Quotes & Sayings About Love For Your Parents

On the flight over to Chicago, I thought of a story Mom had once told me from her days as a pediatric nurse.
"There was this little boy I was taking care of," she said "and he was terminally ill,and we all knew it,but he kept hanging on and hanging on. He wouldn't die, it was so sad.
And his parents were always there with him,giving him so much love and support,but he was in so much pain,and it really was,time for him to go.
So finally some of us nurses took his father aside and we told him, 'You have to tell your son it's okay for him to go. You have to give him permission.' And so the father took his son in his arms and he sat with him in a chair and held on to him and told him over and over, that it was okay for him to go,and,well,after a few moments,his son died. — Anthony Rapp

How can families harm us when they love us? Very easily, unfortunately. Most of us overlook one important fact when we think love is enough: Love and respect aren't the same thing.
Love is fusion. As a baby, you belong to your parents, you're extension of them.
Respect is differentiation: you belong to yourself, and you're an extension of no one.
Differentiation is essential for happiness of adults. — Barbara Sher

When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. "I can't wait for the next Twilight movie," I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. "My favorite song on the CD is 'If We Were a Movie.' And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up."
Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, "I think your boyfriend is gay. — Jodi Picoult

However, I Would Not Blame Our Parents for This We are all victims of victims, and they could not possibly have taught us anything they did not know. If your mother did not know how to love herself, or your father did not know how to love himself, then it would be impossible for them to teach you to love yourself. — Louise L. Hay

So, what we do in Love Dare for Parents is walk through the principles that help you win the hearts of your children and find that balance as a parent. As we all know, parenting can be wonderful and exasperating at times. So, we walk through the principles of demonstrating love to your kids in the most appropriate and healthy ways. We learned a great deal doing it and we believe the readers will too. — Alex Kendrick

Love for me is my North Star. It's the highest form of grace. And I love that there's different levels and different ways of showing it, and different representations of it. Whether it's love shown to a stranger, love to a sibling, your child, your parents, your partner. — Ben Harper

I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't always like you.' But what kind of love is that? It seems to me that comes down to, 'I'm not oblivious to you - that is, you can still hurt my feelings - but I can't stand having you around.' Who wants to be loved like that? Given a choice, I might skip the deep blood tie and settle for being liked. I wonder if wouldn't have been more moved if my own mother had taken me in her arms and said, 'I like you.' I wonder if just enjoying your kid's company isn't more important. — Lionel Shriver

Do you love me?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"
"What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.
"Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully.
Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.
"And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said.
"Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'"
"Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked.
Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly.
It was his first lie to his parents. — Lois Lowry

My young love said to me,'My brothers won't mind, And my parents won't slight you for your lack of kind.' Then she stepped away from me, and this she did say, 'It will not be long, love, till our wedding day. — Padraic Colum

You don't bad-mouth your ex or anything like that. The key is your kid knowing that both parents still love him and are there for him. — Dennis Quaid

I think there's a level of ignorance, when, in the callowness of youth, you imagine that you are inventing the world for the first time. You imagine that your parents don't know what it feels like to fall in love. — Mira Nair

I would like to see you. But: I would only like to see you with your feeling space, and desire, the parents of bravery, and curiosity. I would like you to want to see me without you feeling seduced or pressured. I would like to see you without our playing games: for games are for winners and losers and I do not ever want to win against you, or for you to lose against me, and I do not want to lose against you or for you to win against me. For we are part of the whole, the main, as Donne said - and your gain is mine and my loss is yours. Love is about finding one's match, which means we shall touch our minds and hearts together at once, and never condescend or aim for any goal between us but the truth. — Waylon H. Lewis

So just as you shower love and affection and attention on the husbands, wives, parents, children and forever friends who surround you, you have to do equally with your life, because its yours, its you, and its always there rooting for you, cheering you on, even when you feel like you can't do it. — Cecelia Ahern

When I think of Tomodachi, I think of your mother. Your mother, she too lose her baby. She lose you. That very sad thing for her. Maybe she come looking, and she not find you. You not there when she come. She think you dead for ever. But she see you in her mind. Now as I speak maybe she see you in her mind. You always there. I know. I have son too. I have Michiya. He always in my head. Like Kimi. They dead for sure, but they in my head. They in my head forever. — Michael Morpurgo

