The Meaning Of Family Quotes & Sayings

Everyone knew in the 1950s why a girl from a nice family left home. The meaning of her theft of herself from her parents was clear to all - as well as what she'd be up to in that room of her own. — Joyce Johnson

Forever. To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find continuity and meaning in American (or any) society. I rediscover this truth every time I go to a big reunion of my mother's family in Minnesota and I see how everyone is held so reassuringly in their positions over the years. First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparent - at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children, or teenagers, or young parents, or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the ninety-year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Christians can no longer refer to 'our troops' or 'our history' because of their new identity. Fabricated boundaries and walls are removed for the Christian. One's neighbor is not only from Chicago but also from Baghdad. One's brother or sister in the church could be from Iran or California
no difference! Our family is transnational and borderless; we are in Iraq, and we are in Palestine. And if we are indeed to become born again, we will have to begin talking like it, changing the meaning of we, us, my, and our. — Shane Claiborne

On July 3, 1968, Chairman Mao issued an order calling for the ruthless suppression of class enemies. He wanted all members of the Five Black Categories to be eliminated, together with TWENTY THREE NEW TYPES of enemy , which included anyone who had ever served as a policeman before the Liberation, or who had been sent to prison or labor camp. And not only them but their family and distant relatives as well.
That's a lot of people.
Yes. Just think, the literal meaning of the Chinese characters for "revolution" is "elimination of life — Ma Jian

The idols of modern culture have had a profound influence on the shape of our work today. In traditional societies people found their meaning and sense of value by submitting their interests and sacrificing their desires to serve higher causes like God, family, and other people. In modern societies there is often no higher cause than individual interests and desires. This shift powerfully changed the role of work in people's lives - it now became the way we defined ourselves. Traditional cultures tended to see people's place on the social ladder as assigned by nature or convention, each family having its "proper place." That view had put too little stock in the role of individual talent, ambition, and hard work for determining the outcome of one's life. But modern society responded by putting too much stock in the autonomous person. — Timothy Keller

Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions.
Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family. — Leo Tolstoy

Zooey was in dreamy top form. The announcer had them off on the subject of housing developments, and the little Burke girl said she hated houses that all look alike-meaning a long row of identical 'development' houses. Zooey said they were 'nice.' He said it would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody goodbye in the morning thinking they were your own family. He said he even wished everybody in the world looked exactly alike. He said you'd keep thinking everybody you met was your wife or your mother or father, and people would always be throwing their arms around each other wherever they went, and it would look 'very nice. — J.D. Salinger

These are my friends, my family. It would be hell on earth to spend the rest of my life leading them into situations where some of them are going to get killed ... but it would be worse watching someone well-meaning but incompetent or untrained double those deaths. — Mercedes Lackey

Traditional society was more like a set of concentric circles of meaningful structures, while modern man must learn how to find meaning in many structures to which he is only marginally related. In the village, language and architecture and religion and work and family customs were consistent with one another, mutually explanatory and reinforcing. To grow into one implied a growth into others. — Ivan Illich

Convention serves a purpose: It gives life meaning, and without it, one is in a constant existential crisis. If you don't have the imposition of family to remind you of what is at stake, something else will. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Telling our personal story constitutes an act of consciousness that defines the ethical lining of a person's constitution. Recounting personal stories promotes personal growth, spurs the performance of selfless deeds, and in doing so enhances the ability of the equitable eye of humanity to scroll rearward and forward. Every person must become familiar with our communal history of struggle, loss, redemption, and meaningfully contemplate the meaning behind our personal existence in order to draft a proper and prosperous future for succeeding generations. Accordingly, every person is responsible for sharing their story using the language of thought that best expresses their sanguine reminiscences. Without a record of pastimes, we will never know what were, what we now are, or what we might become by steadfastly and honorably struggling with mortal chores. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I've said about a million times that the best thing a young photographer can do is to stay close to home. Start with your friends and family, the people who will put up with you. Discover what it means to be close to your work, to be intimate with a subject. Measure the difference between that and working with someone you don't know as much about. Of course there are many good photographs that have nothing to do with staying close to home, and I guess what I'm really saying is that you should take pictures of something that has meaning for you — Annie Leibovitz

