Quotes & Sayings About Sons And Family

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, my parents, like the rest of America, were terrified. The Soviets had nuclear weapons and now were ahead of us in space. So my parents marched me and Owen into our living room, sat us down, and said, " You boys are going to study math and Science so we can beat the Soviets!"
I thought that was a lot of pressure to put on a six-year old. But own and I were obedient sons, so we studied math and science. And we were good at it.. Owen was the first in our family to go to college. He went to MIT, graduating with a degree in physics, and then became a photographer.
I went to Harvard, and became a comedian. My poor parents.
But we still beat the Soviets. You're welcome. — Al Franken

Picture the Bay of Bengal as an expanse of tropical water: still and blue in the calm of the January winter, or raging and turbid with silt at the peak of the summer rains. Picture it in two dimensions on a map, overlaid with a web of shipping channels and telegraph cables and inscribed with lines of distance. Now imagine the sea as a mental map: as a family tree of cousins, uncles, sisters, sons, connected by letters and journeys and stories. Think of it as a sea of debt, bound by advances and loans and obligations. Picture the Bay of Bengal even where it is absent - deep in the Malaysian jungle, where Hindu shrines sprout from the landscape as if washed up by the sea, left behind. — Sunil S. Amrith

I don't want her to either, which is exactly what I've been saying. Still, there's a part of me that hates that our family businesses- the very things that have kept Joy fed, clothed, and housed- are so embarrassing to her ... We raised our children to be Americans, but what we wanted were proper Chinese sons and daughters. — Lisa See

I'll find a day to massacre them all
And raze their faction and their family,
The cruel father and his traitorous sons,
To whom I sued for my dear son's life,
And make them know what 'tis to let a queen
Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain. — William Shakespeare

I suppose men, even myself, are perpetually boys. The sons of parents who provide the staples of what makes up a life - a home, an example of what it means to be human, however fucked up that may be. We are molded by impressions and an example, single days that stick out, and wounds that split us open and never close. We take on other people's pain and sometimes make them ours. — M. Spio

There are many, doubtless, who have not yet got farther in love than their own family; but there are others who have learned that for the true heart there is neither Frenchman nor Englishman, neither Jew nor Greek, neither white nor black - only the sons and daughters of God, only the brothers and sisters of the one elder brother. — George MacDonald

Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it. Some spoil them when they are young, and then quarrel with them when they are grown up, for having been spoiled; some love them like mothers, and attend only to the bodily health and strength of the hopes of their family, solemnize his birthday, and rejoice, like the subjects of the Great Mogul, at the increase of his bulk: while others, minding, as they think, only essentials, take pains and pleasure to see in their heir, all their favourite weaknesses and imperfections. — Lord Chesterfield

Does a soldier go to war in order to kill the enemy? no, he goes in order to die for his country.
Does a wife want to show her husband how happy she is? no, she wants him to see how she suffers in order to make him happy
Does the husband go to work thinking he will find personal fulfillment there? no, he is giving his sweat and tears for the good of the family
And so it goes on: sons give up their dreams to please their parents, parents give up their lives in order to please their children; pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that should bring only LOVE.. — Paulo Coelho

Daniel walked as tall and strong as Ian or Mac, even Hart. "They grow up so fast," Angelo said when he reacheed Cam.
Cameron glanced at him, thinking the man joking, but Angelo's dark eyes were serious.
"Chilhood is gone in the wink of an eye, and then they have to be men. You Anglos are strange, sending your sons out into the world as soon as they get tall enough. My family has been together forever."
"I notice you don't live with them, Angelo, so don't become sentimental. Besides my family is together. Just a bit spread out."
"Rich Anglos need too much space."
"That is true, but it keeps us from killing each other. — Jennifer Ashley

But you know how it is with fathers and sons. We can't say what we want to say. We think a nod is a paragraph and a sentence is a book, and, in the end, all that's important is left unspoken. — Peter Kirby

My brothers, family of our nation, secured Kuwait shall be, and secured you shall all be from every evil and long live Kuwait. And may you all live as her saviors, virtuous sons to her soil, and be her envoys. May she long live, may you long live adhering to her propitious principles, defending her kind and humanitarian lifespan, and her immaculate and tolerant Islamic faith. — Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah

