Never Knowing Your Father Quotes & Sayings

What scared Stanley the most about dying wasn't his actual death. He figured he could handle the pain. It wouldn't be much worse than what he felt now. In fact, maybe at the moment of his death he would be too weak to feel pain. Death would be a relief. What worried him the most was the thought of his parents not knowing what happened to him, not knowing whether he was dead or alive. He hated to imagine what it would be like for his mother and father, day after day, month after month, not knowing, living on false hope. For him, at least, it would be over. For his parents, the pain would never end. — Louis Sachar

She was ten years old, after all. Alone and helpless and afraid. But here is truth, gentlefriends, no matter the number of suns in your sky. At the heart of it, two kinds of people live in this world or any other: those who flee and those who fight. Your kind has many terms for the latter sort. Berserker. Killer instinct. More balls than brains. And it shouldn't surprise you, knowing what little you know already, that in the face of this thug and his blade, and laden with memory of her father's execution never flinch never fear instead of wailing or breaking as another ten-year-old might have, young Mia gripped the stiletto she'd fished from the darkness, and slipped it straight up into the puppy-choker's eye. The — Jay Kristoff

It's also hard for me to understand growing up not knowing where I came from. I searched for my parents - I started when I was twenty; I found both my mother and my father when I was twenty-two. Trying to catch up on twenty-two years that we can never get back, trying to reconcile that - that's a hard thing for me. — Michael Franti

I will not live to see you grow to womanhood, so I have written my story for you, my beloved grandchild, so that you can know the truth of what happened here so many years ago. I'm sure that in the course of your life you have wonderd about whispered conversations that stop when you are near. Wondered too about the knowing looks cast at you and your family. I am equally sure that your father has never found it in his heart to tell you the truth you are about to read. I beg you not to be angry with hime for withholding the truth from you. He has suffered greatly for my sins. — Susan Boles

Still, he could feel a fine cord stretched between them, a thin luminous fiber that ran from his chest all the way across the continent and forked into theirs. Never before had he lived through a fever without his mother; when he'd been sick in Debrecen she'd taken the train to be with him. Never had he finished a year at school without knowing that soon he'd be home with his father, working beside him in the lumberyard and walking through the fields with him in the evening. Now there was another filament, one that linked him to Klara. And Paris was her home, this place thousands of kilometers from his own. He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the tie when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father's orchard. — Julie Orringer

Too long now things divine have been cheaply used
And all the power of heaven, the kindly, spent
In trifling waste by cold and cunning
Men without thanks, who when he, the Highest,
In person tills their field for them, think they know
the daylight and the Thunderer, and indeed
Their telescope may find them all, may
Count and may name every star of heaven.
Yet will the Father cover with holy night,
That we may last on earth, our too knowing eyes.
... Never will our
Free-ranging power coerce his heaven.
From "The Poet's Vocation" ("Dichterberuf") — Friedrich Holderlin

The division in human religion has always been between those who see the fall of man as a fall into freedom and those who see it as an act of defiance against the tyranny of an all-powerful father. But Adam and Eve were never in heaven; they were in the mud, and had to leave the only home they had ever known behind. And why? For choosing love and freedom over perpetual infancy and slavery of the will. Their sin was moral responsibility. Their reward is clear: "They have becomes gods
knowing good and evil." And for that, they were condemned to live in a world of discovery and choices. — R. Joseph Hoffmann

But then there are those moments, Colton, when you watch your child do something and are so damn proud of them you are left speechless. And those moments take every single doubt and fear and heartache and moment of insanity you've ever had and wipe the slate clean. That's how I felt watching you go to see your dad. That's how I feel knowing you and Ry are going to adopt Zander. That's how I feel watching you be a father. Hell, son, when you stepped up to the plate after Rylee got sick and swung it out of the goddamn park by taking care of Ace? I've never been prouder. — K. Bromberg

It was the kind of promise a father makes easily and sincerely, knowing at the same time that it will be impossible to keep. The truth of some promises is not as important as whether or not you can believe in them, with all your heart. A game of baseball can't really make a summer day last forever. A home run can't really heal all the broken places in our world, or in a single human heart. And there was no way that Mr. Feld could keep his promise never to leave Ethan again. All parents leave their children one day. — Michael Chabon