I've been out here pondering the meaning of life." "That bad, huh?" "Not so bad. They're good kids. Just drifting out into their own orbits already. It's natural, it's right. Though I guess I have this image ... I don't know ... " "Of some perfect, endless family life?" she said. "All happiness and McDonald's commercials?" "No McDonald's, but, yeah, I guess so. Something that doesn't just dissolve in a burst of cell phones and grumpiness, then whoosh away into biannual visits." "You're — Roland Merullo

The historical truth is a fiction. OK, I did whatever I could to find out what happened from
surviving friends, family and media, but that is simply a skeleton upon which the story is draped.
This is the unmasking of the myth, and, as Jean Cocteau put it: "Man seeks to escape himself
in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw
into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort."
I wanted to go beyond a recreation of the past to discover meaning in the degradation of my
addiction experience. The past is another country and not my prime interest. It's more what
the past can tell us about how we deal with the present moment.
- William Pryor — William Pryor

The pleasures of living is loving! — Anthony Liccione

Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends. — Margaret Thatcher

As a young man I started searching for my own identity by looking into family, friends and inside

Myself. My mother always taught us to live free even when confined, meaning "never let anyone break you down physically or mentally." Since my living environment was so heavily impacted with violence and illegal activity I found myself adapting to social norms that later in my adult life would negatively affect me. For example, certain physical reactions that were acceptable, as a child would give you a reputation on the street as tough guy, don't mess with him. The same mentality later in life, as a man would label you as a predator of some sort and a woman abuser. It was hard to understand the true value of a man and all his worth and everything he is capable of achieving, when you're surrounded by pimps, hustlers and con men that all may make more money than the men with trade jobs and have more of an appealing lifestyle for the short- term progress. — Rubin Scott

We wait too long to tell the people we love that they are the very reason that we exist. We assume that our wife, child, other family members, and friends understand our love and affection. We assume that people we care about understand our enigmatic idiosyncrasies and willingly accept the shrouded reasons behind our demonstrable oddities. We assume that other people sense that we struggle valiantly in our blackened landscape. We presume that other people comprehend our struggle to glean meaning amongst the ashes spewed from the absurd circumstances that we operate. Sometimes we need to stop and tell the tenderhearted persons whom we care about that we love them and explain that our awkward strangeness is not a rejection of them. — Kilroy J. Oldster

And a noble life is one ordered by, and oriented to, a transcendent moral code, not just one's own concept of existence and meaning and truth ... if we want a society that reveres life, that defends the family, and that discourages delinquency and promotes decency, we cannot force a privatization of religion; we must allow the truth-claims of religious faith to be uttered aloud in the public square. — Rick Santorum

Love for family and friends, great as it may be, is much more profound when anchored in the love of Jesus Christ. Parental love for children has more meaning here and hereafter because of Him. All loving relationships are elevated in Him. Love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ provides the illumination, inspiration, and motivation to love others in a loftier way. — Russell M. Nelson

1924 A revival meeting seems never to get under my skin. Perhaps I am too fish-blooded to enjoy them. But I object not so much to the emotionalism as to the lack of intellectual honesty of the average revival preacher. I do not mean to imply that the evangelists are necessarily consciously dishonest. They just don't know enough about life and history to present the problem of the Christian life in its full meaning. They are always assuming that nothing but an emotional commitment to Christ is needed to save the soul from its sin and chaos. They seem never to realize how many of the miseries of mankind are due not to malice but to misdirected zeal and unbalanced virtue. They never help the people who corrupt family love by making the family a selfish unit in society or those who brutalize industry by excessive devotion to the prudential virtues. — Reinhold Niebuhr

One of the greatest gifts that God gives to each of us is the love we share with our family, friends, and fellowmen. It is this divine gift of love that enriches us, gives meaning and purpose to life, and makes it all worth living. Everything else in life is secondary. Everything. And when our time here on earth is over, our lives will not be measured by the riches we accumulate, the honors we receive, the degrees we acquire, or the professional success we achieve, but by our capacity to love and be loved. — Mike Ramsdell

We grew to know the meaning of love. That is what allowed me and my family to stay close together. — Martin Lawrence

The nuclear family must be destroyed ... Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process. — Linda Gordon

