Parents Parents Night Quotes & Sayings

Every person killed or injured was a personal friend of mine; and you can imagine how grieved I am, and how glad I was to be of service in a special way - being a registered pharmacist. "I feel that I justified my entire thirty-one years as a pharmacist, by this one night of horror, and I should like to have you make a special appeal to young women whose parents have given their life to pharmacy, thus giving them proper background, to go on from there and study pharmacy. "Mrs. Margaret Strickler — John Finlayson

My path is the nice one. The one filled with friends who will smile when I buy their children books for their birthdays. Who will take me out, sometimes, when I call on a random night because I can't settle down. The path with peaceful holidays with my parents, and reasonable work promotions at reasonable times.
The path with nice men, who take me on nice dates where I learn their last names the minute we shake hands at the bar.
A path clear of a man with eyes that drift into some private sorrow. A path that will never lead to a man whose hands shake when he holds my face for a kiss that feels like falling. — Mary Ann Rivers

As a child, I probably knew phrases that other children didn't known, like "pitocin drip" or "myocardial infarction." Some kind of knowledge was always in the air. My parents would always talk about science at the dinner table, saying something about this patient or some other patient. So I guess for a nanosecond in early high school, I thought about going into medicine. — M. Night Shyamalan

Under the ground seep the toxins of the population that lives above. If you have to, you will eat roots and earthworms. It is always night. Candles burn in lanterns made from tin cans. When it is nighttime up above, you can crawl out, but only for a little while. You feel ashamed of your matted hair, your torn clothes, the dirt on your face. Who would want to speak to you? They are all shiny and pretty. They have parents and house with gardens. What do you have? The earth. Whole handfuls of it. The lizard people with their slit eyes and scaly skin. Your loneliness. Your longing. — Francesca Lia Block

My name, among our people, means 'slow arrow.' It comes from a story in which the god Fen'Harel was asked by a village to kill a great beast. He came to the beast at dawn, and saw its strength, and knew it would slay him if he fought it. So instead, he shot an arrow up into the sky. The villagers asked Fen'Harel how he would save them, and he said to them, 'When did I say that I would save you?' And he left, and the great beast came into the village that night and killed the warriors, and the women, and the elders. It came to the children and opened its great maw, but then the arrow that Fen'Harel had loosed fell from the sky into the great beast's mouth, and killed it. The children of the village wept for their parents and elders, but still they made an offering to Fen'Harel of thanks, for he had done what the villagers had asked. He had killed the beast, with his cunning, and a slow arrow that the beast never noticed. — Patrick Weekes

An old Gordita reflex, dating back to shortly after the Second World War, when a black family had actually tried to move into town and the citizens, with helpful advice from the Ku Klux Klan, had burned the place to the ground and then, as if some ancient curse had come into effect, refused to allow another house ever to be built on the site. The lot stood empty until the town finally confiscated it and turned it into a park, where the youth of Gordita Beach, by the laws of karmic adjustment, were soon gathering at night to drink, dope, and fuck, depressing their parents, though not property values particularly. — Thomas Pynchon

A) he's late.
b) he's acting like an asshole and blowing me off.
c)he's gotten into a horrible car crash that's left dead.
The most likely answer is A. (We went to prom together, and the limo had to wait in his driveway for half an hour. At the end of the night, we got charged for an extra hour. He- read: his parents- paid for it, but still.) — Lauren Barnholdt

He ran his fingers over the moist ends of her hair and across her face. Her eyes were wet. Jesus Christ. How many nights had he heard Lily crying. As some parents sleep through fire, thunderstorms, and voices at the back door only to wake at a child's whisper, so Everett heard Lily crying at night. Her muffled sobs seemed to have broken his dreams for years. He had heard her even at Fort Lewis, even in Georgia, finally at Bliss. That was Lily crying in the wings whenever the priest came to tear up his mother's grave. Lily cried in the twilight field where he picked wild poppies with Martha; Lily's was the cry he heard those nights the kiln burned, the levee broke, the ranch went to nothing. — Joan Didion

I was a huge David Letterman fan, even going back to when he was on NBC. My parents would only let me watch a half hour of television a day, so I would record Letterman the night before and then watch it when I came home from school. That's what made me want to do a T.V. show. — Trevor Moore