I don't really know a whole lot about complicated, worldly things. But I think parents and siblings, they need to be able to care for each other unconditionally. How many people could you risk your life to protect? Not that many, I bet. Everyone's top priority is taking care of themselves. But if there's anyone who can overcome that, it's flesh and blood. If you understand that feeling, then you can look at other people, and realize, this person's family cares about them, too. That's a really heavy feeling. When you think about that, it becomes a lot harder to do horrible things to them. So I think that love for your family ... is really at the root of what it means to care for other people. — Mohiro Kitoh

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

We lie with our faces because that's what we've been taught to do since early childhood. "Don't make that face," our parents growl when we honestly react to the food placed in front of us. "At least look happy when your cousins stop by," they instruct, and you learn to force a smile. Our parents - and society - are, in essence, telling us to hide, deceive, and lie with our faces for the sake of social harmony. So it is no surprise that we tend to get pretty good at it, so good, in fact, that when we put on a happy face at a family gathering, we might look as if we love our in-laws when, in reality, we are fantasizing about how to hasten their departure. — Joe Navarro

You told me a love story. I honestly believe your parents wanted the best for you, but their love almost destroyed your life. If Our Lady, as she appeared in my grandmother's painting, was treading on a snake, that indicates that love has two faces. — Paulo Coelho

The path to accepting your sexuality has to start somewhere. For those identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends.
But when you're anything other than straight, it's more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That's why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I've heard many people express annoyance at friends who "just came out and it's totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?" My answer to that is "Yes. Yes, they do. Don't you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There's a first time for everything. — Hannah Hart

When you grow up the way I do, and the biggest thing in your life so far has been getting dunked in a glass tank by a man who acts like he's mugging you but says instead he's saving your soul, then celebrating your soul mugging at Sizzler with your parents (get the buffet by itself, not added on to a steak dinner, because the buffet already has sirloin tips), you need rules. And not their rules, not God's rules, but mine. My own. Here's on of Eliot's Rules for Dating:
When you first meet a girl, make sure you are accidentally conducting a chemistry experiment on your lips.
OK. I didn't say they were all good rules. — Brad Barkley

There are few things more confusing than going to war with parents who are diminishing you, particularly when you are very young. If you fight for your dignity, you risk losing the love you need from them to develop. If you don't fight back, you lose your self-respect — Jeff Brown

....she has realized why people believe in a soul. It's because they have to for they have no other choice. It's hard to bear that all the conversations, all the memories you had with your parents,with your sisters, with the person you loved were burnt or buried, snuffed out of life. So conveniently, people invented the soul, not for the benefit of the deceased, but the loved ones he or she left behind, to make them feel that while they suffer, he or she is watching, and that they equally miss them, like they, too, think of them, and they, too, are watching him.
We can't think of the people we love as bodies buried in caskets or an urn full of ashes, so we think of them as a concentrated mist of nothingness which we call the human soul. No matter how hard they we try to make ourselves believe that they are around us, the truth is that they are gone. — Durjoy Datta

Who proved that you don't have to do what your parents want, or what your boyfriend wants, for you to be happy. You just have to be yourself, for there is no love greater than self love — Jack Gantos

A couple of years ago, I read the findings of a study on the effects of divorced and separated parents talking negatively about their exes in the presence of their children. What I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it's devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child "You are a worthless piece of shit" than it was for a parent to say "Your mother/father is a worthless piece of shit."
I don't remember if they had any theories about why that was so, but it made sense to me. I think we all have something sturdier inside of us that rears up when we're being attacked that we simply can't call upon when someone we love is being attacked, especially if that someone is our parent, half of us-the primal other- and the person doing the attacking is the other half, the other primal other. — Cheryl Strayed

Novels shouldn't aspire to answer questions, and I wouldn't presume to offer advice about love or marriage in any case. What's fascinating to me about marriage as a subject for fiction - a subject that fiction has taken on with gusto since the 19th century - is how unknowable other people's relationships are. Even the marriages of your parents, your siblings, your closest friends always remain something of a mystery. Only in fiction can you pretend to know people completely. — Nell Freudenberger

Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" I tease.