Would you?" said Gabriel to Will, hotly. "If it was your family?" His lip curled. "Never mind. It's not as if you know the meaning of loyalty - "
"Gabriel." Gideon's voice was a reprimand to his brother. "Do not speak to Will in that manner. — Cassandra Clare

i can kill my literary agent's entire family
just kidding
some of you just thought, 'it's wrong to kill the wife and the children'
but really i'm kidding
even though i shouldn't be
since it's probably philosophically sound to kill people
because life is suffering and suffering is the only real evil
and if you want to have meaning then that's pretty much all you get
to make it your goal to wake up and kill people
not just select kinds of people, like hitler did, but all people, like the universe did in the future — Tao Lin

What's to rationalize? You mean you shouldn't pray if you haven't got your s
t together? This is another fairly common misconception of faith, which is that people who go to church, or people who pray, or people who talk about their religion must be, somehow more pious or ethically rigorous or have more morally cleansed lifestyle. The high correlation is supposed to be between faith and your search, the depth of your search, your willingness to try, your willingness to admit error, your hope and belief in the ultimate meaning and value of that search.' - Timothy Shriver — J. Randy Taraborrelli

Doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized. It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in nature, by building an edifice that reflects human value: a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations. The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count. — Ernest Becker

Perhaps fate has a way of turning things around and making something good out of the action of someone who failed humanity without meaning to. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Our eulogies are always about the other stuff: what we gave, how we connected, how much we meant to our family and friends, small kindnesses, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh. So why do we spend so much of our limited time on this earth focusing on all the things our eulogy will never cover? — Arianna Huffington

The disciple of Jesus gives up all he has, all his goods, because he has found in him the greatest Good from which every other good receives its full value and meaning: family bonds, other relationships, work, cultural and economic goods and so on ... The Christian detaches himself from everything and rediscovers all of it in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love and service. — Pope Francis

HE WAS KNOWN As DJANGO, a Gypsy name meaning "I awake." His legal name-the name the gendarmes and border officials entered into their journals as his family crisscrossed Europe in their horsedrawn caravan-was jean Reinhardt. But when the family brought their travels to a halt alongside a hidden stream or within a safe wood to light their cookfire, they called him only by his Romany name. Even among his fellow Gypsies, "Django" was a strange name, a strong, telegraphic sentence due to its first-person verb construction. It was a name of which Django was exceedingly proud. It bore an immediacy, a sense of life, and a vision of destiny. — Michael Dregni

The family is the key to Christmas. The family is the key to Christianity. Pope Saint John Paul II noted that everything good - history, humanity, salvation - "passes by way of the family."1 When God came to save us, he made salvation inseparable from family life, manifest in family life. Since the family is the ordinary setting of human life, he came to share it, redeem it, and perfect it. He made it an image and sacrament of a divine mystery. Salvation itself finds meaning only in familial relations. — Scott Hahn

Before they had kids, if asked to conjure images of parenthood they would have said things like "Reading in bed," and "Giving a bath," and "Running while holding the seat of a bicycle." Parenthood contains such moments of warmth and intimacy, but isn't them. It's cleaning up. The great bulk of family life involves no exchange of love, and no meaning, only fulfillment. Not the fulfillment of feeling fulfilled, but of fulfilling that which now falls to you. — Jonathan Safran Foer

A great purposelessness has descended upon modern civilizations. People at large have lost any sense of the meaning and purpose of life; and without an understanding of our own purpose, there can be no true commitment. Whether that commitment is to marriage, family, study, work, God, relationships, or the simple resolutions of our lives, it will be almost impossible to fulfill without a clear and practical understanding of our purpose. Commitment and purpose go hand in hand. — Matthew Kelly

Two of the vital pillars that sustain Father in Heaven's plan of happiness are marriage and the family. Their lofty significance is underscored by Satan's relentless efforts to splinter the family and to undermine the significance of temple ordinances, which bind the family together for eternity. The temple sealing has greater meaning as life unfolds. It will help you draw ever closer together and find greater joy and fulfillment in mortality. — Richard G. Scott

