Mother Takes Quotes & Sayings

That night, when the creature sleeps, when he sleeps, the mother escapes into her daughters' room. She tells her daughter that the creature's afraid of her having too much love, too much heart. She takes a tube of lipstick and drags it across her finger like a knife, marking it across her daughter's cheeks, red, blood, war paint. — Elijah Noble El

Clarity and focus doesn't always come from God or inspirational quotes. Usually, it takes your mother to slap the reality back into you. — Shannon L. Alder

It takes a heap o' children to make a home that's true,And home can be a palace grand, or just a plain, old shoe;But if it has a mother dear, and a good old dad or two,Why, that's the sort of good old home for good old me and you. — Louis Untermeyer

When my mother comes home from the hospital with me, my older brother takes one look inside the pink blanket, says, Take her back. We already have one of those. Already — Jacqueline Woodson

I am in my mother's room. It's I who live there now. I don't know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I'd never have got there alone. There's this man who comes every week. Perhaps I got there thanks to him. He says not. He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages,so much money. Yes, I work now, a little like I used to, except that I don't know how to work any more. That doesn't matter apparently. What I'd like now is to speak of the things that are left, say my good-byes, finish dying. They don't want that. Yes, there is more than one, apparently. But it's always the same one that comes. You'll do that later, he says. Good. The truth is I haven't much will left. When he comes for the fresh pages he brings back the previous week's. They are marked with signs I don't understand ... Here's my beginning. It must mean something, or they wouldn't keep it. Here it is. — Samuel Beckett

When I write, it feels like there are two little creatures that sit on each of my shoulders. One whispers, "You can do this. You've got what it takes." The other sounds like my mother-in-law. — Carla H. Krueger

As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, 'Mrs. Stewart, you must've done something to provoke him.' 'Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument.' Wrong. Wrong! My mother did nothing to provoke that - and even if she had, violence is never ever a choice that a man should make. Ever. — Patrick Stewart

When I say I'll murder my baby's mother, maybe I wanted to but I didn't. Anybody who takes it literally is 10 times sicker than I am. — Eminem

What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer. — Luanne Rice

Joe asks how long they've been there one of them says fuck off another says a week a third calls him a drunk homeless fuck and tells him to go away. Joe asks how long they will wait the singular answer is as long as it takes and somewhere inside the house five-day-old children sleep under siege because their mother has a nice smile and beautiful hair and can recite lines on camera. — James Frey

See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a sweet slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of earth and the great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The love between a mother and her daughter is special. A mother takes her daughter under her wing and teaches her how to be a woman. In order to do this, you have to ask yourself what it means to be a woman of today. How do you balance care for others with your own quest for meaning and joy in life and how do you pass on these lessons to your daughter? — Laura Ramirez

Now, I ask you, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your mother, wife, and dear little children? Look upon your mother, wife and children, and answer God Almighty; and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty. — David Walker

'Jamie' is what my mother gave me, and that takes the onus off of being big. Somebody thinks, 'Oh, Jamie - how threatening can he be?' — James Cromwell

But he was an only child and an only son, and for a mother in such a position it is not always easy to accept that another woman will eventually enter her son's life and, if all goes according to plan - the plan being that of the other woman - take him away. This common conflict, so understandable and so poignant, is played out time and time again, and almost always with the same painful result: Mother loses. It is so, of course, if Mother is overt in her attempt to put off the almost inevitable; if she is covert, then she stands a chance, admittedly a remote one, of introducing into her son's mind a germ of doubt that the woman he has chosen might not be the right one for him. That takes skill, and boundless patience, but it is a course fraught with dangers for the relationship between mother and future daughter-in-law, let alone for that between mother and son. — Alexander McCall Smith

Previously, until a few years ago, it was customary for the Norwegian to be born with skis on his feet. But one of the improvements that has been made is that this is no longer the case*. Modern research has revealed, in fact, that this could be very uncomfortable and, to some extent, dangerous to the mother.
*It still happens that the birth takes place with skis on the feet, but now it is most often the mother who has the skis on during the birth. — Odd Borretzen

