, after all. Gran herded them inside to the great hall, where the servants had brought out refreshments. There, everyone had to take turns congratulating them and clamoring for all the usual details of how it had started and when it had become true love. — Sabrina Jeffries

Absolutely the worst thing about this job is the travel and being away from family. I have a wife and three wonderful children, the kids are all active in sports and it's very difficult to up and leave and miss them growing up. — Roy Clark

I play with my grandchildren. I tend to my garden, which I love. Of course, I love to read, and family is really what it's all about. — Julie Andrews

I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness. — Sharon Shinn

You should feel good about making your home nicer for your family and your friends. You should feel great about cooking a good dinner and making a dress for a granddaughter, creating a beautiful birthday party. It's all part of life. — Martha Stewart

I think about how truly interesting and odd it is that when a woman marries, traditionally she loses her name, becoming absorbed by the husband's family name - she is in effect lost, evaporated from all records under her maiden name. I finally understand the anger behind feminism - the idea that as a woman you are property to be conveyed between your father and your husband, but never an individual who exists independently. And on the flip side, it is also one of the few ways one can legitimately get lost - no one questions it. — A.M. Homes

I should've called her," he told Hannah. "That was stupid, not calling. It would have given her a good four hours to think. But see, when I thought about taking you home, it was obviously a bad idea. Just didn't fit into our family plan. All that made sense, until I saw you. Until you blew raspberries on my neck." Hannah took the bottle out of her mouth and belched loudly. "Good one!" Paul said, praising her. "Drink the rest of that bottle and close your eyes. It's a long drive." "Ma!" she said loudly. "Unfortunately, you're stuck with me. But, hey, you might try that 'Ma!' thing on Vanessa when you meet her. You're going to need all the help you can get." He — Robyn Carr

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. — Dexter Palmer

Halina tries to picture the American president seated triumphantly behind his desk some 6,000 kilometers west of them. V-E Day, Truman called it: Victory in Europe. But to Halina, the word victory feels hollow. False, even. here's hardly anything victorious about the ruined Warsaw they left, or about the fact that so much of the family is still missing, or about how all around them in what was once Lodz's massive ghetto, they can feel the ghosts of 200,000 Jews - most of whom, it's rumored, met their deaths in the gas vans and chambers of Chelmno and Auschwitz. — David Foenkinos

The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - 'Everything's great, it all has to be great all the time and why do you have to spoil it?' Whereas probably the most fundamental and important thing to me has been defending my right to tell the truth about how I feel. — Rachel Cusk

Over and over these organizations tell America that family, above all, is what Christianity is about. Devotion to one's family is, indeed, a wonderful thing. Yet it is hardly something to brag about. For all except the most pathologically self-absorbed, love for one's parents, spouse, and children comes naturally. Jesus did not make it his business to affirm these ties; he didn't have to. Jews feel them, Buddhists feel them, Confucians and Zoroastrians and atheists feel them. Christianity is not about reinforcing such natural bonds and instinctive sentiments. Rather, Christianity is about challenging them and helping us to see all of humankind as our family. It seems clear that if Jesus had wanted to affirm the "traditional family" in the way that Pat Robertson claims, he would not have lived the way he did. — Bruce Bawer

I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas. — Gordon Getty

This is where we go our seperate ways.
Aware of the almost feel of his hand on my arm when he pulls me back to him and says, "Yes."
I look at him, unsure of what he's saying yes to.
"The questions you asked earlier, about wanting to settle down, start a family, see my family? Yes. Yes to all of it."
I try to swallow but can't, try to speak but the words just won't come.
His hands sliding around me, grasping me to him, he lets go of the vial, allows it to fall, to crash to the ground. The sparkling green liquid seeping out all around as he says, "But mostly yes to you. — Alyson Noel

The right, like Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbauggh, use women and the black man and the Hispanic immigrant and the gay man as a scapgoat for society's ills. They pretend it's about traditional family values, but that's a bullshit phrase that means nothing to me. They like to use us all. They use pro-life as a way to hate women and slam women, dressed up in the nobility of saving unborn fetuses. I think it's just misogyny. — Janeane Garofalo

