Sad Parents Quotes & Sayings

On the flight over to Chicago, I thought of a story Mom had once told me from her days as a pediatric nurse.
"There was this little boy I was taking care of," she said "and he was terminally ill,and we all knew it,but he kept hanging on and hanging on. He wouldn't die, it was so sad.
And his parents were always there with him,giving him so much love and support,but he was in so much pain,and it really was,time for him to go.
So finally some of us nurses took his father aside and we told him, 'You have to tell your son it's okay for him to go. You have to give him permission.' And so the father took his son in his arms and he sat with him in a chair and held on to him and told him over and over, that it was okay for him to go,and,well,after a few moments,his son died. — Anthony Rapp

My parents' divorce left me with a lot of sadness and pain and acting, and especially humour, was my way of dealing with all that. — Jennifer Aniston

The sad reality is, it's not just the people I go to school with that are doing it. It's their parents too. Their noses are all turned up at me, like because of my diagnosis; I'm an alien to them. I'm not like their son or daughter so that means I'm not worthy of respect. — Melyssa Winchester

They tried picturing leaving Uncle Monty and living by themselves, trying to find jobs and take care of each other. It was a very lonely prospect. The Baudelaire children sat in sad silence awhile, and they were each thinking the same thing: They wished that their parents had never been killed in the fire, and that their lives had never been turned topsy-turvy the way they had. If only the Baudelaire parents were still alive, the youngsters wouldn't even have heard of Count Olaf, let alone have him settling into their home and undoubtedly making evil plants — Lemony Snicket

You want to hear it? Fine. It's a simple story really, about a pretty girl who was pretty stupid. She let a man touch her because she was scared to say no, and then she told her parents because she was scared to say nothing. Then they were scared to do anything that might ruin their pretty little lives, so they told the girl that it was nothing. That just being touched wasn't enough to fight for. Too scared to prove them wrong, she kept going like it was nothing, and she let more people touch her, never knowing that she was handing out pieces of herself. Or, hell, maybe she knew deep down, and she just hated herself so much that she was glad to be rid of them. And life wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't scary until she met a man with two names who touched her without taking and made her miss the pieces she had lost. And now things aren't just scary, they're fucking terrifying, and I can't do it. I can't live like this, knowing all that I've ruined and that it can't be fixed. — Cora Carmack

I'm very musically inclined. My parents were opera singers. As a young child, I could hear operas and I knew if they were sad, or if they reminded me of something, or they brought back a memory. — Sandra Bullock

A world where parents die and brothers die and nothing stops to respect that fact. The whole universe just goes and goes as if nothing has happened... — Colleen Hoover

When I think of Tomodachi, I think of your mother. Your mother, she too lose her baby. She lose you. That very sad thing for her. Maybe she come looking, and she not find you. You not there when she come. She think you dead for ever. But she see you in her mind. Now as I speak maybe she see you in her mind. You always there. I know. I have son too. I have Michiya. He always in my head. Like Kimi. They dead for sure, but they in my head. They in my head forever. — Michael Morpurgo

My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world. — Sherman Alexie

It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children. — Ama Ata Aidoo

Children see in their parents the past, their parents see in them the future; and if we find more love in the parents for their children than in children for their parents, this is sad but natural. Who does not entertain his hopes more than his recollections. — John Ruskin

Everything in my head was secondhand, too: Catholicism; Ireland's sad history, a litany of suffering and martyrdom drummed into me by priests, schoolmasters and parents who knew no better. — Frank McCourt

We could see that our mothers blackmailed us with self-sacrifice, even if we did not know whether or not they might have been great opera stars or toasts of the town if they had not borne us. In our intractable moments we pointed out that we had not asked to be born, or even to go to an expensive school. We knew that they must have had motives of their own for what they did with us and to us. The notion of our parents' self-sacrifice filled us not with gratitude but with confusion and guilt. We wanted them to be happy yet they were sad and deprived and it was our fault. — Germaine Greer

It's quite sad that so many children go through life unsure whether their parents love them or not. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

I can read it.
I can read her.
Cuz she's thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She's wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma's. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she's taking the song of my pa and she's weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.
And it hurts her, but it's an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it's good, but it hurts.
She hurts.
I know all this.
I know it's true.
Cuz I can read her.
I can read her Noise even tho she ain't got none.
I know who she is.
I know Viola Eade. — Patrick Ness

He was seven years old the summer that his life ended. He'd always felt like his life was taken the moment that truck rammed into his father and sister. Or at least, the life he would have had was ended before it even began. — Melodie Ramone