Grief broke down in phrases
And extrapolated lines
From me without myself
Tear-stained pillow of stone
I felt I was lying
Beside him in the coffin
Wormy mother
Who takes us into the ground
With her whenever and wherever
She wants the grass glistens
And grows over us in the heat
Of late summer in the country — Edward Hirsch

When a woman is fit and healthy, everything else falls into place. We are conditioned to put others first, that 'burnt chop syndrome' we observed in our mothers. It takes discipline to pay attention to our diets, to exercise, to leave time for refreshment of mind, body and spirit. — Quentin Bryce

But the ultimate reason for our hope is not to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us? Does anything await us at all, or are we alone? Whenever we base our hope on trust in the divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God's
first love. — Jurgen Moltmann

You can't be the dad who takes your kid out after your wife has said, 'No ice cream,' buys the ice cream, and says, 'Don't tell your mother.' You teach the child to lie - and to disrespect the other parent. — Howie Mandel

[T]he Supreme Court is where the country takes out its dick and tits and decides who's going to get fucked and who's getting a taste of mother's milk. It's constitutional pornography in there[.] — Paul Beatty

One day, John asked her to define sin. I doubt any theologian could have done better than she did: "Son, whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself."1That definition became the guiding beacon for John. He carved it into his consciousness. His mother inbred in him his sensitivity to sin. — Ravi Zacharias

Woods are grim places. Farmers shoot squirrels, crows, magpies, and hang them up on trees to warn Mother Nature to get it together or else. Much notice she takes, being in league with God. They're a right pair, more carnage than the rest of us put together. — Jonathan Gash

My back crawls with icy fear; it takes all my will not to duck behind statues and into doorways every time somebody passes me. The only thing that holds me to my steady, purposeful stride is the knowledge that if I run, I will look guilty, and if I look guilty, I will be caught, and if I am caught, I will be punished, and if I am punished, Mother will know and she can't know, she can't, she can't.

My cheeks ache. I realize I'm smiling. — Rosamund Hodge

A person is loved for the risk he or she takes for someone else, be it a mother, a father, a child, a lover, or a friend. It takes courage to reach out and connect with another human being. It requires risk and hard work. It takes courage and compassion for a person to truly bond with another. Sometimes even bridges aren't enough. — Buket Uzuner

I love cooking. My Italian mother is a genius cook, and I picked that up from her. I make my own sauce, which takes four hours, from a recipe that's been refined over many years. I won't tell anybody what it is. — Josh Fox

It is my firm conviction that man need take no milk at all, beyond the mother's milk that he takes as a baby. His diet should consist of nothing but sunbaked fruits and nuts. — Mahatma Gandhi

Honestly, I tried not to think about my sister much. Or my mother. I have been guilty of doing what it takes to bury most of my memories when it comes to that- from junk food to booze to drugs, there are few poisons with which I haven't experimented. I've found a million ways to keep the demons in a comfortable, quiet stupor, lazing around on my inner couches. — Lisa Unger

The Calvinists illustrate their belief by a single illuminating word, Cat-hold, and the Arminians by another, Monkey-hold. Could you find better illustrations? The cat takes up the kitten and carries it in its mouth; the kitten is passive, the cat does everything. But the little monkey holds on to its mother, and clings with might and main. Those who have watched the "cat-hold" in the house, and the "monkey-hold" out in the jungle, can appreciate the accuracy of these two illustrations. — Amy Carmichael

If you're neurotic and you think, I'm not where I deserve to be or my mother didn't love me, or blah, blah, blah, that lie, that neurotic vision, takes over your life and you're plagued by it 'til it's cleansed. In a play, at the end of the play, the lie is revealed. [T]he better the play is, the more surprising and inevitable the lie is, as Aristotle told us. Plays are about lies. — David Mamet