The differences were plain enough, and yet I saw that they were as nothing compared with what we had in common. As I lay in bed at night, the sky outside my window reflecting the city's dim glow, I thought about Abuelita's fierce loyalty to blood. But what really binds people as family? The way they shore themselves up with stories; the way siblings can feud bitterly but still come through for each other; how an untimely death, a child gone before a parent, shakes the very foundations; how the weaker ones, the ones with invisible wounds, are sheltered; how a constant din is medicine against loneliness; and how celebrating the same occasions year after year steels us to the changes they herald. And always food at the center of it all. — Sonia Sotomayor

The family watched It's a Wonderful Life, which is a very beautiful movie and all I could think was why didn't they make a movie about uncle Billy? ... Because he was a drunk and fat and lost all that money in the first place. I wanted an angel to come down and show us how uncle Billy's life had meaning — Stephen Chbosky

In order to change, however, you have to be willing to acknowledge the need for change - in other words, you have to come to terms with the fact that everything in your life isn't perfect. There is this concept - among not just Scientologists, but everyone - that we are all supposed to have it together. Whether it's our work, love lives, family relationships, or even feelings about ourselves, we need to present this idealized image to others. We are so conditioned when asked "How are you?" to say "Good" or "Great." But why not "I don't know. I hate everyone today." Why are we so scared to be judged imperfect or to talk about how we really feel? To be authentic? If we can just tell each other how and what we are really doing, step outside of what we believe others think we should be, the result can be therapeutic. — Leah Remini

Maybe I really can see
The face of God.
Maybe it's there
When I sit with my
Patched-together family
For pancake breakfast.
Maybe it's in the power
Of the sea,
Or in the driftwood
That gets hurled about
By storms.
Maybe it's in the words
Of an ice-cream man
Or the joyful leaps
Of a dolphin.
It might even be in the pain
Of leaving my new best friend,
Or maybe
It's especially in that.
Maybe all these things
Show me the face of God,
Or maybe they just show me
A bit of light
Or love
Or happiness.
And maybe that's exactly
The same thing. — Shari Green

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

A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it. — Susan Sontag

I would like to forget the image of the ship's crane at Southampton docks when it lifted into the sky the three wooden trunks which held all that my family owned. There is only one memory I want to preserve. It is Maria, who is also Zama, sipping condensed milk on the steps of the doep at night. The African nights were warm. The stars were bright. I loved Maria but I'm not sure she loved me back. Politics and poverty had separated her from her own children and she was exhausted by the white children in her care, by everyone and everything in her care. At the end of the day, away from the people who stole her life's energy and made her tired, she had found a place to rest, momentarily, from myths about her character and her purpose in life." (from "Things I Don't Want to Know" by Deborah Levy) — Deborah Levy

Life in New Orleans is all about making the present--this moment, right now--as pleasant as possible. So New Orleanians, by and large, aren't tortured by the frenzy to achieve, acquire, and manage the unmanageable future. Their days are built around the things that other Americans have pushed out of their lives by incessant work: art, music, elaborate cooking, and--most of all--plenty of relaxed time with family and friends. Their jobs are really just the things they do to earn a little money; they're not the organiing principle of life. While this isn't a worldview particularly conducive to getting things done, getting things done isn't the most important thing in New Orleans. Living life is. Once you've tasted that, and especially if it's how you grew up, life everywhere else feels thin indeed. — Dan Baum

You can't tell me anything about family life. I've had plenty to last me.' 'But it's not all like that,' I objected. 'Near enough. It's all being under somebody's thumb. — Willa Cather

It's really all about family, love and the children for me. I work at that every day. — Celine Dion

And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just ... real.
And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Baker's world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one.
Where had all this stuff come from?
And why hadn't I ever seen it before. — Wendelin Van Draanen

It's really hard to deny a kid who's father has passed away. We all just wanted you to be happy so we messed that up. Your career wasn't about the money. Not at first. It gave you both something big to do so you could stay busy and forget how much you missed your dad." His heart twisted, and he whispered, "When I think of him ... I don't remember his face, but I do remember how much it hurt to have him simply there one day and gone the next ... just gone." Nan nodded. "Imagine how your mom felt. Your dad was the love of her life. — Anne Eliot

In acting, there's a type of courage you're recognized for all the time. You lose 100 pounds and play a guy with AIDS, and you get rewarded. But, in life, doing what is courageous is quiet, and no one knows about it. Courage is someone making sacrifices for their family or making selfless decisions for what they hope or feel. — Rob Lowe

When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run ... — Russell D. Moore