This is for the kids who know that the worst kind of fear isn't the thing that makes you scream, but the one that steals your voice and keeps you silent. — Abby Norman

Chinese whisper games will start, where one woman will nod at a young dancing girl, asking a question that is passed down the row from one woman to another, before a response comes back up the line in the same manner. These women are in the business of finding wives for their sons and they offer up occasional commentary on the performance before them.
"Not so pretty. Her sister is better."
"That poor one will have a hard time, yes. The dark skin - she is already an old woman. She will have to wait, yes."
Information about the girl's family's honor, purity, and place in society is also exchanged — Jenny Nordberg

Curtis looked up into those sparkling green eyes, full of life, full of kindness, full of potential love, with just a hint of mischief. But that was going to make going out with Genesis so much fun. Curtis needed a lot more of that in his life. It'd been lacking for many years. He had his family now and hopefully a new man. He knew Genesis would be the perfect Southern gentleman until he turned eighteen, but that was okay. It was more than okay. He may be a superstar athlete, but he was raised by a good Christian mom who'd taught her sons well. Curtis was going to do everything he could to be a good match for Genesis Godfrey. "You're — A.E. Via

Neither father nor son moved, but stayed face to face for hours and hours, neither looking away nor surrendering, until the sun finished its daily pilgrimage, for no day is so long that it is not ended by nightfall. — Rabih Alameddine

My story - the story of the son of Jainulabdeen, who lived for over a hundred years on Mosque Street in Rameswaram island and died there; the story of a lad who sold newspapers to help his brother; the story of a pupil reared by Sivasubramania Iyer and Iyadurai Solomon; the story of a student taught by teachers like Pandalai; the story of an engineer spotted by MGK Menon and groomed by the legendary Prof. Sarabhai; the story of a scientist tested by failures and setbacks; the story of a leader supported by a large team of brilliant and dedicated professionals. This story will end with me, for I have no belongings in the worldly sense. I have acquired nothing, built nothing, possess nothing - no family, sons, daughters. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I've got to go." He hung up suddenly as if afraid of being caught. His mom had probably come into the room. The Zeemans had four sons and a daughter. The sons were all six feet or above. The daughter was five nine. They were all over twenty-one. And they were all scared of their mother. Not literally scared, but Charlotte Zeeman wore the pants in the family. One family dinner and I knew that. I — Laurell K. Hamilton

Parents often ask - how do I get my child interested in books and reading?

One tried and true way that my late husband and I used was paying them to read. For each book that my sons read, we paid them $1. They soon developed a love for reading and forgot all about the money. Amazing but true! — Soraya Diase Coffelt

A father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn't as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them. — Philip Roth

Long periods of peace and quiet favor certain optical illusions. Among them is the assumption that the invulnerability of the home is founded upon the constitution and safeguarded by it. In reality, it rests upon the father of the family who, accompanied by his sons, appears with the ax on the threshold of his dwelling. — Ernst Junger

Ewan was maladroit when it came to anything practical or mechanical. Still, he learned how to crank the car to start it, then hustle back to the driver's seat very quickly to keep the motor from dying. His family grew accustomed to lurches when he tried to get the car moving forward without killing the motor. Like many other drivers at that time, he had trouble remembering that the car was not a horse, and if he needed to stop quickly, his first impulse was always to yank backwards on the steering wheel, as if he were holding the horse's reins, and yell "Whoa! Whoa!" Some found this endearing, others found it funny, but his young sons found it very embarrassing. — Mary Henley Rubio

Look, you are my father and I love you. I will always love you. But that love is not an all or nothing proposition. Brianna is my wife. Will and Gianni are my sons. You are all my family, but if you push me, Father, if you force me to choose between you and them you will not like the choice I make. You are never to treat William the way you did today, ever. Am I making myself clear?" "Is that a threat, Alessandro?" Bernardo asked, his voice cold. Bree felt her body stiffen with nervous tension. Her heart was racing, both with nervousness and joy that Alessandro was
drawing a line in the sand with his father and that he was sticking up for them over Bernardo. "Remember, Father, you raised me. You raised me to be a Dardano. That's who I am and I'm sure you know exactly what that means. — E. Jamie