Yeah, but I kill myself training. It's just about all I do. I get up and train, and run and I split my hands on the punching bag, and I train for hours into the night, and I have to, because there is nothing else special about me and nothing else that matters. All there is, is training and finding out who killed my parents. Because they were the ones who thought I was special, and whoever took them away from me...What I have is trying. I can try harder than anyone else in the world. I can make revenge the only thing I have in my life. I can do that, because I have to. But it means it's all I have. — Cassandra Clare

The problem with growing up in a cafe was the cafe never closed, my parents worked every day of the year from morning to night. So it was a big menagerie of kids, business and cooking! — Anthony Minghella

He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him - they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn't have to do that. None of his friends' parents were still together, and in every case, that seemed like the number one thing that had gone wrong with his friends' lives. But Park's parents loved each other. They kissed each other on the mouth, no matter who was watching. What were the chances you'd ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible. How did his parents get so lucky? — Rainbow Rowell

they kept moving all night, stopping only occasionally to scoop some water from a stream or listen to see if anyone was following them or near them at all. As dawn came, Jacob was exhausted. But the two men did not stop moving. They were not running now. They were walking, but Avi set a brisk and steady pace. Jacob wanted to stop. He wanted to ask Avi if they could rest, even for a little while. But he had been told not to say a word, and Jacob knew their very lives depended on his obeying. At least the pain in his feet and in his belly from lack of food and the fatigue permeating every fiber of his being kept his mind off the fact that he would never see his parents or his sister again. — Joel C. Rosenberg

The accountant lingers at his children's doorway a moment more, listening to the easy rhythm of their breathing, and something cold moves through him, like the passage of a ghost - but he know that's not it. It's more like the portent of a future. A future that must never come to pass ...
... and for the first time, he gives rise to a thought that is silently echoed in millions of homes that night.
My God ... what have we done? — Neal Shusterman

I've got great people who handle my schedule, and everything does revolve around the children. If there's a parents' night or an Easter bonnet parade or a Nativity play, whatever it might be, then I plan everything around that. — Victoria Beckham

I don't really remember the day we lost our home in the floods, but looking back I can understand how devastating it was for my parents. I was only six, so I remember us having to move to Adelaide - but not much of the actual day and night of the flood. We had to start all over again and my parents opened a cafe. — Samantha Stosur

It takes courage to gather children from whatever they're doing and kneel together as a family. It takes courage to turn off the television and the computer and to guide your family through the pages of the scriptures every day. It takes courage to turn down other invitations on Monday night so that you can reserve that evening for your family. It takes courage and willpower to avoid over-scheduling so that your family can be home for dinner. — Larry R. Lawrence

Little tree filled his lungs with the white airness of the night, as if he were going to fly.
The living voice of his parents. Elisha's eyes. These were reasons enough to set off on another adventure.
Reasons to be Toby Lolness again. — Timothee De Fombelle

My girlfriend has the greatest story as to why she isn't religious anymore. When she was a kid, like 12 years old, her parents nailed a 25 pound crucifix to the wall right above her bed. About two weeks later, in the middle of the night, the crucifix falls off the wall and leaves a two inch gash in the back of her dad's head. — Anthony Jeselnik

Mature readers consider reading an integral part of life. It is not something they do only to relax or to escape or if there is nothing good on television. It is something they plan for in each day, and if the day develops so that they have no time for it, they may become restless, rather like joggers who miss their run. Some - busy parents, for example - stay up late at night to read their daily quota after the house is quiet, acknowledging that having balance in their lives is more dependent on reading time than on sleep. — Judith Wynn Halsted

Jesus gave a vivid object lesson his last night with the disciples by washing their feet, like a servant. Parents know the self-giving principle by instinct as they pour their energies into their self-absorbed children. Volunteers in soup kitchens and hospices and mission projects learn this lesson by doing.* What seems like sacrifice becomes instead a kind of nourishment because dispensing grace enriches the giver as well as the receiver. — Philip Yancey

I understand that in some families both parents have to work, so the kids are home alone eating more processed foods. But if the kids know how to make oatmeal or eggs in the morning or pasta or a lentil soup at night - we're giving them real survival tools. — Tamra Davis