His joking manner stops suddenly and turns serious. "Charlie, I'm not worried because when you want to be with someone, you will do everything in your power to make it happen. I will have dinner with your parents tomorrow night, and they will love me. Do you know why?"

All I could do was shake my head.

"Because all it will take is to have dinner with me for one evening, to see that I am completely and utterly lost and crazy about their daughter, and that I would never, ever do anything to hurt her. — Heather Gunter

And as for going into a bookstore and not finding a book suitable for your 13-year-old ... maybe you should do some research before you go in? And I'm being serious here. There are a bunch of great blogs that will tell you the content of books. Reading Teen is one of them, and I've seen others, and I love what they do because they make YA books feel safe to protective parents. There are plenty of YA books that celebrate joy and beauty. Now, I would argue that many of them are also the "dark" books to which the article refers, and that saying they aren't suggests a pretty inattentive reader ... but that's neither here nor there. I'm not trying to bicker with the careful parents. I'm just saying: do some research and you'll be surprised what you find.
So, that's what I'm going to say about it. — Veronica Roth

If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you've got it half licked. — Arthur Miller

As long as you're around, your life is too. So just as you shower love and affection and attention on the husbands, wives, parents, children and forever friends who surround you, you have to do so equally with your life, because it's yours, it's you, and it's always there rooting for you, cheering you on, even when you feel like you can't do it. I gave up on my life for a while, but what I've learned is that even when that happens and especially when that happens, life never gives up on you. Mine didn't. And we'll be there for each other until those final moments when we will look at each other and say, 'Thanks for staying until the end.'
And that's the truth. — Cecelia Ahern

Your parents, presumably, love you very much and think you are perhaps the most adorable, talented thing ever to prance upon this earth. Your friends agree with them, as do your favorite teachers, as does your significant other. When there is a You Parade, these people will be the flag bearers, the drum majors and majorettes, so make sure you are always flag bearing and drum majoring for them, too. These people who think so highly of us are very special and precious, and we must treasure them. Because here is the truth: Most of the world doesn't give a flying fuck about you. — Kelly Williams Brown

The Lord would want you to be successful. He would. You are His sons and His daughters. He has the same kind of love and ambition for you that your earthly parents have. They want you to do well and you can do it. — Gordon B. Hinckley

To look deep into your child's eyes and see in him both yourself and something utterly strange, and then to develop a zealous attachment to every aspect of him, is to achieve parenthood's self-regarding, yet unselfish, abandon. It is astonishing how often such mutuality had been realized - how frequently parents who had supposed that they couldn't care for an exceptional child discover that they can. The parental predisposition to love prevails in the most harrowing of circumstances. There is more imagination in the world than one might think. — Andrew Solomon

Maya had one of those sudden "pow" moments sneak up on her, the ones all parents experience, when you are simply overwhelmed by your love for your child, when you are awestruck and you can feel something rising inside of you and you just want to hold onto it and yet, at the same time, that caring, that fear of losing this person, scares you into near paralysis. How, you wonder, will you ever relax again, knowing how unsafe the world is? Lily — Harlan Coben

There are things you do when you are a teenager, or a dancer, or just a girl, I guess. You cut your food up in special ways, or you cut yourself, or paper dolls. You pretend that there is an invisible audience watching you all the time, and you do things to impress them or pretend that they didn't see what you just did because their live video feed was interrupted somehow. You steal things or tell lies or speak to strangers in a Russian accent. You have sex with someone you love, or with someone who gets you really drunk. You lie to your parents, your boyfriend, yourself, your therapist. You cheat on your homework or do other people's homework for money. You get up, you take class, you rehearse, you perform, you go to bed. How do you decide which of these things are truly crazy and which are just being alive? — Meg Howrey

the first time the caregiver saw it on the child. they said 'no. don't you dare. you will not grow up thinking you are unwanted. because your parents. chose themselves. over you. this will not be your story because it is not the truth. the truth. is your creation is not about them. you came through them, my love, they were your vessel. the truth. is you were born for you. you were wanted by you. you came for you. you are here for you. your existence is yours. yes. you will want them. (and on odd and warm nights they will think of you and hold themselves tighter.) but. what you do not get. from them. does not make you less. does not make you unwanted. (trust that all you did not receive. all you need. will come to you. in time. the universe is infinite.') - a love poem — Nayyirah Waheed