Sometimes parents don't find what they're looking for it their child, so they plant seeds for what they'd like to grow there instead. I've witnessed this with the former hockey player who takes his son out to skate before he can even walk. Or in the mother who gave up her ballet dreams when she married, but now scrapes her daughter's hair into a bun and watched from the wings of the stage. We are not, as you'd expect, orchestrating their lives; we are not even trying for a second chance. We are hoping that if this one thing takes root, it might take up enough light and space to keep something else from developing in our children: the disappointment we've already lived. — Jodi Picoult

If he lies pressed against me, he gently twines his legs about mine and our legs are merged by the very soft cloth of our pajamas; he then takes great pains to find the right spot to cuddle his cheek. So long as he is not sleeping, I feel the quivering of his eyelids and upturned lashes against the very sensitive skin of my neck. If he feels a tickling in his nostrils, his laziness and drowsiness keep him from lifting his hand, so that in order to scratch himself he rubs his nose against my beard, thus giving me delicate little taps with his head, like a young calf sucking its mother. — Jean Genet

I heard police or ambulancemen, standing in our house, say, 'She must have provoked him,' or, 'Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.' They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it. — Patrick Stewart

I can't fathom the day when I'll be able to figure out how to independently maneuver my way into my bra, like I used to, every day since I was thirteen. The left arm through the left loop, the left boob into the left cup. Never mind the clasp in the back. My poor injured brain gets all twisted up like some circus contortionist even trying to imagine how this procedure would work. I'm supposed to at least try every step of getting dressed on my own, but when it comes to the bra, I no longer bother. My mother just does it for me, and we don't tell the therapists.She holds up one of my white Victoria's Secret Miracle Bras. I close my eyes, shutting out the humiliating image of my mother manhandling my boobs. But even with my eyes closed, I can feel her cold fingers against my bare skin, and as I can't help but picture what she's doing, humiliation saunters right in, takes a seat, and puts its feet up. Like it does every day now. — Lisa Genova

Like I told Richie, cause and effect isn't a luxury. Take it away and we're left paralyzed, clinging to some tiny raft lurching wild and random on endless black sea. If my mother could go into the water just because, then so could theirs, any night, any minute; so could they. When we can't see a pattern, we fit pieces together until one takes shape, because we have to. p.442 — Tana French

It takes time and devotion to learn the language of color and lighting in the garden. Your tastes are sure to change over time, reflecting your inner evolution. Seeing the garden as a canvas for your celebration of Nature's palette is a wonderful expression of the soul's love of beauty and artistry. Your own inner intuition, however, is often your best teacher, but don't forget that Mother Nature will always have a few surprises up Her sleeve as well. — Christopher McDowell

Whether you believe in Jesus, Buddha, the Beatles, crystals, mother earth, or anything else that takes your interest, all are held to be on the same footing; all have equal validity for the relativist. — John C. Lennox

The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination. — Herbert Spencer

Ah, yes, Yggdrasil, the great tree of the world. It is the mark of the mystic. Usually this role is reserved for a woman for they are the keepers of magic and the dark arts, but once in a great while a man takes up the role. Woman mystics are known as volva, but Oddr prefers to be called an Angel of Death. He says it sounds less feminine. Oddr's mother, an Angel of Death herself, taught her son her craft. But he also has a great thirst for blood and kills savagely, which makes him a great warrior," Harald explained. Abriel — C.J. Adrien

I learned that being a mother takes a lot of energy. — Julia Sweeney

I'm dashed if I can see why you should be in such a quake!'
'It ain't that,' growled Endymion. 'I mean, I'm not afraid of Cousin Vernon! It's - it's his sisters, and my mother, and Frederica! I daresay you don't know.'
This inarticulate appeal for understanding touched chord of sympathy. Harry had had no personal experience of the trials which Endymion so obviously feared, but he had the instinctive male dread of feminine storms. He said, in an awed voice: 'Jupiter! I hadn't thought of that! Lord, what a dust they would kick up!'
Endymion cast him a look of gratitude. 'Ay, that's it. Not my mother,' he added scrupulously. 'Never kicks up a dust, precisely.'
Well, it *that's* so -'
'Takes to her bed,' said Endymion simply. 'Spasms! — Georgette Heyer