What would you say to a loved one if you had only a few seconds to impart a last message? What language does love speak?
Some of you speak love with wine and roses. For other, "I love you," is best said by breakfast in bed, carefully set aside sport sections, or night out at the movies, complete with buttered popcorn.
Children spell love T-I-M-E. So, I think, do older folks.
Teenagers spell it T-R-U-S-T. Sometimes parents spell love N-O.
But no matter what the letters, the emotion beneath the wording must be tangible, demonstrable, and sincere. — Angela Elwell Hunt

But don't forget who you really are. And I'm not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. When you're alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you ... Your muscles will toughen. So will your heart and soul. That's necessary for survival. But don't lose touch with that person deep inside you, or else you won't really have survived at all. — Louis Sachar

There was our old life, in the apartment, in which we had time to finish most of the tasks we started and took long showers and remembered to water our plants. And there was our new life, in the hospital a mile away, in which Shauna needed morphine and two babies needed to eat every three hours around the clock ... I remember thinking, we're going to have to figure out how to combine our old life with our new life ... Over a year later, we still have days of mind-crushing fatigue, midnights when I think I'm pouring milk into a bottle but am actually pouring it all over the counter. Yesterday I spent five minutes trying to remember my parents' zip code. But now there are mornings like this one, when we wake up and realize we've slept through the entire night, and we stroll through the gardens as if we are normal again, as if we are finally learning the syllables of this strange, new language. — Anthony Doerr

There was a band in San Diego, Bluegrass Etc, that played a weekly gig. My parents would take my brother and me every Saturday night for 7 or 8 years. Sean and I started taking lessons with them and they gave us a great foundation in bluegrass instrumentation. They were the lens through which I saw music for a very long time. — Sara Watkins

Eventually I took a square of white chocolate out of the box, and unwrapped it, and then I did something I had never done before. I put the chocolate in my mouth, letting it soften until the last possible moment, and then as I chewed it slowly, I prayed that Mr. Pirzada's family was safe and sound. I had never prayed for anything before, had never been taught or told to, but I decided, given the circumstances, that it was something I should do. That night when I went to the bathroom I only pretended to brush my teeth, for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well. I wet the brush and rearranged the tube of paste to prevent my parents from asking any questions, and fell asleep with sugar on my tongue. — Jhumpa Lahiri

That night after my parents had kissed me good night and closed my door, I got out of bed and took from my shirt pocket the three seeds I had carried since we left the ant kingdom. Everything else I'd gathered, I realized, had been either given away or given back. Way back on my closet shelf was a tiny woven Indian basket with a cover. My grandfather had given me this when I was only nine years old, but it had always held some sort of secret for me. Into this basket I put the seeds, and hid it again.
"We'll use them," I told Scuro as I got back into bed. "Just wait. We'll use them."
He sighed and rearranged himself on his rug in the corner. I noticed then that the kitten-a shy little creature only recently come to our household and up till now afraid of everything including Scuro-was curled between Scuro's paws, purring in its sleep. — Sheila Moon

I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness. — Jack Kerouac

That's the weirdest thing, by the way. That every person you come across lays down in a bed, under the covers, and closes their eyes at night. Cops, teachers, parents, hot girls, pro ballers, everybody. For some reason it makes people seem so much less real when I look at them. — Matt De La Pena

That night when I went to the bathroom I only pretended to brush my teeth, for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well. I wet the brush and rearranged the tube of paste to prevent my parents from asking any questions, and feel asleep with sugar on my tongue. — Jhumpa Lahiri

That night I experienced one of those sudden, unpleasant shifts of perception that occur to parents, when you notice a difference in your child that's been coming over a long time, and you're faced with it, and at the same time you're groping back to touch the child they were a minute ago, while a somehow unaccountable, unpredictable person is watching you, waiting for you to catch up with them, contemptuous because you haven't. — Dorothy Johnston

Leah looked at her parents, lost in their own fantasies, and decided that the three of them were a pretty pathetic family - but she wasn't sure who was more pathetic: the dateless girl spending the night of the big dance by herself in her bedroom, or the parents who foolishly believed a boy would arrive on their doorstep with flowers, a limo, and a promise to rescue their daughter from her solitude. — J.M. Reep

Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over again for three years now, ever since he'd found out they had been murdered, ever since he'd found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run ... Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry ... how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son ... and so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry. — J.K. Rowling