Well, friend, I don't know about your tastes, but I tend to like it very bloody," Myrnin said. He shifted position, dragging Claire along like a rag doll without any effort at all. "Have we been introduced?"
"Probably not. Why, are you asking me out, sweetheart?"
"You're not my type, darling. Is this one yours?"
"No," Frank said, and looked at Shane, just in a quick flicker. "Let's say she's a friend of the family. — Rachel Caine

I have a lot of projects I get asked for, but the opera house really is my house - my home. It's where I feel comfortable and confident and I get to explore these big human stories and dramas and collaborate with extraordinary people, great talented artists and administrators and other people who are passionate about it and support it. It's like working with a great big family - the family you love and enjoy being with all the time. — Jake Heggie

The thing about aging is all your old lovers, pretty much if they were really friends, become your family. It's great. You have those terrible feelings of possessiveness and uncertainty go out the window. You have what you shared. You know you would help each other in times of trouble no matter what. — Gloria Steinem

You don't want some tacky Vegas fly-by. You're serious. You're serious about friendships, about your work, your family. You're serious about Star Wars, and you active dislike of Jar Jar Binks
"
"Well, God. Come on, anyone who
"
"You're serious," she continued before he went on a Jar Jar rant, "about living your life on your terms, and being easygoing doesn't negate that one bit. You're serious about what kind of kryptonite is more lethal to Superman."
"You have to go with the classic green. I told you, the gold can strip Kryptonians' powers permanently, but
" ...
... "Mkae all the lists you want, Cilla. Love? It's green kryptonite. it powers out all the rest. — Nora Roberts

Amadu is all about the family. I've never known love like that before, and it made me think, 'I want a bit of that'. It kind of forced me to get to know my family again. Another reason why he's so lovely. — Billie Piper

Do all kids have to worry about their parents' mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it's the other way around. — Ruth Ozeki

When one person got involved, it took everybody else along. I went to jail first, but my entire family soon joined the Movement. One time, Faith & I ended up at home w all the babies from 2 households, because the mamas & the other older sisters were in jail. In the morning we had to plait everybody's hair & feed them--it was a mess! We had all the babies except Peaches Gaines, who was in jail with her mother & my mother. Peaches was jailed because she had not obeyed an officer. She was about 2. Her bond was set at, I believe, $125.00. --Joann Christian Mants — Faith S. Holsaert

Why would you family think about it?"
"Oh, my mother's the only one that counts, and she likes you very much from what she's seen of you."
"So you had me inspected?"
"No-dash ti all, I seem to be saying all the wrong things today. I was absolutely stunned that first day in court, and I rushed off to my mater, who's an absolute dear, and the kind of person who really understands things, and I said, 'Look here! here's the absolutely one and only woman, and she's being put through a simply ghastly awful business and for God's sake come and hold my hand!' You simply don't know how foul it was. — Dorothy L. Sayers

If there is one thing about my family that I do identify with, it is that everyone is extremely hardworking. Also, the people whom I grew up with all did things they really loved. And I think that's an important lesson. — Rooney Mara

When we allow material things to be more important than spiritual things, we lost a lot of very important ways in life, many fear dying and are so concerned about what they do if someone stole all their position, did we not come into this world naked? can we take all our riches with us when we pass? is success what really makes a man or women hear? can we actually buy real love? the twisted ways of thinking come from greedy people, a person who work hard should be paid more than one who work less but that's not the case here, it is all backwards this is what a man has brought forth because of the attitude that being certainly religion or family tree entitles them to it what they really forget is what we are from the same family — Wisdom

For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'
Really,' I said.
We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother ... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'
To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.' ...
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.'
So it's an endless cycle,' I said.
I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about? — Sarah Dessen

It's like they say about soldiers coming back from war. People all around you are dying. Really dying, Eric. You go in for a week's chemotherapy and you're in a ward with people who are really, actually dying, there and then and doing their best to come to terms with it. When the week's up, you go home and you see your family and your friends and everything's normal and familiar. It's too much. You think - one world can't possibly hold both these lives and you feel like you're going to go crazy when you realise the world is that big and it can fill with the most terrible things whenever it wants to. — Steven Hall