This father, indeed, is what the various fathers of the biblical story - from Noah to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to David - never quite managed to be with their own families. He does what they rarely managed to do with their own power: use it for ever-increasing abundance and blessing. He is an icon of the true image. Indeed, in the holy hilarity of his greeting, the lavishness of his feast, and the eagerness of his pleading, we glimpse not just an image bearer but the very One "from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name" (Ephesians 3:15), whose image is meant to be refracted in his sons and daughters. Like him, we are meant to pour out our power fearlessly, spend our privilege recklessly, and leave our status in the dust of our headlong pursuit of love. — Andy Crouch

I love my family, they love me. And my little brothers, they're like my sons. I raised them. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

Zane sighed. Jovan and Mother were just the same. "Maybe later" meant no. — C.J. Milbrandt

Duryodhan had no idea why he and his brothers were called the Kauravas. The name of Pandavas for the sons of Pandu, was suitable enough. But why should they be called the Kauravas? The name had stemmed from the fact that they were descendants of King Kuru. But so were the Pandavas! Anyway, it was not up to him to decide what their family name would be. He was proud to bear the name of Kaurava. That was good enough for him. — Sayantan Gupta

Although I never married, my brother fortunately did, and I have had the pleasure of watching his three sons and daughter grow up. Several of them now have children of their own. We have been a close-knit family, although often separated by distance, and have shared each other's happiness, sorrows, and aspirations. — Gertrude B. Elion

I love 'Modern Family; I think that is a great show. I don't get to watch tons of TV, but when I do, 'Sons of Anarchy' is pretty much the number one, and 'Modern Family' is one of my favorites. — Ashley Tisdale

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.
As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and is not yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, had in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God, the eternal Father.
I was one of them, they were of me, and in me, and I in all of them. — Richard Llewellyn

And we're also remembering the guiding light of our Judeo-Christian tradition. All of us here today are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sons and daughters of the same God. I believe we are bound by faith in our God, by our love for family and neighborhood, by our deep desire for a more peaceful world, and by our commitment to protect the freedom which is our legacy as Americans. These values have given a renewed sense of worth to our lives. They are infusing America with confidence and optimism that many thought we had lost ... — Ronald Reagan

Trouble was, they never let on to their sons how scared they was - so scared they forgot the color of a man because he could outshoot the man who scared 'em. And bein ashamed, they never talked about it or discussed it in the family. — Peter Matthiessen

There are many things for which I owe gratitude to my dad. Most of all, I am grateful to the only man who could love my mother more than me. — Ron Mayes

I think my family, especially having three teenage sons, keeps my cooking at home grounded and very approachable. I'm definitely not making spumas in my kitchen, that's for sure! — Rick Tramonto

Let your boys test their wings. They may not be eagles, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't soar free. — C.J. Milbrandt

Remember these, Sons! Truth presented with tenderness enriches the soul of man and enhances humanity in the process. A Franco-Cameroonian relation based on truth and nurtured with tenderness will be to the benefit not only of Kamerun and France, but also of mankind as a whole. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are capable of so much more. For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do. Even more important, we must become what Heavenly Father wants us to be.
Declaring our testimony of the gospel is good, but being a living example of the restored gospel is better. Wishing to be more faithful to our covenants is good; actually being faithful to sacred covenants - including living a virtuous life, paying our tithes and offerings, keeping the Word of Wisdom, and serving those in need - is much better. Announcing that we will dedicate more time for family prayer, scripture study, and wholesome family activities is good; but actually doing all these things steadily will bring heavenly blessings to our lives. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Xavier, you have given me more grey hairs than all my sons put together.' Saul frowned, then corrected himself. 'To be fair, you and Zed. Just try not to add to them tonight. — Joss Stirling

And she understood. She would have done the same. She understood, too, why she'd been wrong to offer Ballyhara as a substitute for land he'd farmed all his life. It made all his work meaningless, and the work of his sons, his brothers, his father, his father's father. — Alexandra Ripley