She left someone she loved so that her daughters would never think that kind of relationship was okay. She wasn't rescued by another man - a knight in shining armor. She took the initiative to leave my father on her own, knowing she was about to embark on a completely different kind of struggle with added stress as a single mother. — Colleen Hoover

All husbands are unfaithful in one way or another."
Lillian and Daisy glanced at each other with raised brows.
"Father isn't," Lillian replied smartly.
Mercedes responded with a laugh that sounded like crackling leaves being crushed underfoot. "Isn't he, dear? Perhaps he has stayed true to me physically - one can never be certain about these things. But his work has proved a more jealous and demanding mistress than a flesh-and-blood woman could ever be. All his dreams are invested in that collection of buildings and employees and legalities that absorb him to the exclusion of all else. If my competition had been a mortal woman, I could have borne it easily, knowing that passion fades and beauty lasts but an instant. But his company will never fade or sicken - it will outlast us all. If you have a year of your husband's interest and affection, it will be more than I have ever had. — Lisa Kleypas

Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends.
Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was.
Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill.
Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia.
Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He's an old man on a factory line. You wouldn't recognise him.
Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor.
And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance. — Iain Thomas

Sorry about that," Ramil said awkwardly, gesturing to himself and then into the hall. "The messenger made it sound as if I had to come at once."

"A wise king never hurries without knowing to what he goes," said Lagan, quoting from the Book of Monarchs,one of Ramil's least favorite texts from his days in the schoolroom.

"Yes, but the wise son jumps when his father whistles," Ramil countered. — Julia Golding

And now at the airport, after shaking hands with everybody, waving good-bye, I think about all the different ways we leave people in this world. Cheerily waving good-bye to some at airports, knowing we'll never see each other again. Leaving others on the side of the road, hoping that we will. Finding my mother in my father's story and saying good-bye before before I have a chance to know her better. — Amy Tan

Father and Ivy used to go off on their excursions, never knowing that I was relieved when they were gone. That I'd wear my nightgowns all day and read from dawn till dusk. — Suzanne Palmieri

She lit up as she descended the stairs to the hall, knowing that she would not have dared had her father been at home. He had precise ideas about where a woman should be seen smoking: not in the street, or any public place, not on entering a room, not standing up, and only when offered, never from her own supply - notions as self evident to him as natural justice. Three years among the sophisticates of Girton had not provided her with courage to confront him. — Ian McEwan

Susan was frustrated and angry with her disease, which she survived for more than nine years. And my father became the receptacle for her vitriol. 'She screams and carries on when the going gets tough,' he wrote, 'knowing that I understand and will never reproach her, never abandon her, whatever!' He even encouraged her to use him in this manner, suspecting that once she was drained, she became more rational, placid, and cooperative regarding treatment decisions. My dad suspected that his medical expertise had prolonged her life but was even surer that he had helped her mental suffering by letting her know that he 'was always available, even for the most trivial of problems or questions. — Barron H. Lerner

And there is something profoundly humbling about knowing God. I'm not talking about the trinket God or the genie-in-a-lamp God. I mean the God who invented the tree in my front yard, the beauty of my sweetheart, the taste of a blueberry, the violence of a river at flood. There are a lot of religious trends that would have us controlling God, telling us that if we do this that and the other, God will jump through our hoops like a monkey. But this other God, this real God, is awesome and strong, all-encompassing and passionate, and for reasons I will never understand, he wants to father us. — Donald Miller

As Sidda joined Vivi in staring out into the darkness of the fields, where hundreds of sunflowers grew, she thought: I will never fully know my mother, any more than I will ever know my father or Connor, or myself. I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts? — Rebecca Wells

Mrs. Weston's friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella's sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew older - and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence - to have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston - no one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have their powers in exercise again. — Jane Austen

My father would say, The forgotten songs we never really knew, only think we remember knowing, when what we really do is understand at the same time how we have never really know them at all and how glorious they must really be. — Paul Harding