If you are one of earth's inhabitants, how blest your father, and your gentle mother, blest all your kin. I know what happiness must send the warm tears to their eyes, each time they see their wondrous child go to the dancing! But one man's destiny is more than blest - he who prevails, and takes you as his bride. Never have I laid eyes on equal beauty in man or woman. I am hushed indeed. — Homer

Caesar Flickerman asks if the president has a date in mind.
"Oh, before we set a date, we better clear it with Katniss's mother," says the president. The audience gives a big laugh and the president puts his arm around me. "Maybe if the whole country puts its mind to it, we can get you married before you're thirty."
"You'll probably have to pass a new law," I say with a giggle.
"If that's what it takes," says the president with conspiratorial good humor.
Oh, the fun we two have together. — Suzanne Collins

My mother is the antithesis of a typical Jewish mother, she is very soft-spoken and takes more naps that a cat. As a result, I've always longed for someone to really annoy the shit out of me. — Chelsea Handler

It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been
and even then thereare surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are? — Mary Blakely

The earth is our mother, it gives us nourishment, shelters us, and takes us back to her after we pass — Bryan Lankford

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. — Lou Gehrig

I really try and work very closely with the designers to be as consistent as possible to their vision and for their look because I know how intricate and how much time it takes for them to make it. My mother was a seamstress and I really honor the art of each piece that's made and so for me it's all about that. — Jaime King

In the modern Oedipal story, it's the mother who kills the father and then takes the son. — Chuck Palahniuk

It takes an entire book to tell you what it was like. To see Robert De Niro play your father - it's not a simple answer. To see Julianne Moore play your mother. To see Paul Dano play you - that's an even more inscrutable question ... he's amazing, he's totally amazing, but I can't really say if he's a good me or not. — Nick Flynn

New mothers enter the world of parenting feeling much like Alice in Wonderland.
- Being a mother is one of the most rewarding jobs on earth and also one of the most challenging.
- Motherhood is a process. Learn to love the process.
- There is a tremendous amount of learning that takes place in the first year of your baby's life; the baby learns a lot, too.
- It is sometimes difficult to reconcile the fantasy of what you thuoght motherhood would be like, and what you thought you would be like as a mother, with reality.
- Take care of yourself. If Mommy isn't happy, no one else in the family is happy either.
- New mother generally need to lower their expectations.
- A good mother learns to love her child as he is and adjusts her mothering to suit her child. — Debra Gilbert Rosenberg

It takes a Mother's Patience, to bring a child up right, And her Courage and her Cheerfulness to make a dark day bright. — Helen Steiner Rice

My favorite book is The Mysterious Island. I order my books from a flimsy catalog the teacher hands out to every student in the class. Emil and the Detectives. White Fang. Like that. Money is tight for us, but when it comes to books my mother is a spendthrift; I can order as many as I like. I sit here day after day, waiting for my books to arrive. My books. It takes a month or more, but when they finally do, when the teacher opens the big box and passes out the orders to the kids, checking the books against a form taken from her desk, I glow with happiness. I've never had the newest dress, or the prettiest, but I always have the tallest stack of books. Little paperbacks that smell of wet ink. I lay my cheek against their cool covers, anticipating the stories inside, knowing all the other girls wonder what I could possibly want with those books. — Greg Iles

The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days. — Charlotte Mason

No one really needs me," he says, and there's no self pity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.
"I do," I say. "I need you." he looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, i stop his lips with a kiss. — Suzanne Collins