My parents allowed their two sons to be individuals. My family was a wild and wonderful place, with lots of friends and neighbors visiting and talking loud and eating loud and nobody telling the children to be quiet or putting them down. — John Cassavetes

Take up citizenship and the conversion it entailed, send a couple of your sons to the levy when they were of age, pay taxes calculated not to drive you and your family into penury or the mountains and the life of a bandit. Oh, and while you're at it, steer clear of debt and disease. Chances were - mostly - if you did all that, you'd never starve, never have your home burned down and your children raped before your eyes, never have to wear a slave collar. — Richard K. Morgan

A family from Mexico who arrived here this morning, legally, has as much right to the American dream as the direct descendants of the founding fathers ... when the blood of the sons of immigrants and the grandsons of slaves fell on foreign fields, it was American blood. In it you could not read the ethnic particulars of the soldier who died next to you. He was an American. And when I think of how we learned this lesson, I wonder [how] we could have unlearned it. — Bob Dole

Work together as a family, even if it may be faster and easier to do the job ourselves. Talk with our sons and daughters as we work together. — Robert D. Hales

We should expect nothing less from the language that was originally given by God, to His human family. Hebrew was the method that God chose for mankind to speak to Him, and Him to them. Adam spoke Hebrew - and your Bible confirms this. Everyone who got off the ark spoke one language - Hebrew.
Even Abraham spoke Hebrew. Where did Abraham learn to speak Hebrew? Abraham was descended from Noah's son, Shem. (Ge 11:10-26) Shem's household was not affected by the later confusion of languages, at Babel. (Ge 11:5-9) To the contrary, Shem was blessed while the rest of Babel was cursed. (Ge 9:26) That is how Abraham retained Hebrew, despite residing in Babylon.
So, Shem's language can be traced back to Adam. (Ge 11:1) And, Shem (Noah's son) was still alive when Jacob and Esau was 30 years of age. Obviously, Hebrew (the original language) was clearly spoken by Jacob's sons. (Ge 14:13) — Michael Ben Zehabe

Ever boy deserves a father. — Jonathan Hickman

I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father. — Arthur Miller

I know I grew up in the time when a young man in a baggy suit and slicked-down hair stood spraddle-legged in the crossroads of history and talked hot and mean about the colored, giving my poor and desperate people a reason to feel superior to somebody, to anybody. I know that even as the words of George Wallace rang through my Alabama, the black family who lived down the dirt road from our house sent fresh-picked corn and other food to the poor white lady and her three sons, because they knew their daddy had run off, because hungry does not have a color. — Rick Bragg

You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and bitter presence, but you're still stuck with the son of a bitch. One way or another he'll always be your daddy, not even all-powerful death was going to change that. — Ben Fountain

It is only in proportion as the Christian manifests the fruit of a genuine conversion that he is entitled to regard himself and be regarded by others as one of the called and elect of God. It is just in proportion as we add to our faith the other Christian graces that we have solid ground on which to rest in the assurance we belong to the family of Christ. It is not those who are governed by self-will, but "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom. 8:14). — Arthur W. Pink

He turns to the painting. "I fear Mark was right."
"Who is Mark?"
"A silly little boy who runs after George Boleyn. I once heard him say I looked like a murderer."
Gregory says, "Did you not know? — Hilary Mantel

My brothers' faces haunt me. I hear their children, my nieces and nephews, asking me why I came home without their daddies. I think of their wives, imagine their questions. Our parents, forever seeing the faces of their lost sons when they look at me. They will want answers, demand to know how I survived. And what do I tell them? That I huddled like a baby inside my tent while their killer beckoned me forth for one last stand? — Kevin Wallis

From China and India to Turkey and Brazil, when women have gotten access to education, to family planning and to a vital place in the economy, greater prosperity has followed. And when women are free to speak and learn, they temper the extremes of ideology and fanaticism and raise sons who are less likely to become human bombs. — David Horsey