And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won't care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit. That's one reason your parents are so proud and happy today. One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever. — George Saunders

Dear Mom and Dad,
I know you're only trying to do what's best for me, but I don't think anyone knows for sure what's best. I love you and don't want to be a problem, so I've decided to go away. I know you'll say I'm not a problem, but I know I am. If you want to know why I'm doing this, you should ask Dr. Luce, who is a big liar! I am not a girl. I'm a boy. That's what I found out today. So I'm going where no one knows me. Everyone in Grosse Pointe will talk when they find out.
Sorry I took your money, Dad, but I promise to pay you back someday, with interest.
Please don't worry about me. I will be ALL RIGHT!
Despite it's contents, I signed this declaration to my parents: "Callie."
It was the last time I was ever their daughter. — Jeffrey Eugenides

I thought everything I knew about you might have been a lie, but since meeting him and your parents, I've realized that the parts of you I knew weren't untrue; they were only part-truths. There were lots of things about you that I didn't know, and learning those things has actually been comforting in a way. They make me feel closer to you. And I can see that actually there's one real truth, and that is you loved me enough to do anything it took to protect me. I think that's something I've known my whole life. I'm thankful for it. — Jennifer Brown

I knew that I was loved. And that's such an important thing. And, of course, at such an early age, you take it for granted. Of course your parents love you. Of course Mrs. Hubert across the street loves you and your godmother loves you and your grandparents love you. — Jessye Norman

From the perspective of someone with two grown and wonderful kids, that your instincts as parents are correct: a minute spent reading to your kids now will repay itself a million-fold later, not only because they love you for reading to them, but also because, years later, when they're gone and miles away, those quiet evenings, when you were tucked in with them, everything quiet but the sound of the page-turns, will, seem to you, I promise ... sacred. — George Saunders

I don't think anything gives your life joy and meaning. I think your life simply has joy and meaning. The love for my children, the love for my parents and the love for my friends is the end in itself. The meaning is life. — Penn Jillette

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it's supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful - something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that's not what love is all about. Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace. — Susan Forward

To you who are parents, I say, show love to your children. You know you love them, but make certain they know it as well. They are so precious. Let them know. Call upon our Heavenly Father for help as you care for their needs each day and as you deal with the challenges which inevitably come with parenthood. You need more than your own wisdom in rearing them. — Thomas S. Monson

I agree, Dad. I was just explaining to the woman why we don't look anything alike and why you would have been younger than me when I was born. It doesn't mean I don't love you 'cause you know I do. Make one snotty comment in anger when you're twelve years old going through puberty and getting grounded, and you pay for it for the rest of your life. Parents ain't got no sense of humor. (Omari) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I love coffee because for a few minutes every day I put all of my focus and energy into the creation of something great. I enjoy it for a few minutes, but then it's gone. Until tomorrow when I start the whole process all over again. On any given day, that morning cup might be your last, so you'd better give it your all. Making a great cup of coffee is a perfect work of Zen art. The topic of this book may be making coffee, but the sub-text message I want to put out into the universe is one of always taking the time to appreciate the small things and never take anyone for granted, whether it's your spouse, your friends, your parents, the barista that makes your espresso, or the farmer that grows the coffee beans. Treat every conversation and every relationship as if it, just like that perfect cup of coffee, were a precious work of temporary Zen art. Because it is. — Steven D. Ward

People will come to care about you, but only if you give them a valid reason. Don't assume they'll give you love like your parents, emotional support like your best friend, and cheerful feedback like a soccer coach for seven-year-olds. Because they won't, unless you give them good reason to. And even then, they still probably won't. — Kelly Williams Brown