Johanna sat by the fire every night and worked on her tapestry. Dumfries waited until she was settled in her chair and then draped himself across her feet. It became a ritual for Alex to squeeze himself up next to her and fall asleep during her stories about fierce warriors and fair maidens. Johanna's tales all had a unique twist, for none of the heroines she told stories about ever needed to be rescued by their knights in shining armor. More often than not, the fair maidens rescued their knights.
Gabriel couldn't take issue with his wife. She was telling Alex the truth. It was a fact that maidens could rescue mighty, arrogant warriors. Johanna had certainly rescued him from a bleak, cold existence. She'd given him a family and a home. She was his love, his joy, his companion.
She was his saving grace. — Julie Garwood

I mean, I think having a great family like I do. You know, I tend to want to give it all I have when I'm at the golf course, and then when I leave I don't want to think about golf at all. And I just remind myself almost daily that golf's just my job, it's not who I am. — Webb Simpson

As I get older, personal happiness is all about love. It's all about love. — Jada Pinkett Smith

We've made it private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines. We've fetishized it as romance, when its true measure is a quality of sustained, practical care. We've lived it as a feeling, when it is a way of being. It is the elemental experience we all desire and seek, most of our days, to give and receive. The sliver of love's potential that the Greeks separated out as eros is where we load so much of our desire, center so much of our imagination about delight and despair, define so much of our sense of completion. There is the love the Greeks called filia - the love of friendship. There is the love they called agape - love as embodied compassion, expressions of kindness that might be given to a neighbor or a stranger. The Metta of the root Buddhist Pali tongue, "lovingkindness," carries the nuance of benevolent, active interest in others known and unknown, and its cultivation begins with compassion towards oneself. — Krista Tippett

Douglas, you have an incredible capacity for missing the point. Will you listen to me, just for once? The debate does not matter. It's not about the issues. Albie might have been naive or ridiculous or pompous or all of those things, but you apologized. You said you were embarassed by him. You took the side of a bunch of arms-dealers! Bloddy bastard arms-dealers against your son - our son - and that was wrong, it was the wrong thing to do, because in a fight you side with the people you love. That's just how it is. — David Nicholls

I don't mind talking about my family and how to balance it all. But, in today's world, we should probably be asking both women and men about work and family and how to balance the two. — Kelli O'Hara

Everybody wants to make as much money as possible. Take care of your family. It's not about the money; it's about status. I want to be ranked amongst all the players. I don't want to just have all this money. I want to be that guy. — Lance Stephenson

But books were full of stories and stories were full of lies and lies hurt Jesus's feelings, so I didn't know what to think. I blamed my family. They were the ones who taught me so much about telling stories, and how not to do it, and then, in inspired moments of surprise, how to tell one so good you forgot what day it was, and I liked forgetting what day it was, so I made certain life choices that would allow me to get paid to forget what day it was and teach others to forget what day it was, which is, after all, what I think heaven probably is: the whole world, forgetting what day it is. You have to, I bet, with an endless supply of them. — Harrison Scott Key

Kashayam [was] a drink the vanaras had morning, noon and night, and a few times in between. It was a kind of brew with all kinds of herbs thrown in: the thick, sharp-tasting furry karpuravalli, the strong spicy tulsi, the slightly bitter bark of the coconut tree, pungent pepper roots, the breathcatching nellikai, the cool root of vetriver, and just about anything else that was considered edible. And some things that weren't. In their craze for novelty, vanaras sometimes flung in new kinds of leaves or berries just because they smelt interesting; whole families had been known to fall ill, or even die. Gind's family were not a very adventurous lot, and stuck to things they knew not to be poisonous. Still, every day's kashayam was different, and this was a great topic of conversation among the vanaras. — Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan

It's impossible to be someone you're not, so quit trying. I am as passionate about my hobbies as I am about my work and my family. All three are equally important to me at all times. — Gautam Singhania

learn pretty damn fast that everything else is smoke and mirrors. Fame. Money. Success. You realize that life is fleeting and family's what it's all about. It's the only thing that matters. — Brenda Novak

We all love stories, even if they're not true. As we grow up, one of the ways we learn about the world is through the stories we hear. Some are about particular events and personalities within our personal circles of family and friends. Some are part of the larger cultures we belong to - the myths, fables, and fairy tales about our own ways of life that have captivated people for generations. In stories that are told often, the line between fact and myth can become so blurred that we easily mistake one for the other. This is true of a story that many people believe about education, even though it's not real and never really was. It goes like this: Young children go to elementary school mainly to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. These skills are essential so they can do well academically in high school. If they go on to higher education and graduate with a good degree, they'll find a well-paid job and the country will prosper too. — Ken Robinson