My fight isn't so simple, it has very deep roots, from long ago, from earlier generations. Life weighs on me with the weight of my family history, my genes drag along a race of sons of plenty and sons of bitches who with a blade of a machete cleared the pathways of life. They're still doing it. They ate with the machete, they worked, they shaved, killed, and settled differences with their wives with machete. Today the machete is a shotgun, a nine-millimeter, a chopper. The weapon has changed but not its use. The story has changed, too, has become terrifying. Once proud, we are now ashamed, without understanding how, why, and when it all happened. We don't know how long our history is, but we can feel its weight. — Jorge Franco

I taught my sons to be men. I don't care who they love. I care about how they act. The moment they stop having manners or treat someone poorly, then we'll have words. Other than that, I only want them to be happy, and if you make Kane happy, then all I have to say to ye is welcome to the family. — Rhys Ford

You see, Noah got drunk this one time on the Ark, and he was a-layin on his bed, naked as a jaybird. Two of his sons wouldn't look at him, they just turned the other way and put a blanket over him. I don't know, it might've been a sheet. But Ham - he was the coon of the family - looked on his father in his nakedness, and God cursed him and all his race to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. So there it is. That's what's behind it. Genesis, chapter nine. You go on and look it up, Mr. Amberson. — Stephen King

Women were important and respected in Iroquois society. Families were matrilineal. That is, the family line went down through the female members, whose husbands joined the family, while sons who married then joined their wives' families. Each extended family lived in a "long house." When a woman wanted a divorce, she set her husband's things outside the door. — Howard Zinn

... the traditional family structure that More supported in her writings enabled women to 'be intelligent, rational, virtuous, and noble creatures, capable of great intellectual and moral achievements. They had the potential for immense influence on their husbands and sons, on their relations, their servants, and the poor.' More held, therefore, ... 'the ideal of rational domesticity helped to liberate the individual within a supportive family framework. — Karen Swallow Prior

Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again. — Jane Austen

For the sake of the sons - and even for the son's future wives - a woman must keep a part of her mind and heart entirely for herself. Every family is better off with a wife and mother who can astonish and occasionally dewilder. — Pam Brown

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters. — Ambrose Bierce

And though I had misgiving--obvious ones, too--one overwhelming thing drove me on: on the borderlands, my father would need me as much as I'd need him. That's what made me so blindly ready to go off with him. What boy doesn't wait his whole childhood to walk alongside his father on equal terms? — Peter Geye

She who can paint a masterpiece or write a book that will influence millions deserves the plaudits and admiration of mankind. But she who would willingly and anxiously rear successfully a family of beautiful healthy sons and daughters whose lives reflect the teachings of the gospel, deserves the highest honors that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God. In fact, in her high duty and service to humanity, endowing with mortality eternal spirits, she is a co-partner with the Great Creator Himself. — David O. McKay

Am I alone in this mother-food connection or does being with your mom trigger the sudden and voracious need for large amounts of mac & cheese, rice pudding, and the scraps along the side of a bowl of cookie dough? — April Paine

Those who progress are those who understand that God's highest purpose for the Cross was not merely to forgive us of sin. It was so that, by forgiving us on the basis of Christ's blood, He could invite us back into an intimate family relationship with Him, our heavenly Father. John 1:12 says, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name."This legal standing of relationship to God as His sons and daughters is precisely what gives us an inheritance. — Bill Johnson

That is not a crack house. It is a house with a family with a father and a mother and three sons and a daughter. — Rob Ford

The Death Eaters were waiting for us," Harry told her. "We were surrounded the moment we took off - they knew it was tonight - I don't know what happened to anyone else, four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort caught up with us - "
He could hear the self-justifying note in his voice, the plea for her to understand why he did not know what had happened to her sons, but
"Thank goodness you're all right," she said, pulling him into a hug he did not feel he deserved.
"Haven't go' any brandy, have yeh, Molly?" asked Hagrid a little shakily. "Fer medicinal purposes?"
She could have summoned it by magic, but as she hurried back toward the crooked house, Harry knew that she wanted to hide her face. — J.K. Rowling

