Parents Ate Quotes & Sayings

My parents lived, breathed, ate and slept theatre. Emotions were right on the surface. Growing up, the unreal had as much importance as the real. — Megan Follows

To this day, being able to "take advantage" of someone is the measure in my mind of having a parent. For me and Lindsay, the fear of imposing stalked our minds, infecting even the food we ate. We recognized instinctively that many of the people we depended on weren't supposed to play that role in our lives, so much so that it was one of the first things Lindsay thought of when she learned of Papaw's death. We were conditioned to feel that we couldn't really depend on people - that, even as children, asking someone for a meal or for help with a broken-down automobile was a luxury that we shouldn't indulge in too much lest we fully tap the reservoir of goodwill serving as a safety valve in our lives. — J.D. Vance

Good listeners are no less rare or important than good communicators. Here, too, an unusual degree of confidence is the key - a capacity not to be thrown off course by, or buckle under the weight of, information that may deeply challenge certain settled assumptions. Good listeners are unfussy about the chaos which others may for a time create in their minds; they've been there before and know that everything can eventually be set back in its place. The — Alain De Botton

I've battled my weight since I was 12. My parents took to us to New York once, for a holiday, and there I'd buy fruit loops from a 24x7 shop and sit down with my books. I never played; I wasn't that kind of kid - I just read. I ate chocolates like peanuts. I was 86kg till I was 19. — Sonam Kapoor

Back in the day, we ate fresh; our parents cooked. Now, we're starting to think things are fresh because they're in a can, they're in a box, or they're frozen. That's not fresh. It's difficult to get real fresh. — Kym Whitley

They agreed that Luce would ride with Daniel and her parents would take Callie to the airport. While the girls ate, Luce's parents sat on the edge of the bed and talked about Thanksgiving ("Gabbe polished all the china-what an angel"). By the time they moved on to the Black Friday deals they were on the hunt for ("All your father ever wants is tools"), Luce realized that she hadn't said anything except for inane conversation fillers like "Uh-huh" and "Oh really? — Lauren Kate

Love isn't something you do, it isn't something you can make happen. Love is an instinct, a deep part of the human soul that reaches out of you to find the one meant to be with you. You can't fight it, nor can you bend it to your will. Just like breathing and eating, it is a part of you that you cannot live without. — Kerri E. Lorenz

As I grew older, I began to understand the differences between all of the other girls in school and myself. They had families, and I did not. They sat at home at night at a dinner table and ate with their brothers, sisters, and both of their parents. I sat at home and ate Ravioli's from a can as my mother sat in her chair and watched television in what I assumed was terrible pain. — Scott Hildreth

Pam went to the refrigerator and started piling some cold cuts and cheese on the table. "Katie, honey, hand me that bread over there," she said, pointing to the counter behind me.
I handed it to her and she smiled.
"Holt, I'm making your father a sandwich. Do you want one?"
"I'm starved," he said.
"You just ate!" I exclaimed.
"You ate all my bacon," he accused.
"I did not!" I laughed, reaching in for a slice of bread and throwing it at him.
He snagged it out of the air and took a huge bite.
Holt's dad grinned. "I like this one, son. Better not let her go."
"I don't plan on it," he said, giving me a meaningful stare.
I felt my cheeks heat and I made myself busy putting together a sandwich for him.
"Katie, make one for you too," Pam said, handing me the mayo.
"Oh, no. That bacon really filled me up." I grinned slyly. — Cambria Hebert

This one is from an ancient Zoroastrian legend of the first parents of the human race, where they are pictured as having sprung from the earth in the form of a single reed, so closely joined that they could not have been told apart. However, in time they separated; and again in time they united, and there were born to them two children, whom they loved so tenderly and irresistibly that they ate them up. The mother ate one; the father ate the other; and God, to protect the human race, then reduced the force of man's capacity for love by some ninety-nine per cent. Those first parents thereafter had seven more pairs of children, every one of which, however - thank God! - survived. — Joseph Campbell

Like almost all girls I don't know the date of my birth: my parents did not trouble to record the day and the time. I only know the year and the season, and I only know the season because my mother had a great desire for asparagus when she was carrying me and swears that she ate it too green and her bellyache brought on my birth. — Philippa Gregory

Smile. It gives your face something to do. — Sue Grafton

Let me deal with him. If he turns up dead in the river you'll know to keep your mouth shut and provide me an alibi. — Sally Thorne

A universal beauty clothes the world, And one heart seems to beat for all mankind! — Robert Montgomery

I was fat because my parents were a little fat themselves at that point in their lives, and I ate what they ate. — Jami Attenberg

He said he ate his food out of our big refrigerators, drove our eight-cylinder American cars, un-hesitatingly used our medicines when he was sick, and relied on the U.S. Army to protect his parents and sisters from Hitler's Germany, and nothing, not one single thing in all his poems, reflected these realities. — J.D. Salinger

Both the Queen and Prince Albert seemed to have spent far more time with their children, than one usually associates with Victorian life. They ate together, and walked, rode, played and painted together. And the fond parents were often present at bath time and in the nurseries that Prince Albert had designed close at hand. — Sarah Ferguson Duchess Of York

During the next week, everyone noticed that my appetite had improved, even Toddy.