Alexander laughs. They kiss exuberantly. "Now - much more seriously," she says, "what would you like to play, Captain? Marco Polo?" "How about Little Red Riding Tania?" he says, all teeth. "Okey-dokey." Making her voice high high high, she says gamely, batting her eyes, "Oh, Captain, what big arms you have ... " "All the better to hold you with, my dear." He squeezes her wet body to him. "Oh, Captain, what big hands you have ... " "All the better to grab you with, my dear." He grabs her behind and presses into her. "Oh, my, Captain! What a - " Anthony takes a running jump, right into the pool, right into his mother and father. Alexander pushes his son underwater and when he releases him, Tatiana pushes her son underwater, and when she releases him they both embrace him and kiss his face. "Ant, want to play Marco Polo?" "Yes, Dad," says Anthony. "You're it. And no chasing only Mommy this time. — Paullina Simons

I'm very much in work mode, and that can be very difficult for someone to deal with. I dedicate so much of myself to my work that I even take a back seat to that sometimes. My mother says that Tremaine takes a back seat to Trey Songz. — Trey Songz

He smiled and leaned over and asked in a soft voice, "Don't you know you're beautiful?" I swallowed, hoping my throat allowed the words through without making me sound all choked up. "I wouldn't say 'beautiful.' I realize I have nice hair and eyes. I got those from my mother. But I don't have a good personality. So it really takes away from the others. — Abbi Glines

If there are political programs on TV, yet it takes an artist to actually energize political debate, that tells you something really quite frightening about the level of the political debate happening on mainstream channels - right-wing-biased mothers. — Thom Yorke

He takes no pleasure in human tears. He came and wept that He might stop forever the fountain of human tears. He came and bereaved His mother that He might heal all bereavement. He came and lost everything that He might heal the wounds that we have from losing things. And He wants us to take pleasure in Him. Let us put away our doubts and trust Him. — A.W. Tozer

I think that, very often there's a pain that's just too painful to touch. You'll break apart. And I think her mother's death and disappearance and abandonment was something she just never could deal with. Eleanor Roosevelt, when she's really very unwell in 1936, she takes to her bed. She has a mysterious flu. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

Remember that a single mom is just like any other mom and that our number one priority is till our kids. Any parent does whatever it takes for their kids and a single mother is no different. — Paula Miranda

Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body. It's not fair, I think, and I get this petulant wish for ugly flowers and mourners, my mother's old familiar grief. Somebody I love to tend my future grave. Probably this is the wrong thing to be wishing for. — Karen Russell

When my friends began to have babies and I came to comprehend the heroic labor it takes to keep one alive, the constant exhausting tending of a being who can do nothing and demands everything, I realized that my mother had done all of these things for me before I remembered. I was fed; I was washed; I was clothed; I was taught to speak and given a thousand other things, over and over again, hourly, daily, for years. She gave me everything before she gave me nothing. — Rebecca Solnit

I know, baby," she said, "and it's okay to be scared, but remember what we talked about? Remember what Mommy said about what to do when something scares you?" "Name it," she whispered. "Exactly." Her mother's smile softened. "If you give the monster a name, it takes away its power, because we're really just afraid of what we don't know. If you name it, if you know what it is, you can be stronger than it. So face your fears and wipe your tears, remember? Face your fears and wipe your tears. — J.M. Darhower

Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. — Steven Weinberg

There are three different takes on career women in this house, she thought to herself: that of my husband, who respects working women but wishes I wasn't one of them; that of my mother, who hates the very idea; and then there's me, a working woman who has no idea what she really wants! There — Ayse Kulin

But her mother had looked at her curiously, gravely, puzzled by this creature who seemed all contradictions - at one moment so hard, at another so gentle, gentle to tenderness, even. Anna had been stirred, as her child had been stirred, by the breath of the meadowsweet under the hedges; for in this they were one, the mother and daughter, having each in her veins the warm Celtic blood that takes note of such things - could they only have divined it, such simple things might have formed a link between them. — Radclyffe Hall