Isaac's son Jacob has a daughter, Dinah. Dinah is kidnapped and raped - apparently a customary form of courtship at the time, since the rapist's family then offers to purchase her from her own family as a wife for the rapist. Dinah's brothers explain that an important moral principle stands in the way of this transaction: the rapist is uncircumcised. So they make a counteroffer: if all the men in the rapist's hometown cut off their foreskins, Dinah will be theirs. While the men are incapacitated with bleeding penises, the brothers invade the city, plunder and destroy it, massacre the men, and carry off the women and children. When Jacob worries that neighboring tribes may attack them in revenge, his sons explain that it was worth the risk: "Should our sister be treated like a whore?" 13 Soon afterward they reiterate their commitment to family values by selling their brother Joseph into slavery. — Steven Pinker

We wander in our thousands over the
face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the
seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me
that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.
We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends
those whom we
obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most
free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,
even those for whom
home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,
even they have to meet the
spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its
valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees
a
mute friend, judge, and inspirer. — Joseph Conrad

Losing this part of my life, this time of being a mother to growing children, is indeed an ending. For months, I've carried that quiet sorrow, getting used to its heaviness, the way one learns to live with the chronic soreness of a joint, a tenderness in wrist or knee. What I long to do now is to let the sadness go as well, to have faith that even as my sons graduate from high school and leave home, and this phase of our family life draws to a close, there will be new beginnings not just for them, but for all of us. — Katrina Kenison

I'm a family guy. Most important thing in my life by far is my relationship with my wife and my sons, daughters-in-law, and 18 grandchildren. And for me, this is all about them. — Mitt Romney

What stunned me was the regular assertion that feminists were "anti-family." ... It was motherhood that got me into the movementin the first place. I became an activist after recognizing how excruciatingly personal the political was to me and my sons. It was the women's movement that put self-esteem back into "just a housewife," rescuing our intelligence from the junk pile of "instinct" and making it human, deliberate, powerful. — Mary Blakely

I tried to teach them [his sons] that about the importance of self-discipline, and that the culture of yes is built on a foundation of no. — Bill Walton

When the greatness of Tao is present action arises from one's own heart When the greatness of Tao is absent action comes from the rules of "kindness" and "justice" If you need rules to be kind and just, if you act virtuous, this is a sure sign that virtue is absent Thus we see the great hypocrisy Only when the family loses its harmony do we hear of "dutiful sons" Only when the state is in chaos do we hear of "loyal ministers — Lao-Tzu

I could only relate [to the family] that I, the father of three sons, could hardly imagine what it would be to lose one, far less three of my boys, in such a cruel and senseless manner. — William Walker

Go on daddy-daughter dates and father-and-sons' outings with your children. As a family, go on campouts and picnics, to ball games and recitals, to school programs, and so forth. Having Dad there makes all the difference. — Ezra Taft Benson

I? I am the wind,' said Thowra. 'I come, I pass, and I am gone.' The strange feathers moved up and down, the strange voice said tartly: 'And are your sons the same?' 'My son is the lightning that strikes through the black night. My grandson is light that pierces the dark sky at dawning.' 'Ah,' said the first emu, 'and we know your daughter is the snow that falls softly from above and clothes the world in white. You want but the rainbow - that is and was and never will be, and is yet the promise of life - and the glittering ice which is there and is gone: then you and your family will possess all magic. — Elyne Mitchell

When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run ... — Russell D. Moore

Apparently, it was common for children to participate in the Civil War, and thus, lots of fathers had brought their sons along for a fun family weekend of simulated violence and bloodshed. — Stuart Gibbs

My mother was the perfect Spartan mother. I have always been able to imagine her telling her sons to return from battle 'with their shields, or on them'. She did actually try it on my father at the start of the Second World War. He didn't take it kindly, and confided to me ruefully that he thought she rather fancied herself a Hero's Widow. — Rosemary Sutcliff

It was to Noah that God gave instructions to make an ark in which he was to be rescued from the devastation of the Flood, together with his family, that is, his wife, his sons and daughters-in-law, and also the animals that went into the ark in accordance with God's directions. Without doubt this is a symbol of the City of God on pilgrimage in this world, of the Church which is saved through the wood on which was suspended 'the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus'. — Augustine Of Hippo