When it came to Eva's life, her mom had the awareness of a fifty-cent guppy; there were sad-eyed janitors at school who seemed to have more insight into Eva's heart than her own parents did. — J. Ryan Stradal

I am waiting to write the poem that is something like a dance movie, the ones populated by fair haired ballerinas with just a little bit of singe to their tulle, not quite as dark as the Natalie Portman one, but girls woefully misunderstood by their parents or harboring dead mothers and sad pasts. — Kristy Bowen

Cool parents, I thought, are the ones who know nothing. It made me feel a little sad for mine, but I didn't say any of this. — John Darnielle

'I Know You Care' is about my dad. And I haven't seen him for a long, long time. And my parents divorced when I was really young. And I guess I just wanted a - it was my way of saying that I wasn't bitter or angry anymore. I was just sad and just felt like something was missing. — Ellie Goulding

My parents were mourning the death of my sister. She was killed in a car accident before I was born, and I didn't know she existed until I was 13 or 14 years old. I knew I was growing up in a house where people were angry and sad. — Andrew Hudgins

Ohh,' said the girl with a sad tilt of her head.
It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventully come to understand meant, 'Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don't realize there's a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone's poor and they don't care about girls there, and I bet that's why you're in our country even, and now everyone's probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I'll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you're just here to kill Americans?'
There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first. — Adam Rex

Adrian never recovered after the loss of his dear friend. I am not sure if he has any family, he never talks about parents, brothers or sisters; it looks as if his dead friend was the only guy that ever cared for him. Eventually Adrian found us, a bunch of misfits, lonely teens, each with our sad lives, and we all hung out together, because Adrian kept us together, gave us a purpose and it made us feel like we're a family. I'm the "baby" of the group, the little guy that always has to be protected; they tutor me, feed me, and rarely let me go on "missions", obviously. When I get sick I have to be taken care; when I get injured, they have to fix me. I feel like I have five big brothers, and, even though I miss a mother and a father, I am not alone in this world. — Andrei Daniel Proca

I have done this - made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is. — Jennifer Donnelly

What else can you tell me?" Dad stares at me. "What have you learned while you were awake?"
I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. "Nothing much," I mutter. — Beth Revis

The engineer's ready capitulation, however, did not hide from the poet's mother the sad realization that the adventure into which she had plunged so impulsively
and which had seemed so intoxicatingly beautiful
had no turned out to be the great, mutually fulfilling love she was convinced she had a full right to expect. Her father was the owner of two prosperous Prague pharmacies, and her morality was based on strict give-and-take. For her part, she had invested everything in love (she had even been willing to sacrifice her parents and their peaceful existence); in turn, she had expected her partner to invest an equal amount of capital of feelings in the common account. To redress the imbalance, she gradually withdrew her emotional deposit and after the wedding presented a proud, severe face to her husband. — Milan Kundera

I think a lot of people think that my parents' deaths is why I write such sad songs, but that's not true. Those songs may just be the woman I am. — Shelby Lynne

The saddest revelation I've had in my life is that my parents are people. Sad, human people. — Amy Schumer

But at home, that same day he'd jumped into the fountain, he'd gotten so anxious, pacing around the living room listening to his parents try to calm him, that he suddenly just lost it completely and slapped his face. He immediately started crying, confused and guilty, looking up at his parents like he had no idea how it happened. And, really, that's the way it always was with the hitting. It would happen so fast, his body shaking to release the tension that built up from all the thoughts swirling through his mind and all the air he was having trouble breathing and all the loud beating of his own heart ringing in his ears. It had to get out and that was the path it chose. Slap. Instant relief. — John Corey Whaley

It's so sad, actually, how teachers and parents tell their kids, 'You're never gonna be anything.' — Solange Knowles

But good girls dont do that, dont make a fuss, dont upset parents. and i was a good girl so i curled up on the floor and sobbed silently instead — Laura Jarratt

It's a secondhand world we're born into. What is novel to us is only so because we're newborn, and what we cannot see, that has come before- what our parents have seen and been and done- are the hand-me-downs we begin to wear as swaddling clothes, even as we ourselves are naked. The flaw runs through us, implicating us in its imperfection even as it separates us, delivers us onto opposite sides of a chasm. It is both terribly beautiful and terribly sad, but it is, finally, the fault in the universe that gives birth to us all. — Katherine Min

