Picket Fence Quotes & Sayings

Yeah, you got the family dog and the white picket fence, and you just think that's all there is. Some of us had to grow up in poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, and we just had to adapt to our environment. I know that it's wrong. But people act like it's some crazy thing they never heard of. They don't know. — Michael Vick

I turn away and stare through the window at the field where the scotch broom creeps yellow as hell toward my doorstep. Six years and it has advanced from the hinterlands to the picket fence in the back yard. Six more years and it will have chewed this house to the foundation, braided my bones in its hair. — Laird Barron

Ill tell you the one that I think will: when a mans in love he wants to keep the one he loves- and cherish her. He wants to build a picket fence twixt them and the world. He doesn't want it temporary, a secret, hidden. He wants the world to know. The one he loves is somebody to him, not a thing to be taken, used and tossed aside. Hell, I'm not saying he shouldn't be interested in your pretty ankles and what a nice sway your bustles got. That's part of it too; but only a part. The rest of it is the long years ahead, the laughing together, and the crying, bringing up your kids, nodding together under the lamplight when your heads have turned white, and finally lying together forever in the long dark... — Frank Yerby

Mallory Quinn was sweet, warm, and caring. She was a white picket fence and two-point-four kids. She was a diamond ring. She was someone's keeper. — Jill Shalvis

I had a beautiful dream the other day. I was coming home from work and you were standing behind white picket fence trimming roses. You were dressed up all in white. We saw each other from afar and smiled. We kissed, got inside our home where our two beautiful children were playing and waiting for us. We all hugged and I kissed your belly because that's where our third child was. You were pregnant. Than all got blurry and white... I was awake. I was sad because my dream has ended but I was happy at the same time because that was the most beautiful and purest dream I have ever had. — J. Zima

Most killers have pretty average lifestyles. Steady jobs too. Sometimes they're even living the family life-white picket fence and a four-door sedan. That's what makes them so scary. They act human and they slot into society and since a young age they've known how to hide the crazy; they put it up on a shelf and only bring it out on special occasions. — Paul Cleave

I never married either. No one could put up with my lifestyle. I just wasn't ready for the diaper service and the white picket fence. I mean sailing, surfing, it's exciting. It's an adventure. It's one of the few things left around where you're totally responsible for your own outcome - except for maybe going across the Mojave with a donkey and a canteen. Everything else is stoplights, or follow the yellow line, or do this but don't do that. Surfing's one of the few things left. — Anonymous

When I was a kid I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I did know what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to grow up, have 2.2 kids, get married, the whole white picket fence thing. — Jody Williams

I grew up with the white picket fence. My dad went to work nine to five, and he had a station wagon. — Matt Dillon

So it seems that because of every syndrome and disorder we've invented in the past twenty years, the Los Angeles Times reported that 63% of American families are now considered dysfunctional. My God! That means we're the majority. We're normal! It's the people who have the mommy, the daddy, the brother, the sister, the little white picket fence - those people are the freaks, man! — Christopher Titus

I'm not white-picket-fence perfect. — Heidi Klum

With trembling eyes, Like a caged bird, From behind the picket-fence, She watched you go. — Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

I'd given up on the white picket fence after Kisten had died - finding out my kids would be demons was the nail in the coffin. — Kim Harrison

I'm not what you want." The words came out strangled because a lump had formed in Maia's throat.
Jack's brows drew together in a frown. "What the fuck, Maia?"
She cleared her throat and sipped on her wine before continuing, "I'm not what you want. You want a quiet life. The white picket fence. The woman who's safe at home. That's what you want."
Jack looked at her steadily, his expression inscrutable. "You're right," he said, and Maia felt her heart break a little. "That's what I want. I want to take care of my woman, I want that quiet life." Jack leaned closer and cupped Maia's face gently with one hand, using his thumb to tip her chin up to him. "Babe, that's what I want, but you are what I need. — Victoria Paige

Do I seem like the white-picket-fence sort of girl to you, Carl?" "No, you seem like the blood-soaked-walls kind of girl to me. — Vicki Pettersson