An unmentored daughter is an unnurtured daughter, unnurtured in the strength she needs to Survive as an original woman in this world. Daughters, as compared to sons in a hetero-relational family, are more undernurtured in all ways by mothers and pressured prematurely to become nurturers of others - mostly of men. What also happens in this context, as Denice Yanni has pointed out, is "a silencing of woman's own needs for nurturing by making her the primary nurturer. — Janice G. Raymond

the harsh truth of every relationship, even between those who love each other, like fathers and sons and daughters, or husbands and wives, is that the love is always unequal. — Karl Taro Greenfeld

We are all the spirit sons and daughters of a loving God who is our Father. We are part of His family. He is not a father in some allegorical or poetic sense. He is literally the Father of our spirits. He cares for each one of us. Though this world has a way of diminishing and demeaning men and women, the reality is we are all of royal, divine lineage. In that unprecedented appearance of the Father and the Son in the Sacred Grove, the very first word spoken by the Father of us all was the personal name of Joseph. Such is our Father's personal relationship with each of us. He knows our names and yearns for us to become worthy to return to live with Him. — M. Russell Ballard

A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him. Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after one, to pick up the bundle and break it. They all tried, but in vain. Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease. Then said the father, "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone". — Aesop

There was something about the people you grew up around, the ones you'd seen throughout your childhood, the folks you couldn't remember not knowing. Even if the past was a complicated mess, as you aged, you were just glad the sons of bitches were still on the planet.
It gave you the illusion that life wasn't as fragile as it actually was
and on occasion, that was the only thing that got you through the night. — J.R. Ward

The house of the Plantagenets, from Henry II to Richard III himself, was brimming with blood. In their lust for power the members of the family turned upon one another. King John murdered, or caused to be murdered, his nephew Arthur; Richard II despatched his uncle, Thomas of Gloucester; Richard II was in turn killed on the orders of his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke; Henry VI was killed in the Tower on the orders of his cousin, Edward IV; Edward IV murdered his brother, Clarence, just as his own two sons were murdered by their uncle. It is hard to imagine a family more steeped in slaughter and revenge, of which the Wars of the Roses were only one effusion. It might be thought that some curse had been laid upon the house of the Plantagenets, except of course that in the world of kings the palm of victory always goes to the most violent and the most ruthless. It could be said that the royal family was the begetter of organized crime. — Peter Ackroyd

It seems to me, that you people spend a great deal of time talking about honour, but strip away the high sounding words and you are no different from any other race. Family? Has Priam not killed wayward sons? When a king dies do his sons not go to war with one another to succeed him? Men speak of how you reacted to your father's death. They say it was amazing, for you did not order your little brother's execution. Your race thrives on blood and death, Helikaon. Your ships raid the coasts of other nations, stealing slaves, burning and plundering. Warriors brag of how many men they have killed, and women they have raped. Almost all of your kings either seized their thrones with swords and murder, or are children of men who seized power with swords and murder. So put all this talk of honour to one side. — David Gemmell

There once lived a family that had three sons. The oldest one was called Ram, the middle one Goat, and the youngest brother was named Phillip. — Ace G. Pilkington

It's promising and seductive, that huge Italian family, sitting around the dinner table, surrounded by olive trees. But it's not my family and I am not their family, and no amount of birthing sons, and cooking dinner and raking leaves or planting the gardens or paying for the plane tickets is going to change that. If I don't come back in eleven months, I will not be missed, and no one will write me or call me to acknowledge my absence. Which is not an accusation, just a small truth about clan and bloodline. — Gabrielle Hamilton

I had been living in Ohio in my own house with my own life when my marriage abruptly came to an end. I had nowhere to go with my two sons, very little money, and not much to do in Ohio except be someone's ex-wife. My parents instantly and very generously invited my family to move back home to New York, where I could begin again. — Isabel Gillies

Once I said to my father, 'Why do you want me?'
I still think that's the bravest thing I've ever done. — China Mieville