My first car was kind of sad. My first car was when my parents had completely worn out their Toyota Corolla that they had for 16 years or something. They gave me, for my 19th birthday, this really ancient Toyota. So that was my first car. And I loved it. I thought it was amazing, and I drove it cross-country. It was not aesthetically appealing in any way. It was it fast. It did not handle well, but it lasted forever. I drove cross-country and back, and then I gave it to my sister, and she drove it for another 10 years. — Ethan Hawke

A scream is a sound we make that is born of intense feeling. A scream of fear, of being startled, is often high-pitched. It may be short or prolonged. A scream may also accompany delight or amusement, though often that is more of a squeal. And a scream of sorrow or rage ... well, that is an entirely different thing. That comes from a darker place, from the depths of our souls, and when we scream in those times, because we are sad or angry, there is a terrible knowledge that accompanies it, that we are giving voice to our emotions, to what is simply too big for our hearts to contain.
And as Li Wei cries out, I know Feng Ji is right. It is his heart I am hearing, a way of expressing what he feels over his father's loss that is both primal and beautiful, and it comes from his soul and reaches something within mine. It is the sound my own heart made when my parents died, only I didn't know it until now. — Richelle Mead

Since it's based on my parents, it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny, but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them. — Christopher Durang

It's sad that children cannot know their parents when they were younger; when they were loving, courting, and being nice to one another. By the time children are old enough to observe, the romance has all too often faded or gone underground. — Virginia Satir

I've alway been struck by how little adults understand children, even their own fathers and mothers. Nothing should be kept from children on the pretext that they're little and it's too soon for them to know. Such a sad, wretched idea! Children themselves are well aware that their parents regard them as as too small and uncomprehending, when actually they understand everything. Adults don't realize that children can give extremely valuable advice in the most difficult situations. Heavens! When that pretty little bird looks at you, so happy and trusting, you are ashamed to betray it! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My parents will be sad for a while, and they may even blame themselves, the way they do now. Eventually they'll come to peace with my decision. I hope they'll realize I'm finally at peace. — Julie Anne Peters

When a husband loses his wife, they call him a widower. When a wife loses her husband, they call her a widow. And when somebody's parents die, they call them an orphan. But there is no name for a parent, a grieving mother, or a devastated father who have lost their child. Because the pain behind the loss is so immeasurable and unbearable, that it cannot be described in a single word. It just cannot be described. — Bhavya Kaushik

When he was about twelve or thirteen he walked into his parents' bedroom in the half-house on Jackson Road not expecting his father to be there, and the old man was standing in front of his bureau in just socks and an undershirt, innocently fishing in a drawer for his undershorts, that boxer style that always looked sad and dreary to Harry anyway, and here was his father's bare behind, such white buttocks, limp and hairless, mute and helpless flesh that squeezed out shit once a day and otherwise hung there in the world like linen that hadn't been ironed ... — John Updike

It is one of those weird social things. Even as parents we say, oh, don't be sad. You know, come here, we'll distract you with some ice cream or something. And I don't know if that's always the best thing. But it's certainly - you understand why people do it. — Pete Docter

We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy.. — Paulo Coelho

Many a man has known that startling instant in which Dan Cupid, that busy young rascal, took things in hand, and told him that his baby girl was not a baby girl now, and was about to fly away from him. It is both a happy and a sad thrill that shoots through a man at such an instant. Happy and joyous at his girl's arrival at maturity; sad, as it brings to mind that awkward fact that his own youth is now but a myth; and that his scalp is showing vacant spots. His baby girl in a bridal gown! His baby girl a Matron! His baby girl proudly placing a grandchild in his lap!! It's an impossibility!! But this big world is full of this kind of impossibility, and will stay so as long as Man lasts. — Ernest Vincent Wright

For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and - by some sad, strange irony - it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy. — E. M. Forster

I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. — Beth Revis

My parents always have taught me 'you're good enough'. So, whenever I got bad comments from the judges, or I'd get on the Internet and read what bloggers have written about me, I would get so down, and I would get so sad. The biggest support group was obviously my parents, and I'd call them. And they'd build me up. — Carmen Rasmusen

Living alone in a foreign country without parents, siblings, or friends, trying to keep pace with society here, was painful and sad. — Kimi Cunningham Grant

The saddest realization I've had in my life is that my parents are people. Sad, human people. I aged a decade in that moment. — Amy Schumer

My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules. — Mike Mills

He was part of a ruined generation of young men coddled by their parents -by their mothers especially- raised on unearned self-esteem, in a bubble of overaffection, in a sad incubator of phony achievement. — Jess Walter