I learned that one person hurting another really is like a hand curling into a fist to smash the foot. And that all that really matters is family and other people. And that the purpose of life is to find the Light of God, but not the light from some old guy with a beard sitting up there judging us. The light is the love we give each other on our way back home. And that God wouldn't mind if we spent a little less time telling him how great he is and a little more time loving each other, and not just the people we're supposed to love, but everyone. — Paul H. Magid

A man depends largely on woman for the light in the family as he is not well equipped at finding meaning for himself. Life is often dry and barren for him unless someone bestows meaning on life for him. With a few words, a woman can give meaning to a whole day's struggle and a man will be so grateful. A man knows and wants this; he will edge up to it, initiate little occasions so that a woman can shed some light for him. When he comes home and recounts the events of the day, he is asking her to bestow meaning on them. This is the light-bearing quality of a woman. — Robert A. Johnson

It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it? — Jonathan Franzen

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

Maybe "having enough" has a second meaning beyond the basic economic security a family needs. Maybe it means accepting that a rich full life with a job and family will be rewarding, but it certainly won't be perfect. As many of us who have combined kids and careers know all too well, some days it's really pretty messy. And that's OK. — Willow Bay

The meaning of sex is illustrated by two eponymous heroes of British history, King Edward VII (who flourished in the years before the First World War) and the King Edward variety of potato which has fed the British working class for almost as long). The potato, unlike the royal family, reproduces asexually. Every King Edward potato is identical to every other and each on has the same set of genes as the hoary ancestor of all potatoes bearing that name. This is convenient for the farmer and the grocer, which is why sex is not encouraged among potatoes. — Steve Jones

But that's what family is, isn't it? It's traditions and trinkets that only matter when we hold them up against the mirrors of our lives, lending them meaning, lending them weight, until they become heavy enough to endure without us. We create the past in the things that we choose to remember about it. We turn everything into stories, and those stories matter because we say that they do. It's all a wheel, and ours are the hands that turn it. — Seanan McGuire

For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules
it hasn't been taught to us by means of strict rules, either. We, in our discussions on the other hand, constantly compare language with a calculus preceding to exact rules. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Fourth Industrial Revolution can compromise humanity's traditional sources of meaning - work, community, family, and identity - or it can lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a sense of shared destiny. The choice is ours. — Klaus Schwab

A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart. — Keri Hulme

In his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson gives us a fine definition of how a humble person approaches life: "I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business. I will not pretend to invent the meaning of the universe; I will accept what God has shown its meaning to be. I will not noisily strut about demanding that I be treated as the center of my family or my neighborhood or my work, but seek to discover where I fit and what I am good at."8 — Judson Edwards

Following revelations that he fathered a love child, the good Reverend Jesse Jackson - or should we say the 'very' good Reverend - is enduring the scandal with the help of family and friends. A scandal which gives clearer meaning to the Rainbow Coalition's Operation 'Push'. — Jon Stewart

Disciples of Jesus Christ have had a profound life-altering experience. They have encountered a supernatural personality, revealed in history as Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Messiah. And they have discovered the meaning and purpose of their lives in the subsequent revelation of his continuing presence to them. The experience demands a faithful, reliable witness.

What would public opinion say of a person who discovered the absolute cure for AIDS, but was unwilling to share that cure with a world that so desperately needs it? What if the antidote were kept hidden and made use of by only the discoverer and his family? We would consider it an moral outrage and he or she would be infamous. Why? We expect the cure to be shared, not only shared, but made available to all as soon as possible! — David C. Alves

All that is, was, and will be. Universe much too big to see. Time and space never ending, disturbing thoughts, questions pending. Limitations of human understanding. Too quick to criticize, obligation to survive, we hunger to be alive. All that is, ever, ever was, will be ever twisting, turning, Through The Never. In the dark, see past our eyes. Pursuit of truth, no matter where it lies. Gazing up to the breeze of the heavens, on a quest, meaning, reason. Come to be, how it begun. All alone in the family of the sun, curiosity teasing everyone. On our home, third stone from the sun. — James Hetfield