I think that directing is the ultimate martyred task of filmmaking, that it has nobility to it. It takes three years to make a film, for the most part. I think it requires the attentiveness of a mother hen. — Diane Lane

Mother is the rock, I am the ocean. I have to pout and roll my eyes for hours until she finally wears down and crumbles into a thousand grains of beach sand. It takes a lot of energy. I don't think I have it in me. — Laurie Halse Anderson

The baby, a girl, is born at 6:24 a.m.
She weighs six pounds, ten ounces.
The mother takes the baby in her arms and asks her, "Who are you, my little one?"
And in response, this baby, who is Liz and not Liz at the same time, laughs. — Gabrielle Zevin

If anything is horrible, if there is a reality that surpasses our worst dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun, to be in full possession of manly vigor, to have health and joy, to laugh heartily, to rush toward a glory that lures you on, to feel lungs that breathe, a heart that beats, a mind that thinks, to speak, to hope, to love; to have mother, wife, children, to have sunlight, and suddenly, in less time than it takes to cry out, to plunge into an abyss, to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed, to see the heads of grain, the flowers, the leaves, the branches, unable to catch hold of anything, to feel your sword useless, men under you, horses over you, to struggle in vain, your bones broken by some kick in the darkness, to feel a heel gouging your eyes out of their sockets, raging at the horseshoe between your teeth, to stifle, to howl, to twist, to be under all this, and to say, 'Just then I was a living man! — Victor Hugo

It certainly takes bravery to remain skeptical; it takes inordinate courage to introspect, to confront oneself, to accept one's limitations
Scientists are seeing more and more evidence that we are specifically designed by mother nature to fool ourselves. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity. Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother's own heart. — Paul Brunton

It takes a Mother's Love to make a house a home, a place to be remembered, no matter where we roam. — Helen Steiner Rice

I want to set the example my mother set for me: a strong female role model who faces challenges takes risks and conquers fears. I want my children to know that as women they can do whatever they dream as long as they believe in themselves. More than anything it is my responsibility to instill in my daughters the knowledge that they can have a family and everything else too. — Mireya Mayor

It takes a tremendous amount of strength to be a single mother. To hold down the forte of a home, a life and your child's entire happiness. — Nikki Rowe

I did want a boy child because I had this romantic idea that a boy child when he's 16 takes his mother out for dinner. — Jennifer Saunders

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. — Robert Frost

Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.
My mother went through it.
I went through it.
I'll be damned if I allow my daughter to go through it.
I kiss her on the forehead and make her a promise. It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us. — Colleen Hoover

Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood. — Jacquelyn Mitchard

Picture this: possible boyfriend X takes normal girl versus freak girl, namely me, home to meet his mother. After a handshake, normal girl comments, Oh, what a pretty manicure, Mrs. X. My comment? After I wipe away the foam at my mouth, and I'm finally done convulsing, Mrs, X, you'll die in a car crash two weeks from today. You may as well take care of the arrangements because I'm never wrong. And we live happily ever after? Fat chance. — Ramona Wray

Faith and hope remove worry, anxiety, and fear. Human life becomes very painful and burdensome if a person has no one to trust and love. Then why should it bother an atheist, if a mother who just has lost her child, takes up a doll of baby Jesus or Krishna and pampers it like her own child, while in the process she actually succeeds in coping with her traumatic situation! — Abhijit Naskar

A mother is the person who takes care of you when you're sick. The one who holds you when you're afraid. The one who follows the bus to school on the first day to make sure you made it okay. I have only one mother, Nana; he just happens to be my father, too. — Kat Attalla

If I were an enemy, and I started bearing down on you like this," he draws his sword, stretches the tip towards me, takes a single step in my direction, "what would you do?" Possibilities race through my head. Should I look for a weapon? Dodge and come up behind his guard? Trip him? Insult his mother? — Rae Carson

To many a mother's heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother's kiss. — Judith Ellen Foster