There is more to a boy than what his mother sees. There is more to a boy then what his father dreams. Inside every boy lies a heart that beats. And sometimes it screams, refusing to take defeat. And sometimes his father's dreams aren't big enough, and sometimes his mother's vision isn't long enough. And sometimes the boy has to dream his own dreams and break through the clouds with his own sunbeams. — Ben Behunin

I had been granted unusual freedom and responsibility at an early age, for which I should have been grateful in the extreme, but I wasn't. Instead, I felt oppressed by the old man's expectations. It was drilled into me that anything less than winning was failure. In the impressionable way of sons, I did not consider this rhetorically; I took him at his word. And that's why later, when long-held family secrets came to light, when I noticed that this deity who asked only for perfection was himself less than perfect, that he was in fact not a deity at all - well, I wasn't able to shrug it off. I was consumed instead by a blinding rage. The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive. Two — Jon Krakauer

The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserve the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will exert influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God. — David O. McKay

We're travelling through space and time, we're dealing with gods and monsters, but at the heart of the film, from my perspective, is a family - a father, two sons, two brothers, a mother and the fractious, intimate interaction that they have. — Tom Hiddleston

The Song of Songs, the book of Ruth, and the cycle of stories associated with King David demonstrate that biblical perspectives on sexual desire and family ties remain much more complicated than is often thought. The appropriate expression of desire is not limited to marriage between a man and a woman, but can include the love of a son of a king for his charismatic ally, the love of rabbis and theologians for God, their "husband," and the love of a faithful Moabite for her Israelite mother-in-law. The nuclear family is also not idealized: Naomi, Ruth, and Obed are a family, bound together by their common love for one another, and, in the Song of Songs, the woman's mother supports her daughter's premarital encounters over the objections of her sons, who seek to control their sister's sexuality and are overruled. King David never even bothers to pursue marriage as commonly envisioned today. His — Jennifer Wright Knust

It's going to become clear that the impact of our policies rather than our way of life is what's attracting animosity and warfare on us. And I think there is going to be a surge from the bottom up that will begin to straighten things out. Because Americans, in the long run, are not going to want their daughters and their sons to die overseas so the al Saud family can continue raping Saudi Arabia's revenue. — Michael Scheuer

The Sons of the Serpent - they want you angry. At the world. They need us all to feel like victims. And it's an easy get, because times suck. Every day is a battle. We all feel like we're on the wrong end of the wrecking ball. We feel at the mercy of forces beyond our control, and that makes us scared. And that's rocket fuel for S.O.B.'s like the Serpents. They prey on us when we're frightened. They tell us our enemies are the immigrants down the street, or the food stamp family next door. They encourage us to turn our fear into rage, and we fall for it because it's 'empowering.' Except it's not. We don't become 'empowered.' We become weaponized. — Mark Waid

Diana's great-grandmother Frances Work, or Fanny, as she was known to her family, was an American, and perhaps that is why the Princess always felt such a great affinity for the land across the Atlantic. Fanny's father began his career as a clerk in Ohio and ended up making millions as a financial whiz in Manhattan. A great patriot, he promised to disinherit any of his offspring who married Europeans. But Fanny, like Diana a strong-willed woman, crossed the Atlantic and married British aristocrat James Boothby Burke Roche, who became the third Baron Fermoy. When the marriage broke up, she returned to New York with twin sons and a daughter, and her indulgent father forgave her. — Jayne Fincher

'And it means naught to you to obey your father's orders? Where is your fealty?'
Christian felt his face flush with a surge of bitter rage. 'I keep faith with those who have kept faith with me.'
William shook his head in disbelief. 'God save me from ever having sons like you.'
'I would wish it on no man,' Christian said sincerely. — Eli Easton

We have to recognize that we're nothing, the Pastor says. In the surface world, when they returned from the mine and showered and entered their homes, they were princes, kings, spoiled sons, well-fed fathers, Romeos. They believed their private worlds of home and family spun thanks to their labor, and that as workingmen and breadwinners they had every right to expect their world to revolve around their needs. Now the heart of the mountain has collapsed on top of them, and they are trapped by a block of stone, an object whose newness and perfection suggest, to some, a divine judgment. — Hector Tobar