I was tired of well-meaning folks, telling me it was time I got over being heartbroke. When somebody tells you that, a little bell ought to ding in your mind. Some people don't know grief from garlic grits. There's somethings a body ain't meant to get over. No I'm not suggesting you wallow in sorrow, or let it drag on; no I am just saying it never really goes away. (A death in the family) is like having a pile of rocks dumped in your front yard. Every day you walk out and see them rocks. They're sharp and ugly and heavy. You just learn to live around them the best way you can. Some people plant moss or ivy; some leave it be. Some folks take the rocks one by one, and build a wall. — Michael Lee West

Andy wondered if Jesus was once a supreme embarrassment to his Father, this hippie carpenter who ran around with the freak crowd until finally he gave up on his dreams and stepped into the family business, probably to his mother's regret. What a sellout, Andy thought. A truly kick-ass Jesus would have said, Go forsake yourself, and remained a humble builder. Now that would have been something to worship: the son of God rejecting God in favor of life, meaning death. — David Gilbert

Parenting is not logical. If it were, we would never have to read a book, never need a family therapist, and never feel the urge to call a close friend late at night for support after a particularly trying bedtime scene ... We have moments of logic, but life is run by a much larger force. Life is filled with disagreement, opposition, illusion, irrational thinking, miracle, meaning, surprise, and wonder. — Jeanne Elium

Father Michaels' sermon was mercifully short. He had a reputation for three-minute homilies, tightly written, provocative and insightful. His words centered on the true meaning of Christianity. That is was all about love. Love of God, love of self, love of family, love of community.
Love was a gift. — Dorothea Benton Frank

I'm not going to live my life unhappy and why should he and we talk about it and I think what's great about the film is that it shows is the meaning of family doesn't have to be as traditional as it once was, like you can make a family. — Nia Long

Our restaurant fostered a sense of camaraderie in a number of ways besides sharing the same nickname of 'chef.' Initially, we bonded through training. Once we opened, we worked in teams each night, meaning that we not only knew our colleagues well, we depended on them. Most importantly, we all had 'family meal' together every night, just like President Bush recommended to all families so that their children would have good values and grow up to be gun-toting, pro-life, pro-death, gas-guzzling, warmongering, monolingual, homophobic, wiretapped, Bible-thumping, genetically engineered, stem-cell harboring, abstinent creationists. Oops, I think I just lost all of my red state readers. To make up for it, I'll let you lose my ballot. — Phoebe Damrosch

A woman or man of value doesn't love you because of what he or she wants you to be or do for them. He or she loves you because your combined souls understand one another, complements each other, and make sense above any other person in this world. You each share a part of their soul's mirror and see each other's light reflected in it clearly. You can easily speak from the heart and feel safe doing so. Both of you have been traveling a parallel road your entire life. Without each other's presence, you feel like an old friend or family member was lost. It bothers you, not because you have given it too much meaning, but because God did. This is the type of person you don't have to fight for because you can't get rid of them and your heart doesn't want them to leave anyways. — Shannon L. Alder

This was what was left of a human individual when you took away his home,his family, his friends, his city, his country,his world: a being without context, whose past had faded, whose future was bleak, an entity stripped of name, of meaning,of the whole of life except a temporarily beating heart. — Salman Rushdie

Only about one per cent of my paintings show family members. Do they help me deal with problems? It's likely that these problems can only be depicted. But photographs, private ones and others, keep appearing that fascinate me so much that I want to paint them. And sometimes the real meaning these images have for me only becomes apparent later. — Gerhard Richter

Maligant items don't have to be reminders of bad times, like a breakup or a health crisis. They can bring back memories of loved ones or high points in your life. But if these memories leave you feeling sad or feeling that your life isn't as good now, then the objects are causing you mental and emotional harm and have no place in your home. ...The key to enjoying happiness and good health in a warm, welcoming home is to live IN THE PRESENT MOMENT surrounded by items that you cherish and that have meaning for you and your family. If too much of your time is spent replaying your greatest hits or struggling with old pain, you're not making new memories of your present life. --pg 20 — Peter Walsh

She was an intelligent and honest woman who knew what she was... and she was no beauty. Her attractions were moderate at best, and that was only if one completely discounted the current feminine ideal. She was short, and while on some days she could be described as voluptuous, on others she was most definitely plump. Her hair was a reddish-brown, wildly chaotic mass of curls- hateful curls that successfully defied any substance or implement used to straighten them. Oh, she had nice skin with no pockmarks or blemishes, and her eyes had once been described as "fine" by some well-meaning friend of the family. But they were plain gray eyes, with no shade of green or blue to enliven them. — Lisa Kleypas