I think the love between a child and parent is wonderful. You know, Mei ... I haven't seen my mother for over two years. I used to live with her ... but now I live with my father. I used to be sad and wonder why it happened ... but parents have a lot of things they have to deal with too. I saw how they were suffering ... and I know they both love me a lot. You can't let loneliness harden your heart. Mei, you know ... Misuzu loves you, don't you? — Bisco Hatori

On a lighter but serious side I believe that homework was meant for parents to take a keen interest in the studies of children rather than leave it completely for the teacher. This way the parent child communication also developed. However with the passage of time the world become more mechanical and commercial. Quality time suffixed for quantity time and homework became a means of earning for many an educated unemployed teachers. How sad we sure have progressed but yet in many ways have lost our basic values, ethics and morality. It's time to wake up and DO OUR HOMEWORK. — Amit Abraham

The starting point of enlightenment, a goal that every person should strive for, is inner leadership. Leadership is far more than something businesspeople do at work. Leadership is all about personal responsibility, self-discovery, and creating value in the world by the people we become. Too many people spend their time blaming others for all that isn't working in their lives. We blame our spouses for our unhappy home lives; we blame our bosses for our distress at work; we blame strangers on the freeway for making us angry; we blame our parents for keeping us small. Blame, blame, blame, blame. But blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself. Blaming others for the current quality of your life is a sad way to live. In doing so, all you're doing is playing the victim. — Robin S. Sharma

One day when I was fourteen, I told Charlie that I hated Mother. "Don't hate her, Jo," he told me. "Feel sorry for her. She's not near as smart as you. She wasn't born with your compass, so she wanders around, bumping into all sorts of walls. That's sad." I understood what he meant, and it made me see Mother differently. But wasn't there some sort of rule that said parents had to be smarter than their kids? It didn't seem fair. — Ruta Sepetys

The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.
Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't. — Kenneth Oppel

I tried to go to sleep with my headphones still on, but then after a while my mom and dad came in, and my mom grabbed Bluie from the shelf and hugged him to her stomach, and my dad sat down in my desk chair, and without crying he said, 'You are not a grenade, not to us. Thinking about you dying makes us sad, Hazel, but you are not a grenade. You are amazing. You can't know, sweetie, because you've never had a baby become a brilliant young reader with a side interest in horrible television shows, but the joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.'
'Okay,' I said.
'Really,' my dad said. 'I wouldn't bullshit you about this. If you were more trouble than you're worth, we'd just toss you out on the streets.'
'We're not sentimental people,' Mom added, deadpan. 'We'd leave you at an orphanage with a note pinned to your pajamas. — John Green

They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father's affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could provide no more luxuriously for his family; but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never would, in his heart he disliked her. — W. Somerset Maugham

Every word, facial expression, gesture, or action on the part of a parent gives the child some message about self-worth. It is sad that so many parents don't realize what messages they are sending. — Virginia Satir

I know theater can improve the quality of people's lives, and I know theater can heal. I've worked as a doctor clown in a hospital for two years. I have seen sick kids and sad parents and doctors be lifted and transported in moments of pure joy. I know theater unites us. — Natasha Tsakos

For the rest of the morning they worked quietly ad steadily, realizing that their contentment here at Uncle Monty's house did not erase their parents' death, not at all, but at least it made them feel better after feeling so sad, for so long. — Lemony Snicket

From the beginning, we tempt them into imitation of us and long for what may be life's most profound compliment: their choosing to live according to our own system of values. Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents, we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us. — Andrew Solomon

Marriage, in my culture, has nothing to do with romance. It's a matter of logic. If Mr. and Mrs. Ahmadi like Mr. and Mrs. Nejari, then their children should get married. On the other hand, if the parents don't like each other, but the children do, well, this is where sad poetry comes from. — Firoozeh Dumas

A couple hours went by, and the storm began to turn back to the sea. The dark clouds rolled away, leaving white, fluffy ones in their place. We were safe, and the rock in the distance was still there. We stepped out of the car and walked over to the rock, noticing the families of seals were back again. The seals were strong and ready to make it through any storm that would fall their way. My parents' love was still there; that is what love means. I envy that love, and I hoped to find it someday ... and I did. — Joseph McGinnis

Just seems like all parents start out thinking their kids are part of them, another mouth they've gotta make sure eats, another body they've got to get dressed. And then one day, our parents look at us and notice we're whole people. We're not a part of them anymore, even if they're a part of us. And for the ones who never really wanted to be parents anyway, that's probably a relief. But for a mom like yours - I don't know, she must've been sad when she realized your life was gonna be different then hers. She must've been scared when she realized she wasn't gonna be able to protect you, and that you were gonna deal with things she never did. — Emily Henry