Did you tell my mother that you called me a bitch last night,too?" I asked him. "Because that's the best way I know to win parents over."
For a split second,he looked uncomfortable. Almost immediately, he recovered and went back on the offensive. "You shouldn't wear those jeans.People might think something."
I stomped my foot on the stair. "Like what? I want to show off my fire-crotch? What do you care? God! Stop following me." My hair was down now, and I felt it smack into his chest as I whirled around and flounced down the rest of the stairs, across the lobby, and into the cold night. — Jennifer Echols

a minimum, the toys are put away at night. Parents see doing this as a healthy separation and a chance to clear their minds when the kids go to bed. Samia, my neighbor who during the day is the extremely doting mother of a two-year-old, tells me that when her daughter goes to bed, "I don't want to see any toys. . . . Her universe is in her room. — Pamela Druckerman

I fully believe in ghosts. I have, my entire life. The first house I ever lived in was haunted. There was a grave of a man in the backyard. I was just a baby then, but my parents would tell me that every night, at the same time, they would hear someone walking up the stairs. — Meaghan Rath

Running away from home is not a good idea. Unless, of course, you happen to be forty years old, and then your parents will probably shout, "Hurrah!" and change the locks the minute you've stepped off the front stoop. But in the case of Gwendolyn and Homer, ages fifteen and twelve, setting off in the middle of the night would only bring their parents immense heartache and worry. — Suzanne Selfors

My parents had torn through my innocence and left me with a tar-like substance that was corrupting what was left of me. I could feel it at night; slithering and curling around my soul as it slowly devoured me. It was draining my energy and replacing it with an evil I was afraid to confront. — J.D. Stroube

When the little mouse, which was loved as none other was in the mouse-world, got into a trap one night and with a shrill scream forfeited its life for the sight of the bacon, all the mice in the district, in their holes were overcome by trembling and shaking; with eyes blinking uncontrollably they gazed at each other one by one, while their tails scraped the ground busily and senselessly. Then they came out, hesitantly, pushing one another, all drawn towards the scene of death. There it lay, the dear little mouse, its neck caught in the deadly iron, the little pink legs drawn up, and now stiff the feeble body that would so well have deserved a scrap of bacon.
The parents stood beside it and eyed their child's remains. — Franz Kafka

My personal beliefs were shaped more by experience and by watching the news when I was young: images of angelic-looking college students in Mississippi crying like the world was ending because black people were being allowed on their campus; the slow mounting horror of Vietnam on the evening news every night; sitting with my parents in front of the TV and being appalled at the way the Chicago police were treating the protesters during the '68 Democratic convention. Being eyed with suspicion because of my age and the way I wore my hair. — James Vance

You will never realize how precious a baby is until she keeps you awake through the whole night. — Debasish Mridha

Rebecca asked me what made the most lasting impression on children. I told her it was the stories their parents read to them at night, and all the messages about hope and strength and love that were embedded in them. — Deborah Harkness

In theory, I would like to lead a transparent life. I wold like my life to be as clear as a new pane of glass, without anything shameful and no dark shadows. I would like that. But if I am completely honest, I have to acknowledge secrets too painful to even tell myself. There are things I consider in the deep dark of night, secret terrors. Why are they secrets? I could easily tell either of my parents how I feel, but what would they say? Don't worry, darling, we will do our best never to die? We will never ever leave you, never contract cancer or walk in front of a bus or collapse of old age? We will not leave you alone, not ever, to navigate the world and all of its complexities without us? — Meg Rosoff

Trouble in our family is spelled with a capital C and has been as long as I can remember. The C stands for Charles. He's my older brother, two years and four months older to be exact. Ever since the phone call about him last night, I've felt incredibly tense. And now, at this very minute, my parents are driving up to Vermont, to Charles's boarding school, to find out if he's actually been kicked out or if he's just been suspended again. I — Judy Blume

When my birth parents were murdered, I stayed outdoors all night with the bodies. Years later in America, around fourteen, my psychiatrist explained to me that staying with the bodies that night made me fearless. He said that it made me an 'emotional exhibitionist' and told me never to let people convince me that I was weird for speaking with clarity and passion. — Kola Boof

My parents both had a great sense of humor, and always laughed a lot. One night, when they were watching 'Candid Camera,' I finally understood what comedy was all about. I heard the laughter on television, I turned around and saw my parents laughing, and that's when I thought: 'This is great. This is what I can do. I'm gonna prank somebody.' — Howie Mandel