I'm into the true meaning of Christmas - Faith, Family, and Facial hair. — Jase Robertson

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind. To do so effectively, the world needs a global ethic with values which give meaning to life experiences and, more than religious institutions and dogmas, sustain the non-material dimension of humanity. Mankind's universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for this global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy. It should also permeate the extended family of the United Nations. — Wangari Maathai

If you don't connect yourself to your family and to the world in some fashion, through your job or whatever it is you do, you feel like you're disappearing, you feel like you're fading away, you know? I felt like that for a very very long time. Growing up, I felt like that a lot. I was just invisible; an invisible person. I think that feeling, wherever it appears, and I grew up around people who felt that way, it's an enormous source of pain; the struggle to make yourself felt and visible. To have some impact, and to create meaning for yourself, and for the people you come in touch with. — Bruce Springsteen

In setting up a business under the name and meaning of the Golden Rule, I was publicly binding myself, in my business relations, to a principle which had been a real and intimate part of my family upbringing. Our idea was to make money and build business through serving the community with fair dealing and honest value. — James Cash Penney

The word family is derived from the word famulus, meaning a servant, and in its early usage, familia, it literally meant the servants of a household. In its essence, the longing for family, and the ravenousness that the loss of family creates in us, isn't just for belonging: it's for the grace that abides in serving those we love. — Gregory David Roberts

Love is when you have not been home for three months and call up home and your daughter picks up the phone and says "Papa, I love you! — Avijeet Das

As you create a home, don't get distracted with a lot of things that have no meaning for you or your family. Don't dwell on your failures, but think of your successes. Have joy in your home. Have joy in your children. Have joy in your husband. Be grateful for the journey. — Marjorie Pay Hinckley

A sense of concern for others gives our lives meaning; it is the root of all human happiness — Dalai Lama

A sound intruded. It was barely discernable, the rub of fur against a leaf,but it was enough to elicit a frustrated groan from Julian. He leaned his forhead against her crown. "This family unit you have is driving me over the edge.We have no privacy,piccola, none whatsoever."
She laughed softly with the same frustration. "I know,Julian. But it is one of the small sacrifices we all pay for caring for one another. We help each other through any crisis."
"Who is going to help me through this one? Believe me,cara, I am definitely having a crisis. I need you before I start to go insane."
"I know.It is the same for me," she whispered, her lips against the corner of his mouth, teasing, tempting. There was an ache in her voice, an answer to the ache in his. "We will have our time."
"It had better be soon," he growled, meaning it. — Christine Feehan

Individuality, family, and community are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way" thinking on the grand scale. Children and families need some relief from government surveillance and intimidation if original expressions belonging to THEM are to develop. Without these freedom has no meaning. — John Taylor Gatto

The home only fulfills its true purpose when it is God-controlled. Leave Jesus Christ out of your home and it loses its meaning. But take Christ into your heart and the life of your family, and He will transform your home. — Billy Graham

The extended family, the community, and religion may indeed have limited our freedom, sexual and otherwise, but in return they offered us a much-needed sense of belonging. For generations, these traditional institutions provided order, meaning, continuity, and social support. Dismantling them has left us with more choices and fewer restrictions than ever. We are freer, but also more alone. As Giddens describes it, we have become ontologically more anxious. — Esther Perel

I have beheld the power of God manifest in my home and in my ministry. I have seen evil rebuked and the elements controlled. I know what it means to have mountains of difficulty and ominous Red Seas part. I know what it means to have the destroying angel "pass by them." To have received the authority and to have exercised the power of "the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God," is as great a blessing for me and for my family as I could ever hope for in this world. And that, in the end, is the meaning of the priesthood in everyday terms
its unequaled, unending, constant capacity to bless. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Um, 'Soul Food' ... Another wonderful little movie that could. Here's a film that, I think our budget was maybe $6 million. We shot it in Chicago in six weeks. I was so proud of the film, because it showed America that an African-American film about family could sell, could do well, could cross over and have true meaning. — Vivica A. Fox