And if you are a mom who has watched your child's father leave, my heart goes out to you. I also pray that you had no part in it. I pray that you didn't make it impossible for him while he was there. I pray that you didn't try and force him to live up to impossible expectations. And, I pray that if he is a good man and he wants to be there in his child's life that you love your child enough to let him. Even if that seems impossible to you. — Dan Pearce

Glad to see you'll remain your usual modest self."
"But you'll love me anyway, won't you?"
She gasped. And Ash discovered demons could blush. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I'm pretty sure you do. I'd do anything for you, Parvati. You know that. We've been side by side for thousands of years, but never together. Let's fix that... Come downstairs and meet my parents."
"I cannot believe I'm doing this," said Parvati. — Sarwat Chadda

No matter what our past is, or what labels have been placed on us, when we come to Him He erases all the labels, all the hurt and all the pain and He writes "I Love You" on our hearts. You are not who you have been told you are. In fact He says there is a stone with a name on it that only He knows. He doesn't even call you by your name. That is a name your parents gave you, but your Father in Heaven has named you too. What does He call you? What name does your Father speak over you? God has so much in store for your life, just receive His love today and know that He has a new name in store for you. — David M. Snyder

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

If you have people who treat you badly in your life, they will be a human shield against people who will treat you well. If that's not true then we should apply it to marriage and start saying to woman who are being put down or beaten, "you gotta stay with him because he needs you and he has been your husband for 20 years for heaven sakes. You just have to work to love him more and so on." This is the advice they gave to woman like 200 fucking years ago and it was abusive advice.
I view the parent child relationship (This just not my made up perspective.) it is the least voluntary relationship. At least the woman who got married chose to get married. We don't choose our parents. The highest standards of behavior are required for parents and no one else. There is no one else whose standards of behavior need be higher than parents and so often parents get away with the lowest possible standards of behavior with regards to their children. — Stefan Molyneux

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

Parents need to realize that the world is getting complicated every second. With new problems, new diseases, new habits. They have to realize the vast probability of their kids being victims of this age, this complicated era. Your kids could be exposed to problems that no kind of therapy can help. Your kids could be brainwashed by themselves to believe in insane theories that drive them crazy. Most kids will go through this stage. The lucky ones will understand. They will grow out of them. The most unlucky ones will live in these problems. Grow in them and never move forward. They will cut themselves, overdose on drugs, take up excessive drinking and smoking, for the slightest problems in their lives.
You can't blame these kids for not being thankful or satisfied with what they have. Their mentality eludes them from the reality. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

You don't have any control over anyone's feelings.

You can't make your parents feel proud of you.
You can't make anyone like you.
You can't make anyone love you.

You can make it easier for them, by sacrificing your time and energy, but you cannot MAKE THEM, you can only make it easier for them - and yet again, what have you gained? Nothing. You're gambling. Putting trust coins into a slot machine hoping that love comes out. — M. Kirin

Who cares for his causes of complaint? Are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace - they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship - they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return? — Wilkie Collins

Love is the most precious gift in life. Be grateful for all the love and support you get from your parents, your family and friends. Because nothing is as precious as receiving true and devoted love" - Monsieur Jac Couture — Lily Amis

You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find anywhere, and milking it, relishing it, for all it was worth. And as you grew up, you sought love, anywhere you could find it, whether it was a teacher or a coach or a friend or a friend's parents. You sought those tiny droplets of love, basking in them when you found them. They sustained you. For all these years, you've lived under the illusion that somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That is what has gotten you by. — Rachel Reiland

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

God, I thank you for my family. I thank you that my parents life for me. I pray for your blessings and that your promises will manifest and bring harvest to my bloodline today. I pray that your love will surround my family members for the rest of their days. Amen. — M. Johnson

Children leave ... and parents stay behind. Still, some things are deeper than time and distance. And your father will always be your father ... And he will always leave a light on for you. — Fred Savage

I think as a child you know when it's time for your parents to split. You realise they love each other, but they're not in love with each other. And I think as a child it's much better for your parents to split than for them to stay and have dysfunction within the family. — Abbie Cornish