I couldn't think of anything helpful to say, so I resorted to humor, my shield of last resort. 'Just please tell me they don't have a dog and a picket fence.'
He smiled. 'No fence, but a dog, two dogs.'
'What kind of dogs?' I asked.
He smiled and glanced at me, wanting to see my reaction. 'Maltese. Their names are Peeka and Boo.'
'Oh, shit, Edward, you're joking me.'
'Donna wants the dogs included in the engagement pictures.'
I stared at him, and the look on my face seemed to amuse him. He laughed. 'I'm glad you're here, Anita, because I don't know a single other person who I'd have admitted this to. — Laurell K. Hamilton

After school the very next day, El Rey's mobile home was gone. I laid in bed and wondered what happens to people when they go, if they become like shadows, if they fade away when they disappear from your life. The only thing I could see was the broken picket fence. The only sound I could hear was the cry of birds being killed in the night. — Joe Meno

Healthy boundaries are important, but you may be building a brick wall when a picket fence would do. — Amy Dickinson

It's all kind of a big illusion: the white picket fence and the perfect marriage and the kids. Check that box off, check that box off, and move forward. — Sarah McLachlan

Our lives are always safest, not when we have a good paying job or a big retirement account or when we live in the suburbs with a white picket fence, but when our lives are firmly placed in the hands of God. — Louie Giglio

Driving home, I am struck by the sudden thought that the world is inflatable, trees and grass and houses ready to collapse with the single prick of a pin. I have the sense that if I veer the car to the left, smash through the picket fence and the little Tykes playground, it will bounce us back like a rubber bumper. — Jodi Picoult

Keeping it all together as a modern woman means multitasking, especially when you work. I think you always need to try your best, but at the same time you can only do what you can do, and you don't need to beat yourself up about it. I'm not white-picket-fence perfect. — Heidi Klum

Really, each era has its own false nostalgia. We all put a picket fence up around something. For my generation it was the '50s, and for other generations it will be something else. Change is scary for everyone, as is complexity, contradiction, and an uncertain future. — Gary Ross

Where we goin'? Wade whispers to me as we approach the white picket fence that surrounds the row of wooden crosses.
For all I know my grandmother could be planning to shoot us and bury us with the rest of the family, but I don't think it would help to share this notion with Wade — Carolee Dean

I've always loved the drama and the creating of a role and performance and all that comes with that, but I then also kind of like to have just the white picket fence life if that makes sense. — Nicole Kidman

Matson threw up his skinny arms to protect himself as something huge and quick shoved its way between the bars, like a big dog going through a rotten picket fence, and engulfed him. — Jim Butcher

My dreams were always small and puny. All I ever needed was a little house with a little picket fence by the sea. Little did I know that I would live in Malacanang Palace for 20 years and visit all the major palaces of mankind. And then also meet ordinary citizens and the leaders of superpowers. — Imelda Marcos

Everyone saw me on TV or read articles, and it was all about my great marriage, the white picket fence, all this success and my perfect life. But behind the scenes, it was a struggle. — Lindsey Vonn

He shouldn't be inclined. Mallory Quinn was sweet, warm, and caring. She was a white picket fence and two-point-four kids. She was a diamond ring.
She was someone's keeper.
Not his. Never his. He didn't do keepers.
And yet in that beat, with her mouth close to his, a smile in her eyes, he ... ached. He ached and yearned for something. Someone. He wanted to wrap his arms around a woman, this woman, and lose himself in her. — Jill Shalvis

I'm not the white-picket-fence kind of guy. So don't go building castles in the air. You'll get trapped in the rubble when they collapse. — Maureen Child

I'd like to have a nice home set up, with a couple of dogs, and a fence, white picket fence. — Martin Starr

I can't give you the white picket fence, and if I did, you'd set it on fire. — Ilona Andrews

In a complex and troubling world, who wouldn't want to simplify? Everybody does. Everybody wants to simplify and put up a picket fence. — Gary Ross

I really liked it." She covers her mouth in horror.
"If I like sex, do you think it means I can't be a feminist?"
"No." I shake my head. "Because being a feminist
I think it means being in charge of your sexuality. You decide who you want to have sex with. It means not trading your sexuality for ... other things."
"Like marrying some gross guy who you're not in love with just so you can have a nice house with a picket fence."
"Or marrying a rich old geezer. Or a guy who expects you to cook him dinner every night and take care of the children," I say, thinking of Samantha.
"Or a guy who makes you have sex with him whenever he wants, even if you don't," Miranda concludes.
We look at each other in triumph, as if we've finally solved one of the world's great problems. — Candace Bushnell