My parents read me fairy tales every night and I used to believe I was a fairytale princess, like every young girl. I had all the Disney dressing-up costumes and would play every character. — Lily Collins

The nomadic lifestyle does work for a lot of working parents, but I've traveled and I've seen it, and I want to be able to go home at night and see my daughter. I want to be there for her first day of school and her school recital. Honestly, television is what offers me that. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

My parents were really political. The news was very important in our home. We basically had dinner every night while watching the news, and then we'd discuss it with our parents. — Al Franken

Who the fuck has a hedge maze in a residential neighborhood?" "This woman's parents," said Piotr. "Aside from that . . . serial killers, presumably. People who enjoy Stephen King novels a bit too much. And people who are hoping that one night, they'll wake up to find David Bowie standing at their window." "Right, — Seanan McGuire

Frank, for his part, believed the boys tormented him because they, like their parents and grandparents, thought him a murderer. So when Frank awoke one night in August and saw something very odd up at the old house, he merely assumed that the boys had gone one step further in their attempts to punish him. — J.K. Rowling

Secretary Clinton is tough, smart, and understands better than any candidate the challenges that parents are talking about around dinner tables and keeping families up at night. — Thomas Perez

You're wrong about one thing: fairy-tales do exist. Millions of existing parents read existing fairy-tales every night from existing books to kids who, funnily enough...'
'... exist, yeah, I know. I mean it's fantasy, not reality. — Jonathan Dunne

He nursed one beer each night. Sometimes two. He poured the beer into a glass, and I could smell the hops dancing in the air as I passed. Few scents crackle my nerve endings like beer. As gorgeous as campfire, as unmistakable as gasoline. I sidled up to him. Can I have a sip? Just one. I placed my nose in the glass, and I could feel stardust on my face. I don't know if parents still let their kids taste beer, but it wasn't uncommon at the time. The bitterness was supposed to turn us off the stuff, but that one sip lit a fuse in me that burned for decades. — Sarah Hepola

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

Char had a phone number. He had a home. He probably had a job or a college and a last name and parents and all of that, too. He didn't just spring into existence late on Thursday night and then blink out again at two a.m. He was a real person. — Leila Sales

College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night? — David Wood

The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night
because morals are more important than ethics, and love is more important than law. — Jodi Picoult

It was probably my parents who inspired me most. My father was a scientist and answered my scientific questions, while my mother took me on walks and showed me birds and plants. She also took me out at night and showed me the constellations and the aurora. — Nancy Roman

I'd like to thank my parents for making this night possible. And my children for making it necessary. — Victor Borge

I woke, remembering a dream from the night before. Pictures of frightened children lingered in my mind as I approached them with a hunger unsated by mundane appetites. I recalled how flesh smelled: sweet. The texture was tender, yet it was bitter to the taste. Blood was messy and dripped down my chin. The demon, the cold-blooded monster mingled with my DNA: a gift from one of my parents brought to daylight by evil people. — Millicent Ashby

Mongrel A mongrel dog is the result of having beer-goggle eyes on a Friday or Saturday night and then waking up the following morning, still unsure who or what you've slept with. Mongrel dogs are the result of random breeding where the parents are of mixed ancestry too. Each one is unique. — Simon Whaley

I remember as a little kid, I would always feel comfortable if the light in the crack of my parents' door was on at night. When it went off, that meant they were asleep. Then that terror and the fear of being by myself started to creep in. — James Gray

There is much made in the psychological literature of the effects of divorce on children, particularly as it comes to their own marriages, lo those many years later. We have always wondered why there is not more research done on the children of happy marriages. Our parents' love is not some grand passion, there are no swoons of lust, no ball gowns and tuxedos, but here is the truth: they have not spent a night apart since the day they married.
How can we ever hope to find a love to live up to that? — Eleanor Brown

Friday 8 August Last night, Mom called one of the parents from pony club. A little while ago, he told her about a man who is not only a very experienced horse trainer but also a horse healer. Apparently he worked wonders with their daughter's pony, Rocco who was behaving really badly and wasn't able to be ridden. So Mom decided to get his details so she could ask him about Tara. Now he's coming over on Sunday afternoon to have a look at her. I'm so glad he can come and I hope he can help!!! — Katrina Kahler