He holds me. I am his in a way he probably isn't even aware of.
Boys shouldn't know what power they have. They would panic probably or just mess things up. But boys are who you give yourself to. Not your parents or your teachers or your "future". You give yourself to a boy.
And then you go for long walks at night and think about them and wonder what they will do to you in the end. — Blake Nelson

I think love is sort of a con you play on yourself. I think the whole conception of love is something the previous generation invents to justify having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are so bored they have children to amuse themselves. They're so bored they don't have anything else to do so they have a child because that will keep them busy for a while. Then to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him there's such a thing as love and that's where you come from because me and your daddy or me and your mommy were in love and that's why you exist. When actually it was because they were bored out of their minds. — Richard Hell

Yes. What is it, guilt, revenge, love, what?"
I swallowed. "I live alone."
"And your point is?"
"You have the Pack. You're surrounded by people who would fall over themselves for the pleasure of your company. I have no one. My parents are dead, my entire family is gone. I have no friends. Except Jim, and that's more of a working relationship than anything else. I have no lover. I can't even have a pet, because I'm not at the house often enough to keep it from starving. When I come crawling home, bleeding and filthy and exhausted, the house is dark and empty. Nobody keeps the porch light on for me. Nobody hugs me and says, 'Hey, I'm glad you made it. I'm glad you're okay. I was worried.' Nobody cares if I live or die. Nobody makes me coffee, nobody holds me before I go to bed, nobody fixes my medicine when I'm sick. I'm by myself. — Ilona Andrews

The beggarly question of parentage
what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom. — Thomas Hardy

Ye lost your parents young, mo nighean donn, and wandered about the world, rootless. Ye loved Frank" - his mouth compressed for an instant, but I thought he was unconscious of it - "and of course ye love Brianna and Roger Mac and the weans ... but, Sassenach - I am the true home of your heart, and I know that. — Diana Gabaldon

As you pray for your children, you will find it to be an unending habit of your heart. Being able to positively affect your children in prayer will keep you in close contact with them and actively involved in their lives, even after they leave home. And it will continually contribute to your joy as a parent! — Stormie O'martian

To all you parents out there, don't make your little girls, or little boys, so thirsty for love that they will want to drink water that will poison them. — Lisa Bedrick

If you've learned anything from your parents, it ought to be this - love works only when it's mutual. Otherwise, eventually it becomes exactly what you call it - a meaningless word. For both parties. — Sabrina Jeffries

My parents were lovely. They've always been supportive. When you love your child, you don't know what to do with someone who wants to do what no one else does successfully. If I had someone younger I loved, I'd be worried for them too if I didn't have guidance to give them. — Lana Del Rey

You ought to love and care for your parents in their old age. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When parents say, 'I wish my child did not have autism,' what they're really saying is, 'I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.' Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces. — Andrew Solomon

Parents love bathtime because it means that bedtime is near. To prepare your darling for her bath, put on your full-length poncho, because toddlers don't bathe, they splash, motherfucker. When toddlers bathe, they act like they're a junior member of the summer Olympics diving team. Get ready. By the time you're done, your bathroom floor will have a few inches of standing water. The good news is that wiping up all that water counts as mopping the floor. — Bunmi Laditan

The window rattles without you, you bastard. The trees are the cause, rattling in the wind, you jerk, the wind scraping those leaves and twigs against my window. They'll keep doing this, you terrible husband, and slowly wear away our entire apartment building. I know all these facts about you and there is no longer any use for them. What will I do with your license plate number, and where you hid the key outside so we'd never get locked out of this shaky building? What good does it do me, your pants size and the blue cheese preference for dressing? Who opens the door in the morning now, and takes the newspaper out of the plastic bag when it rains? I'll never get back all the hours I was nice to your parents. I nudge my cherry tomatoes to the side of the plate, bastard, but no one is waiting there with a fork to eat them. I miss you and I love you, bastard bastard bastard, come and clean the onion skins out of the crisper and trim back the tree so I can sleep at night. — Daniel Handler

I love my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, but I'd take a bullet for my parents or my sister without a second thought."
"Dude," Greg whispered,"you wouldn't take one for your granny?"
"No one's going to shoot my grandma," Jace said dismissively. — Jay Bell