The hardest thing is deciding what I should tell you and what not to. Well, anyway, I've got a while yet before you're old enough to understand the tapes. They're more for me at this point ... to help get it all straight. Should I tell you about your father? That's a tough one. Will it change your decision to send him here ... knowing? But if you don't send Kyle, you could never be. God, you can go crazy thinking about all this ... I suppose I'll tell you ... I owe him that. And maybe it'll be enough if you know that in the few hours we had together we loved a lifetime's worth. — Sarah Connor

I've never made an excuse of not knowing my father, because I've had great people in my life. — Naomi Campbell

Oh, my love," Erienne breathed as he pressed his lips to her brow, "I was afraid you would come, and yet I hoped you would."
Light kisses rained upon her cheek and brow as he held her close, savoring the nearness of her while he could. "I would have come sooner had I known where they had taken you. I had not expected this of your father, but he will answer. I promise you that."
Erienne shook her head and replied in the same muted tone. "He is not my real father."
Christopher held her away, looking down at her wonderingly. "What is this?"
"My mother married an Irish rebel and got with child before he was hanged. Avery married her, knowing the facts, but he never told her that it was he who had given the final orders to hang my father."
Christopher gently brushed a tumbled curl from off her cheek. "I knew you were too beautiful to be kin to him."

-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

The divine knowing - what the Father knows, and what the Word says in response to that knowing, and what the Spirit broods upon under the speaking of the Word - all that eternal intellectual activity isn't just daydreaming. It's the cause of everything that is. God doesn't find out about creation; he knows it into being. His knowing has hair on it. It is an effective act. What he knows, is. What he thinks, by the very fact of his thinking, jumps from no-thing into thing. He never thought of anything that wasn't. — Robert Farrar Capon

My father cared a lot about me, but he never gave me the satisfaction of really knowing it. Hitting .390 wasn't enough for him. Nothing seemed to be. He was not trying to be mean. He was just seeing to it that I never got self-satisfied, that I worked hard to get the most out of what I had. — George Brett

Father Chee?"
"Yes, Amber?"
"Why do some people go through life never knowing a single major tragedy, and then others have horrible things happen to them over and over again?"
"I don't know. — Matthew Quick

His eyes widened. "Pain? Darling, you haven't yet experienced the pain I can inflict when I've been played for a fool. I'm in awe at your gall to try and fool me."
Bree went still as panic froze her. Oh, God. No.
"Ah, the light bulb finally goes off," he purred against her face; his voice low and
cold.
Even knowing who he was, and the family he came from, Bree could say that deep inside, she'd never felt any real fear of him.
She did now. He knew. The look on his face told her he knew that she had lied about him being her baby's father. Frantically, she grasped for any foothold she could find. "I don't know what you're talking-"
"DON'T!" he snapped, grabbing the sides of her face. — E. Jamie

I had crossed fifty years of my life, and come across uncountable females as son, husband, father, friend in my life. Coming across several women I carefully studied most of them, and feels that I got master knowing female. But every time when my heart comes across to a female, my all knowledge on female goes to a vain. What they want? , What are they looking for? When their mind changes? When their priority changes? No one knows, in a minute they use to change decisions, if someone ask, they says it's a little thing. They never think, little things makes big or if they can't stick on little things how they can stand in important decisions. They never show they are weak, but every time they are compromising themselves. It's their big heart but impacting every around. They always think they can do anything by doing nothing. — Nutan Bajracharya

Son, I hope your opinion of your mother hasn't lessened, knowing what you now know."
Gavin glanced up; incredulity skewed his eyebrows. His expression appeared both stunned and appalled. "Never, Father! I love her! It makes no difference to me where she came from."
The man nodded, a show of relief in his features. His large hand, soft in touch, went to brush a string of hair away from his wife's peaceful profile. "Your mother loves you too, son, more than anything in the world. She worries about you, day and night."
That sentiment stirred something profoundly pleasant inside the boy. He grinned at the internal warmth it created. — Richelle E. Goodrich