Isabelle had been trained to wake up early every morning, rain or shine, and a slight hangover did nothing to prevent it from happening again. She sat up slowly and blinked down at Simon. She'd never spent and entire night in a bed with anyone else, unless you counted crawling into her parents bed when she was four and afraid of thunderstorms. She couldn't help staring at Simon as if he were some exotic species of animal. He lay on his back, his mouth slightly open, his hair in his eyes. Ordinary brown hair, ordinary brown eyes. His t-shirt was pulled up slightly. He wasn't muscular like a shadowhunter. He had a smooth flat stomach but no six-pack, and there was still a hint of softness to his face. What was it about him that fascinated her? He was plenty cute, but she had dated gorgeous faerie knights, sexy shadowhunters ...
"Isabelle," Simon said without opening his eyes. "Quit staring at me. — Cassandra Clare

Although a science fair can seem like a big "pain" it can help you understand important scientific principles, such as Newton's First Law of Inertia, which states: "A body at rest will remain at rest until 8:45 p.m. the night before the science fair project is due, at which point the body will come rushing to the body's parents, who are already in their pajamas, and shout, 'I JUST REMEMBERED THE SCIENCE FAIR IS TOMORROW AND WE GOTTA GO TO THE STORE RIGHT NOW!'" — Dave Barry

Grace does not run in families. It needs something more than good examples and good advice to make us children of God. Those who are born again are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, (John 1:13.) Praying parents should pray night and day, that their children may be born of the Spirit. — J.C. Ryle

I used to stay up at night and sneak into the TV room, past my parents, who were asleep, to watch Saturday Night's 'Main Event.' That's how I started watching SNL. On accident. — Andy Samberg

That night, like every other night since I'd met her, I curled Grace into my arms, listening to her parents' muffled movements in the living room. They were like busy little brainless birds, fluttering in and out of their nest at all hours of the day or night, so involved in the pleasure of nest building that they hadn't noticed that it had been empty for years. — Maggie Stiefvater

We marry to grow up, to escape our parents and to inherit our share of the world, not knowing who we are and who we will become, so it is left to marriage to make it clear which ones of us are growing in the same directions and which are ships meant to have passed in the night. — Merle Shain

There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?
And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible.
-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement — Brenna Yovanoff

He loved his entire family, including his mother, but growing up with them had taught him that not every intimate detail needed to be shared. He hadn't wanted to know that his parents had enjoyed a new sexual technique the night before or that his sisters had their periods. He hadn't wanted to talk about his own sexual development or, back when he'd been a teenager, have his mother ask him, over breakfast, if he'd masturbated yet that day. — Susan Mallery

I saw my parents as model grown-ups, and their manner, their silence, informed my sense of what adulthood looked and felt like. Grown-ups behaved rationally and calmly. Grown-ups worked during the day and came home at night and sat down for drinks and passed the evening quietly. — Caroline Knapp

From the edge of the forest where the mountains begin, a pack of sleeping wolves, huddled together in the cold, were woken. Travelling on the crystal air was a sound to fear in the night - the sound of parents calling out in anguish and loss.
A sound that would even chill the souls of beasts. — Sebastian Gregory

I definitely straddled the line and hung out with high-school dirtbags. I'd tell my parents I was spending the night at my friend's but actually go to Philly and see a show at Starlight Ballroom. I would drink and do all that stuff, but I didn't set any barns on fire. — Daughn Gibson

Moving is easy, exciting, an adventure - when you're young. Later, not so much. I love Massachusetts, my old home. Sometimes, late at night, I even study the real estate ads in my old hometown. But it's not even a fantasy. My parents are both gone. The world I left doesn't exist anymore. Neither does the person I was. — Susan Estrich

Because I'm the monster that parents tell their children at night? — Loki Laufeyson

My parents got divorced. Early and ugly. My mum was nuts so I lived with my dad. We used to play a father/son games. Pin the blame on me, rock, paper, get me another beer, casino night. — Christopher Titus

I watched my parents battle, work night shift, work two jobs. That's toughness. That's toughness ... That's something; it all carries over from your parents, and I was fortunate to have both parents in my life. — Mo Williams

His parents never talked about how they met, but when Park was younger, he used to try to imagine it.
He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him
they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn't have to do that. — Rainbow Rowell

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

The only parents in the world who don't need sleep, and our child already sleeps through the night. — Stephenie Meyer