As sneakily addictive as a game of Pong (which was named, we're told, after the narrator's dad), this zany zip-line of a novel takes the piss out of the Asian-American 'good immigrant' story. Full of charming antiheroes making comically bad choices, the story dazzles us with its absurdity, which makes its eventual wisdom--about lineage, ethnicity, and the meaning of family--all the more wonderfully surprising. — Michael Lowenthal

Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning. — Frederick Douglass

In all the things that really matter, we are one. Love and faith, trust and empathy, family and friendship, sunsets and songs of awe: in every wish born in our humanity we are one. Our humankind, at this moment in our destiny, is a child blowing on a dandelion, without thought or understanding. But the wonder in the child is the wonder in us, and there's no limit to the good we can do when human hearts connect. It's the truth of us. It's the story of us. It's the meaning of the word God: we are one. We are one. We are one. — Gregory David Roberts

Everyone is always whining. 'Why me?' 'Why did this happen to me?' They think it's the end of the world when their forty-thousand-dollar car won't start, and they can't make it to that cushy desk job to pay off that family vacation to Hawaii. But they don't even know the meaning of the word pain. Don't whine to me, Jim. Why — Ethan Cross

Marriage," "mating," and "love" are socially constructed phenomena that have little or no transferable meaning outside any given culture. The examples we've noted of rampant ritualized group sex, mate-swapping, unrestrained casual affairs, and socially sanctioned sequential sex were all reported in cultures that anthropologists insist are monogamous simply because they've determined that something they call "marriage" takes place there. No wonder so many insist that marriage, monogamy, and the nuclear family are human universals. With such all-encompassing interpretations of the concepts, even the prairie vole, who "sleeps with anyone," would qualify. — Christopher Ryan

Work is not all there is to life. You will not have a meaningful life without work, but you cannot say that your work is the meaning of your life. If you make any work the purpose of your life - even if that work is church ministry - you create an idol that rivals God. Your relationship with God is the most important foundation for your life, and indeed it keeps all the other factors - work, friendships and family, leisure and pleasure - from becoming so important to you that they become addicting and distorted. — Timothy J. Keller

How will letting same-sex couples marry affect your marriage? It won't, but it will have an impact on how marriage will be taught in schools and how children understand its meaning and purpose as the foundation of the family. Changing the law to accommodate same-sex couples requires marriage to be taught in schools as merely the public recognition of a committed relationship with no connection to children and family. . . . This will affect the attitudes young people will have about marriage and family and will likely affect decisions they make about marriage, children and family in their lives. — William B. May

We live in a time when the values of courage and honesty, particularly for women writers, equate to confessing only the darkest, most painful parts of our lives. "How brave you are," my students say to each other over workshop tables, "to expose that." Meaning, to uncover this family secret or that heinous act or to openly confront the demons of alcoholism, promiscuity, substance abuse, incest, infidelity, illness, betrayal ... I have also wrestled many dark angels, and continue to do so, so I acknowledge the price such writing exacts. But more and more I have come to respect the honesty and courage required to recognize the bright angels when they appear in our memory, and to allow them equal space in our narratives. — Rebecca McClanahan

People, fearing their own extinction, are willing to accept and perpetuate hand-me-down answers to the meaning of life and death; and, fearing a weakening of the tribal structures that sustain them, reinforce with their tales the conventional notions of justice, freedom, law and order, nature, family, etc. The writer, lone rider, has the power, if not always the skills, wisdom, or desire, to disturb this false contentment. — Robert Coover

I'd love to have a family one day. Having kids is the meaning of life and I can't wait to be a mom. — Paris Hilton

Perhaps for many Japanese, autobiographical fiction writing is life. We are a people expected to complement, to harmonize, to anticipate one another's needs. All without a single spoken clue.

And the reason is that he's in training to be a writer. Observing detail, understanding irony, interpreting motivation. Hiro knows that acts are symbolic. The hard sour fruit offered too soon in its season carries a message. He has made an error in the timing of his visit. He has inconvenienced that family.

This is the Japanese way. Cogitating on inner meaning. Revealing ourselves and perceiving others through carefully crafted scenes.