"Are you done with your hunger strike?" he asked me curiously, one morning.
"Toddy, eat your breakfast."
"But I thought that was what it was called. When people don't eat."
"No, a hunger strike is for people in prison," Kitsey said coolly.
"Kitten," said Mr. Barbour, in a warning tone.
"Yes, but he ate three waffles yesterday," said Toddy, looking eagerly between his uninterested parents in an attempt to engage them. "I only ate two waffles. And this morning he ate a bowl of cereal and six pieces of bacon, but you said five pieces of bacon was too much for me. Why can't I have five pieces, too? — Donna Tartt

Toffee Crisp was my downfall. I once ate five at a sitting. Do you really need that third helping, Harry? My parents didn't overfeed me, nor did they make an issue of it. That's when things go wrong. It doesn't have to be a problem for children to be fat, but it does affect you: you aren't as happy in that skin. — Harry Melling

Looking at those photographs, I remembered how my parents had never said "I love you" to each other. How they had said only "I miss you." At the time, I hadn't been able to figure out what this meant. But now it seemed clear: this was how they defined their love - by how deeply they missed each other when they were together. They felt the loss before it happened, and their love was defined by that loss. They hungered even as they ate, thirsted even as they drank. My mother once told me to live my life as if I were already dead. "Live each day as if you know it's gonna be gone tomorrow," she had said. That was how my parents loved each other, with a desperate, melancholy love, a fierce nostalgia for the present. — Danzy Senna

There was a song i heard when i was in los angeles by a local group. the song was called "los angeles" and the words and images were so harsh and bitter that the song would reverberate in my mind for days. the images, i later found out, were personal and no one i knew shared them. the images i had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. images of people, teenagers my own age, looking up from the asphalt and being blinded by the sun. these images stayed with me even after i left the city. images so violent and malicious that they seemed to be my only point of reference for a long time afterwards. after i left. — Bret Easton Ellis

Respect Mother Earth and her giving ways or trade away our children's days. — Neil Young

I had very few friends. We always ate dinner with our parents. We didn't want to go out. American adolescence was a lot wilder than I would have felt comfortable with. — Maya Lin

It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In my tradition, God revealed Himself in words and lives in stories and, no, you cannot touch or even see Him. The Word, in Judaism, was never made flesh. The closest God came to embodiment was in the Temple in Jerusalem ... But the Temple was destroyed. In Judaism, the flesh became words. Words were the traditional refuge of the Jewish people - Yochanan ben Zakkai led a yeshiva, my father became a professor. And little boys, in the Middle Ages, ate cakes with verses inscribed on them, an image I find deeply moving and, somehow, deeply depressing. This might help explain a certain melancholy quality books in general, for all their bright allure, have always had for me. As many times as I went down to my parents' library for comfort, I would find myself standing in front of the books and could almost feel them turning back into trees, failing me somehow. — Jonathan Rosen

I knew it. You're an alien," said her former best friend, the pale, bespectacled creature with the spectacular cleavage.
"Yes, I'm an alien and I still made cheerleader. And now I'm going to steal your boyfriend to prove girls can't really be friends."
"I sat back timidly when you torched my house, killed my parents, and ate my dog. But now you're stealing my boyfriend? That's a step too far! — Libba Bray

We human beings build houses because we're alive but we write books because we're mortal. We live in groups because we're sociable but we read because we know we're alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one's place but that no one can replace either. It offers no definitive explanation of our destiny but links us inextricably to life. Its tiny secret links remind us of how paradoxically happy we are to be alive while illuminating how tragically absurd life is. — Daniel Pennac

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I'll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I'm not trying to lose weight. — B.B. King

The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. — Bret Easton Ellis

The grown-ups, or maybe I should say the parents, ate in the dining room. — Ann Darby

Didn't anyone ask you where your parents are?"
"They asked. Especially about my parents."
"What did you tell them?"
"I said I ate them."
"Jesus, Rosa. — Justine Larbalestier

According to St. Augustine, the left hand represented the temporal, the mortal, and the bodily, as opposed to the right, which stood for "God, eternity, the years of God which fail not."25 For centuries the preference for the right hand over the left governed how people fished, ploughed fields, twisted rope, and ate their meals. The Greeks and Romans, for example, always reclined on the left side, propped on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free for the business of eating and drinking. Plutarch noted that parents taught children to eat right-handed from a young age, and "if they do put forth the left hand, at once we correct them."26 The prejudice against the left hand persisted during the Renaissance, with parents freeing a child's right hand from its swaddling clothes to ensure right-handedness at the dinner table as well as at the writing desk. — Ross King

Neither were we allowed to choose what we ate. I have a friend whose seven-year-old will only consider something if it's white. Had I tried that, my parents would have said, "You're on," and served me a bowl of paste, followed by joint compound, and, maybe if I was good, some semen. — David Sedaris