As he spoke, I had the mental image of a small boy switching on the nightlight, not because he wants to be able to find his parents during the night, but because he fears his parents will forget him - lose him - in the dark. — Stephen Grosz

I'm a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don't pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, 'Oh, if God spares me next year ... ' or 'Please God ... ' but they're only phrases. — Cilla Black

As a kid, I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays, and I would walk home at night. For several years, I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them. — Neil Gaiman

Dean took out other pictures. I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, or actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. — Jack Kerouac

Not in San Salvador, he thinks, where the shanty slums press against gleaming high-rises like the thatched huts of medieval peasants pressed against castle walls. Except these castle walls are patrolled by private security guards wielding automatic rifles and machine pistols. And at night, the guards venture out from the castle walls and ride through the villages ...and slaughter the peasants, leaving their bodies at crossroads and in the middle of village squares, and rape and kill women and execute children in front of their parents.

So the survivors will know their place.

It's a killing ground, Art thinks.

El Salvador.

The Savior, my ass. — Don Winslow

I'll never let it happen. I'll do everything in my power to keep my sister at home.
"I don't want to have a civilized discussion. My parents want to send my sister to a facility behind my back and my head feels like it's about to split open. Leave me alone, okay?"
Something is sticking out of my pocket. It's Alex's bandanna. Isabel isn't a friend, yet she helped me. And Alex, a boy who cared about me last night more than my own boyfriend did, acted as my hero and is urging me to be real. Do I even know how to be real?
I clutch the bandanna to my chest.
And I allow myself to cry. — Simone Elkeles

Over the vistas broke a cold gray light, such as seen in those false dawns that are neither night nor true morning, when the world and all its contents seem but shapes of mist, formed in vain hope and desire ... If you awake from troubled sleep at such a time, you can only sit by the window and think of those that have been lost to you, those that followed your parents into those cold and heartless regions below the grass, silent and dark. Eventually, morning comes and the world resumes its solidity, but another tiny thread of ice has been stitched into your heart forever. — K.W. Jeter

Working- and Middle-class families sat down at the dinner table every night - the shared meal was the touchstone of good manners. Indeed, that dinner table was the one time when we were all together, every day: parents, grandparents, children, siblings. Rudeness between siblings, or a failure to observe the etiquette of passing dishes to one another, accompanied by "please" and "thank you," was the training ground of behavior, the place where manners began. — Larry McMurtry

Lying in his parents' house, in the middle of the night, she told him the whole story, about meeting Dimitri on a bus, finding his resume in the bin. She confessed that Dimitri had gone with her to Palm Beach. One by one he stored the pieces of information in his mind, unwelcome, unforgivable. And for the first time in his life, another man's name upset Gogol more than his own. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!
- Abigail — Arthur Miller

Look at his hair. He looks like his father. (Cassandra)
He has your lungs. (Wulf)
Oh, please! (Cassandra)
Trust me. Every Apollite here knows that my parents were unmarried at my birth, and that if you survive the night, you plan on making me a eunuch. (Wulf) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I called Grace right before I went into the diner. Actually, I called Sam, but Grace answered his phone.
"It's the end," I said. "I'm going to breakfast with my
parents."
"I had the worst dream about you last night," Grace mused.
"Did I go around L.A. biting people? Because that already
happened."
"No," she replied. "You came home. — Maggie Stiefvater

One day in May 1930, Celia took her twoyear-
old son for a swim at the yacht club, but it
was already the onset of the Argentine winter,
cold and windy. That night, the little boy had
a coughing fit. A doctor diagnosed him as suffering
from asthmatic bronchitis and prescribed
the normal remedies, but the attack lasted for
several days. Ernestito had developed chronic
asthma, which would afflict him for the rest of
his life and irrevocably change the course of his
parents' lives. — Jon Lee Anderson

We saved the lives of a whole family that night. Children, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, all sailed to safety in Sweden inside a little fisherman's boat."

Johannes aka 'BB'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup — Steen Langstrup

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

I've come to realize that making it your life's work to be different than your parents is not only hard to do, it's a dumb idea. Not everything we found fault with was necessarily wrong; we were right, for example, to resent, as kids, being told when to go to bed. We'd be equally wrong, as parents, to let our kids stay up all night. To throw out all the tools of parenting just because our parents used them would be like making yourself speak English without using ten letters of the alphabet; it's hard to do. — Paul Reiser