Writing our endless I-stories. — Lydia Minatoya

I think the sense of community that exists with all the characters - that's the answer. The fact that they have found a family in their friends. It does give some depth and meaning to their lives. — Randy Harrison

How empty are the insincere words of people who, so easily, speak forth "love," "family" and "friendship" without meaning what they say even if their intentions are good albeit mere flattery. — Donna Lynn Hope

My tattoos, like most people's, were reminders, badges of personal experiences. Yes, I might wear them on my skin for the world to see, but their meaning was a little too personal. — N.R. Walker

After a while, meaning and implication detach themselves from everything. One can be a father and assume no obligations, it follows that one can be a boyfriend and do nothing at all. Pretty soon you can add friend, acquaintance, co-worker, and just about anyone else to the long list of people who seem to be part of your life, though there is no code of conduct that they must adhere to. Pretty soon, it seems unreasonable to be bothered or outraged by much of anything because, well, what did you expect? In a world where the core social unit - the family - is so dispensable, how much can anything else mean? — Elizabeth Wurtzel

A domino line of laughter, but with an edge to it, a longing, an awe, and many of the watchers realized with a shiver that no matter what they said, they really wanted to witness a great fall, see someone arc downward all that distance, to disappear from the sight line, fail, smash to the ground, and give the Wednesday an electricity, a meaning, that all they needed to become a family was one millisecond of slippage — Colum McCann

We should expect hope's reciprocity as a natural flowering of the life of hope. Helping others and nurturing hope is expressive of hopefulness itself. It is an extension of the hopeful self to reach out to others, promoting the connection of agency and the enrichment of horizons of meaning. Hope's reciprocity grows out of the very social nature of hope; we thus frequently see it live in family relations, in intimacy, in love. And so hope spreads. This spreading should not surprise us; like love, it is freely given, fostered, and nurtured. — Patrick Shade

A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. "Well," said the man, "I shouldn't have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing." I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Whatever I was, I owed to my family and to all those who struggled with me. But my biggest debt I owed to my wife. She was the one who gave my life meaning. All I could pledge to her, and to all those millions, was that I would do all I could to justify the faith that she, and they, had in me. I would try more than ever to make my life one of which she, and they, could be proud. I would do in private that which I knew my public responsibility demanded. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There is more to life than work, and a life without ample space for family and friends is incomplete. But this much should not be controversial: Vocation - one's calling in life - plays a large role in defining the meaning of that life. For some, the nurturing of children is the vocation. For some, an avocation or a cause can become an all-absorbing source of satisfaction, with the job a means of paying the bills and nothing more. But for many others, vocation takes the form of the work one does for a living. Working hard, seeking to get ahead, and striving to excel at one's craft are not only quintessential features of traditional American culture but also some of its best features. Industriousness is a resource for living a fulfilling human life instead of a life that is merely entertaining. — Charles Murray

This is the first significant mention of an idea that will acquire an almost unbearable, next to mindless authority in European writing: the theme of Europe teaching the Orient the meaning of liberty, which is an idea that Chateaubriand and everyone after him believed that Orientals, and especially Muslims, knew nothing about. Of liberty, they know nothing; of propriety, they have none: force is their God. When they go for long periods without seeing conquerors who do heavenly justice, they have the air of soldiers without a leader, citizens without legislators, and a family without a father.83 — Edward Said

Europe has another meaning for me. Every time I mention that word, I see the Bosnian family in front of me, living far away from whatever they call home and eating their own wonderful food because that's all that is left for them. The fact remains that after fifty years, it was possible to have another war in Europe; that it was possible to change borders; that genocide is still possible even today. — Slavenka Drakulic

I hope I will not be typecast as a Bond girl for the rest of my life. I'm very proud of being a part of the Bond family, but I don't want to be the sexy girl forever. I'm not meaning to complain, but I just want to be taken seriously. — Eva Green

The [Kwanzaa] holiday, then will of necessity, be engaged as an ancient and living cultural tradition which reflects the best of African thought and practice in its reaffirmation of the dignity of the human person in community and culture, the well-being of family and community, the integrity of the environment and our kinship with it, and the rich resource and meaning of a people's culture. — Maulana Karenga

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more — Woody Allen