I'm tired," I said. My voice shook as I tried to restrain my tears. "I'm tired of all of it. The running, the paranoia, being scared all the time, and the sleepless nights. I want a normal life. Is that too much to ask?"
"No, it's not. More than anyone, I believe you deserve it. The friends, the family - the house with a white picket fence, if you want it - you should have all of it."
I shook my head. "I am not talking about those things. I just want to live without fear, love without consequence, and not be blamed for the actions of my past in my future. I want to experience being me. — Loni Flowers

I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly. — Maya Angelou

I guess my parents really screwed me up somewhere along the line because as good as they are to me, as much as they do for me and as much as I love them, I still managed to grow up terrified I would end up just like them. Unhappy and only pretending to live out this wonderful life with two kids, a dog and a white picket fence. But in reality, I knew they sleep with their backs facing each other. — J.A. Redmerski

Go to your happy place. Go to the house, the one with the red door and the white picket fence. Go back to where nighttime meant kisses and hugs, bedtime stories and cuddles with Buster. Go to where sunrises were promises instead of just false hope. Go to where love still lives. — J.M. Darhower

Richard has informed me he is shopping for his white picket fence. I'm happy behind my black wrought iron fence. The one with the pointy spikes on top. White never really was my color. — Laurell K. Hamilton

When he smiled his teeth looked like a picket fence that a tornado had wrecked. — Carolyn Brown

By August 2008, we had left Voikovskaya and moved into a wooden dacha in the artists' colony of Sokol in north-west Moscow. The house was a haven amid the madness of the city: lily of the valley grew near our front gate, Virginia creeper decked the green picket fence. — Luke Harding

Shadows crept along the ground like slowly seeping India ink, moved up the sides of the house, and slipped through the slats on the picket fence. Sunset tinted the sky purple and pink. — Kristin Hannah

Was I totally against the idea of having kids with Kat one day? Other than breaking out in hives at the thought of that, the idea wasn't too horrible. Of course, I wanted the white picket fence bullshit ... if it occurred a good ten years from now, and the kids didn't have weird bowl haircuts and couldn't Jedi mind-screw people. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

... With a slight miscalculated leap cleared to the iron picket fence. Put the fear of God into me, picket fences and balls don't mix. — J.P. Donleavy

She looked up at him with a grin. "I have a hard time picturing you with a house and a white picket fence." He shrugged. "Maybe I like picket fences." "I don't know, maybe it's the way I met you but assault rifles and picket fences seem juxtapositioned. — Denise Grover Swank

If a sentence were a picket fence, the serial commas would be posts at regular intervals. — Anonymous

Instead of getting my gold retirement watch and landing on my feet with a white picket fence and a satellite dish, I ended up base-jumping from the kettle into the fire. All because of one last job. But what's done is done. If your interested, you can read about the whole hot mess in The Intern's Handbook. You won't find it at Barnes & Noble, but I hear the feds have a few copies lying around, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could download it for free on Russian iTunes. I'm told it's an excellent beach/airplane/bathroom/killing-time-after-a-motel-tryst read. — Shane Kuhn

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That's not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that's what life needs to be - and that if it's not that, it's all screwed up. It's not. — Tom Brady

Certainly,' said his mother, 'but first I want to know about the accident with your bicycle.'
Well,' Phillip said, 'if you wanta really know. I was sitting in the basket of my bike ridin' down Mission Hill backwards singing 'Polly Wolly Doodle' and I saw the bread truck comin' and I guess I didn't turn soon enough and I ran into the Wallaces' iron fence and I caught my shoe on the pedal and my pants on a picket and I hit my eye on the handlebars and I don't know what else happened. But, boy, you should have heard the kids and that ole breadman laugh! — Betty MacDonald

When you have a young kid you can't go out much at night, so I spent a lot of time at home, watching movies and cooking dinner with my wife. It felt like what most people experience. White picket fence stuff.So there was some enjoyment of that normalcy, but I have to admit that part of me missed the chaos of touring. I think it's about balance. — Dan Mangan