The truth is I would do my job for free! I love it every day. If you can possibly choose a vocation that's an avocation, a job that's really a hobby, then you'll be way ahead of the game. You should not pick an occupation because your think your parents want you to do it, or because you think it's the noble thing to do. You should only pick a job because it turns you on. — Henry Louis Gates

Think long and hard about the way you invest your children's time. Time is treasure. And where your time investment is, there you will find the heart of a child. Invest the majority of his time in entertainment, and his heart will be turned to love of pleasure. Invest his time in peers rather then family, and his heart will be with the peers more than his family. There is a time and place for all good things in balance, but wise parents will steward the treasure of time, and in so doing, shepherd their children's hearts. — Douglas W. Phillips

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

Eyes. "I'm sorry for your loss, Emma," he said stepping forward, offering them to me. "The opened roses are for your parents, and the one that's still closed, is for you. With the love and support around you, it's just a matter of time before you bloom. — Cameo Renae

Love your kids and just be there for them. You don't have to eyeball their every moment or to orchestrate all their comings and goings. They know this. They know that's too much. All they want is to be assured that there's a home fire cooking, that there are two foremen and a rulebook, and that there's someone to tuck them in at night. — Carew Papritz

Rosemary died when I was six, and when my parents told me, I cried. I wasn't sure if I had a right to, but I think now of something the British chef Nigel Slater once wrote, that it is "impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you." I think the same can be said of the person who scoops your ice cream into a dish and stands, smiling, as you eat. — Jessica Fechtor

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

There are all sorts of different families, Katie. Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families. And some children live with their uncle or aunt. Some live with their grandparents, and some children live with foster parents. And some live in separate homes, in separate neighborhoods, in different areas of the country - and they may not see each other for days, or weeks, months ... even years at a time. But if there's love, dear ... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever. — Anne Fine

That's not true, Gran." Meg had to stand up for herself if no one else was going to. "I love the outdoors." Not, but there was no way she was going to sound like a wuss. "Why, remember that time your parents took you camping when you were ten? You went potty in the woods and accidentally sat on a wasps' nest. — Miranda Liasson

Parents ... rigidly monitor the selection of television programs ... and other forms of entertainment for your family. Foster in your homes a love of knowledge through uplifting literature; wholesome books; selective movies; classical and exemplary popular music; entertainment that uplifts and edifies the spirit and mind. — David B. Haight

Having absolutes in our life is freeing. Parents who love their children give them rules for their protection, and God does the same for His children. As a child of God, His laws free you to move into the plans and purposes He has for you. From His Word you find out what works and what doesn't work and never will. You don't have to wander down paths that will hurt you, rob you, ruin your life, and take you far away from the fulfillment and purpose God has for you. That's why God's Word is His love letter to you. — Stormie O'martian

Why not simply honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters, be faithful to your friends, care for your mate with devotion, complete your work cooperatively and joyfully, assume responsibility for problems, practice virtue without first demanding it of others, understand the highest truths yet retain an ordinary manner? That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery. — Laozi

You don't realize that if you stop looking backwards craving the love and acceptance which you didn't receive from your parents, then you might open your eyes to what is available for you now. But you won't let go. If only you could see that looking back into an incomplete and imperfect past, with regret, blame, guilt or resentment is keeping you from the treasures that await you here now. The past has gone. You cannot rectify something that is no longer with you. — Leonard Jacobson

How alarmed that same courageous Friedrich von Schiller would have been if someone had said to him, "You don't need to honor your father. People who have done you such harm do not deserve your love or respect, even if they are your parents. The price you pay for such filial devotion is appalling, the terrible physical torments you repeatedly go through. You can free yourself of them if you no longer obey the Fourth Commandment." What would Schiller have said to that? — Alice Miller