Is she the only one at fault? For though she's spoiled, and dreadfully so, A girl can't spoil herself, you know. Who spoiled her, then? Ah, who indeed? Who pandered to her every need? Who turned her into such a brat? Who are the culprits? Who did that? Alas! You needn't look so far To find out who these sinners are. They are (and this is very sad) Her loving parents, MUM and DAD. And that is why we're glad they fell Into the garbage chute as well. — Roald Dahl

My lowest self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk!"
My slightly higher self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk right now only because he's going through a really hard time in life, and his parents never taught him how to behave better, and he might have some sort of mild mental illness, and also he has a drinking problem ... so I should try to be more compassionate and generous toward sad, tragic, miserable people like that."
My even higher self says: "We are all just flawed and frightened human beings in an uncertain world, struggling to survive."
Then finally my VERY highest self says: "Lord, please help me stop acting like a total jerk."
... and that's when it finally stops being about the other person at all. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I wait for him to do what everyone else did after my parents died. Spout of some conventional words of sympathy like, I'm so sorry. How awful. You poor thing. Terribly sad...and then run. People always do. Nobody knows what to say after the initial words of supposed comfort. Death and grief make everyone around you vanish because death and grief are intolerable. — Jessica Park

Perhaps it's time you stopped sulking over an engagement three years broken and bore yourself like a man!" The duke's voice snaps like a whip. "Zeus and Hera, how did I beget such an unruly son?"

"If you've forgotten, perhaps you could summon up the dead and ask my lady mother."

The duke barks a laugh. "You got that tongue from her, that's for certain. But she was obedient to me for all her carping."

"Obedient?" says Lord Anax. The desk creaks and shifts; I think he is leaning against it. "We must remember her very differently."

"Always when it counted, my boy, which is more than can be said of you. I wanted that girl for my daughter, you know."

"Adopt her, then. I believe it's legal."

"First I'd have to kill her parents," says the duke, "and I am given to understand that's frowned upon these days."

"It's gone the same sad way as the right of a father to execute his sons. — Rosamund Hodge

I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost. — Sharon Creech

peculiar, or sad, and yet still deserve a place within the circle of familial love. The parents would thus have created an invaluable wellspring of courage from which those children would eventually be able to draw to sustain the confessions and direct conversations of adult life. Rabih — Alain De Botton

My parents died a long time ago. And you know the sad thing? I still miss them every day. I spent my entire youth fighting with my dad over every little thing and damned if I wouldn't sell my soul to see him one more time and tell him I was sorry for the last words I said to him. Words I can never take back that should have never been said. So call your mom. No matter what kind of relationship you have with your parents, I swear to you, you'll miss them when they're gone. (Kyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

And like all the people who lost no one, the tourists, who go to New York to cry over the rubble. I want to tell them to go home and hold their children or their lovers or their parents. I want to tell them that they are using that place as an excuse to be sad and afraid when there will be reason enough for that in their own lives if they just wait. — Philip Beard

They would never have demanded he be like them; they hardly wanted to be themselves. — Hanya Yanagihara

I can't blame this all for my drinking -- I can't blame my parents or my childhood, and abusive uncle or some terrible tragedy. It's my fault. I was a drinker anyway -- I've always liked to drink. But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk, and there's nothing more boring than that. — Paula Hawkins

I tried to love Dad and not hate him for his fake cheer and the way he gets dressed. I tried to imagine what Mom saw in him back when she was an architect. I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who finds every little thing he does a total delight. It was sad, though, because the thought of him and all his accessories always made me sick. I wished I'd never made the connection about Dad being a gigantic girl, because once you realize something like that, it's hard to go back. — Maria Semple

Her gaze shifted away. "I don't remember my dreams anymore." It was like she was confessing a dirty secret. And maybe it was, because even though he hated the dreams, each time he had them, he was with his parents again. Hearing their laughter. Watching them live. But when he woke up they were really gone. — Caroline Hanson

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework? — Henry Louis Gates

And yes, you will die, but probably not until everyone you know is already dead too. Your parents, your friends, your pets, each death leaving a small but irreparable scar on your not yet still, still-beating heart. The living tell the dying not to leave and the dying do not listen. The dying tell us not to be sad for them and we do not listen. The dialogue between the living and the dead is full of misunderstanding and — Joseph Fink