One of the greatest challenges I've faced as a mother-especially in these anxious, winner-takes-all times-is the need to resist the urge to accept someone else's definition of success and to try to figure out, instead, what really is best for my own children, what unique combination of structure and freedom, nurturing and challenge, education and exploration, each of them needs in order to grow and bloom. — Katrina Kenison

Because we know that our feelings are ourselves, we do not neglect or overrule them. We embrace them affectionately in the arms of mindfulness, as a mother embraces her newborn child when it cries. A mother embraces the child with all her love for the child to feel comforted and stop crying. Mindfulness nourished by conscious breathing takes the feelings in its arms, becomes one with them, calms and transforms them. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The feeling, all encompassing, safe and warm like a blanket permanently draped over her shoulders, follows her around. She takes it into the shower, to meals with her mother and sister, to work as she reads out the news script, her voice never faltering. — Zainab Omaki

I felt compassion for the poor people who were taken in by [supernatural] follies. And now I think that I was at least as much to be pitied myself. Not that experience has since shown me anything surpassing my first beliefs, and that through no fault of my curiosity; but reason has taught me to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the distinction of knowing the bounds and limits of God's will and of the power of our mother Nature; and that there is no more notable folly in the world than to measure these things by our capacity and competence. If we call prodigies or miracles whatever our reason cannot reach, how many of these appear continually before our eyes! Let us consider through what clouds and how gropingly we are led to the knowledge of most of the things that are right in our hands; assuredly we shall find that it is rather familiarity than knowledge that takes away their strangeness. — Michel De Montaigne

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him. — Voltaire

A curiosity: my name, Rem, will someday come to mean a line of text in a language spoken only by machines. Specifically, it will mean a line that the machines can safely ignore
one that's only there as a mnemonic, a placeholder, for the people who give the machines their orders. A REM line might say something like "this bit is a self-contained sub loop" or "Steve Perlman in Marketing is a shit." The program as a whole rolls on past and around the REM lines, ignores them completely as it takes its shape, moves through its pre-ordained sequences, unfolds its wonders. My mother named me well. — Louise Carey

Mother, of course, takes a lot of exercise, walks and so on. And every morning she puts on a pair of black silk drawers and a sweater and makes indelicate gestures on the lawn. That's called Building the Body Beautiful. She's mad about it. — Nancy Mitford

They love each other, marry (in order to love each other better, more conveniently). He goes to the wars, he dies at the wars. She weeps (with emotion) at having loved him, at having lost him. (Yep!) Marries again (in order to love again, more conveniently again). They love each other. (You love as many times
as necessary - as necessary in order to be happy.) He come back (the other comes back) from the wars: he didn't die at the wars after all. She goes to
the station, to meet him. He dies in the train (of emotion) at the thought of seeing her again, having her again. She weeps (weeps again, with emotion
again) at having lost him again. (Yep!) Goes back to the house. He's dead - the other is dead. The mother-in-law takes him down: he hanged himself (with emotion) at the thought of losing her. She weeps (weeps louder) at having loved him, at having lost him. — Samuel Beckett

When I hear that a project takes place out of town, the material better be terrific, and it has to come at the right time. My kids are getting older, so it's getting easier, but being a mother - it's a difficult thing to juggle. — Nicole Holofcener

When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever. — Mitch Albom

A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over. — W. H. Auden

Having a baby isn't so bad. If you're a female Emperor penguin in the Antarctic. She lays the egg, rolls it over to the father, then takes off for warmer weather where she eats and eats and eats. For two months, the father stands stiff, without food, blind in the 24-hour dark, balancing the egg on his feet. After the little penguin is hatched, the mother sees fit to come home. — L. M. Boyd

But then, I deserve to lose you. For years you took care of me like a mother takes care of her child. You sacrificed for me. You loved me when I was unlovable and helped me when I scorned you. Saying thank you a thousand times wouldn't be enough. Saying I'm sorry a million times might be a start. — Gena Showalter

Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.. — John Steinbeck