Is anyone anywhere happy? No, not unless they are living in a dream or in an artifice that they or someone else has made. For a time I was lulled in the arms of a blind organism with breasts full of champagne and nipples made of caviar. I thought she was true, and that the true was the beautiful. But the true is the ugly mixed up everywhere, like a peck of dirt scattered through your life. The true is that there is no security, no artifice to stop the unsavory changes, the rat race, the death unwish - the winged chariot, the horns and the motors, the Devil in the clock. Love is a desperate artifice to take the place of those two original parents who turned out not to be omnisciently right gods, but a rather pedestrian pair of muddled suburbanites who, no matter how bumbling they tried, never could quite understand how or why you grew up to your 21st birthday. — Sylvia Plath

You fall in love and it completely consumes you. So a part of you is broken when that's gone. And part of you wants to have that rebellious feeling where you're just like "Forget it- I can do anything i want" I've tried it and I've never been that girl. I'm always going to be the girl you want to take home to your parents, not for the night. — Selena Gomez

Without me, she can live a long, full life. She can be happy. I must leave her, in fact, for her own good.'
I didn't much like the way Francis put that. Parents are always trying to make you do things for your own good. Not boyfriends. With boyfriends, the relationship is supposed to be equal. They're supposed to let you make your own decisions.
But I couldn't tell Cathy about Francis's undead love-weasel ways. Anyway, this was more proof that Francis really was too old for. It truly was for her own good. Agreeing with Francis gave me a stomachache, so I sat there and made a face. — Justine Larbalestier

If you're looking for unconditional love, you're really looking to be parented. And that's not an attractive quality in any adult person.

Whenever I hear someone say, "But I want to be loved unconditionally," I cringe. What does that even mean? That you want to be your most basic, infantile self and still be adored by your partner? That your parents didn't give you the unconditional love you needed to feel whole so you're still out there looking for it? If that's the case, know the healing can only come from inside you. No other adult on this planet can fix that for you. If you lucked out and got unconditional love from your parents and you're seeking a partner to replicate that, you're signing up for big disappointment. Really big. — Abby Rodman

You are loved. You are dear to your heavenly parents. The infinite and eternal Creator of light and life knows you! He is mindful of you. Yes, God loves you this very day and alwaysHe knows everything about you. He sees you clearly - He knows you as you really are. And He loves you - today and always!He loves you not only for who you are this very day but also for the person of glory and light you have the potential and the desire to become — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The problem is that you are too much in love. You are here because your parents mentioned your name to someone who mentioned your parents' name to someone who mentioned your name to my superior who suggested that I might find a position for you. And so here you sit blocking my light and dripping on my floor, eager to tell me that you love the paintings in my museum. That you have known them, admired them, dreamt of them since you were a little girl. I wish it were otherwise but all this means nothing to me. Everyone who has sat on that stool has claimed your devotion. — C.S. Richardson

How many people can you claim truly care about you? I mean, not just the people in your life who are fun to hang out with, not just the people who you love and trust. But people who feel good when you are happy and successful, feel bad when you are hurt or going through a hard time, people who would walk away from their lives for a little while to help you with yours. Not many. I felt that from Jake and I wasn't sure how to handle it. Because there's another side to it, you know. When someone is invested in your well-being, like your parents, for example, you become responsible for them in a way. Anything you do to hurt yourself hurts them. I already felt responsible for too many people that way. You're not really free when people care about you; not if you care about them. — Lisa Unger

I always quoted to my parents from Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet." Your children are not your children. They come through you, but not from you. You can give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they come from a land that you cannot enter, not even in your wildest dreams. — Andrew Young

Conditional love is love that is turned off and on ... Some parents only show their love after a child has done something that pleases them. "I love you, honey, for cleaning your room!" Children who think they need to earn love become people pleasers, or perfectionists. Those who are raised on conditional love never really feel loved. — Louise Hart

Ever since people are kids they use their parents as some
sort of measurement for how bad a situation is. When you fall on the ground
really hard and you can't figure out whether it hurts or not you look to your
parents. If they look worried and rush toward you, you cry. If they laugh and
smack the ground saying "Bold ground," then you pick yourself up and get
on with it.
When you find out you're pregnant and feel numb of all emotions you
look at their expressions. When both your mum and dad hug you and tell
you it's going to be OK and that they'll support you, you know it's not the
end of the world. But depending on the parents, it could have been pretty
damn close. — Cecelia Ahern

What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer ... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance. — David Nicholls