What My Mother Doesn T Know Quotes & Sayings

She did not get a medal - it was not fair. 'What a swizz,' she whispered bitterly to her mother as Cicely Barnard's name was called. 'She simply doesn't know enough to be bad. — Monica Dickens

And maybe love is terrifying. I'm terrified now, but not in the way she would think.
I'm terrified because I hate who she is and what she's done, I do, and yet there is still something strong and powerful between us, some kind of deep, primal bond that won't end, won't snap or break or change, it just remains there inside me, as sold and factual as my blood and bones - she is my mother, I am her daughter - and I don't know what to call it because it doesn't feel like love, not the good kind I felt for Ellie, with all my heart, but instead an instinctual pull that's been there from the beginning, drawing me back to her again and again, the woman who has hurt me like no one else ever could, and now she's dying and the bond is still here, inside me, and I won't call it love or hate because emotions has nothing to do with the fact that she is my mother and I am her daughter, and we will be connected in that way forever. — Laura Wiess

There are occasions that I love to be fashionable and enjoy, you know? But the work day of a mother doesn't include a hair making team or any consideration of your shoe. — Sarah Jessica Parker

I am in my mother's room. It's I who live there now. I don't know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I'd never have got there alone. There's this man who comes every week. Perhaps I got there thanks to him. He says not. He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages,so much money. Yes, I work now, a little like I used to, except that I don't know how to work any more. That doesn't matter apparently. What I'd like now is to speak of the things that are left, say my good-byes, finish dying. They don't want that. Yes, there is more than one, apparently. But it's always the same one that comes. You'll do that later, he says. Good. The truth is I haven't much will left. When he comes for the fresh pages he brings back the previous week's. They are marked with signs I don't understand ... Here's my beginning. It must mean something, or they wouldn't keep it. Here it is. — Samuel Beckett

Nothing is off-limits to me, tiny human. You think the desire in your heart is buried, but I couldn't ignore it if I tried! It means this: you want me to peace out? Shut it all down? Fine! I'll go! But you'll never get your next wish. Your secret wish. [. .] A mother's love. A father you know. A world at peace. A sky of stars. This could be yours . . . or you could lose it forever. And I can go. Doesn't matter to me, you finite speck. — Jackson Lanzing

So Dad was cured?" I don't know why I feel so disappointed. I didn't even remember him; he died of cancer when I was one.
"He was." A muscle twitches in my mom's jaw. "But there were times I felt ... There were times it seemed as though he could still feel it, just for a second. Maybe I only imagined it. It doesn't matter. I loved him anyway. He was very good to me."
reminds me that she is not just my mother, but a woman who has fought her whole life for something she has never truly experienced.
My dad was cured. And you can't love, not fully, unless you are loved in return.
It makes me ache for her, a feeling I hate and am somehow ashamed of. — Lauren Oliver

Should i even bother scanning the crowd for my parents? I could turn around and go back to the dormitory. Then I see her. My mother stands alone near the railing with her hands clasped in front of her. she has never looked more out of place, with her gray slacks and gray jacket buttoned at the throat, her hair in its simple twist and her face placid. I start toward her, tears jumping into my eyes. She came. She came for me. I walk faster. She sees me, and for a second her expression is blank, like she doesn't know who I am. Then her eyes light up, and she opens her arms. She smells like soap and laundry detergent. — Veronica Roth

My friend lost his mother when we were at college. I spent a lot of nights talking with him. Lot of nights." He pauses. "I know what it's like. You don't just get over it. And it doesn't make any difference if you're supposedly a "grown-up". And it never goes away, — Sophie Kinsella

When he has disappeared, Mother clears her throat. I don't turn around and look at her in the rocking chair. I don't want her to see the disappointment in my face that he's gone.
"Go ahead, Mother," I finally mutter. "Say what you want to say."
"Don't you let him cheapen you."
I look back at her, eye her suspiciously, even though she is so frail under the wool blanket. Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my mother.
"If Stuart doesn't know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street." She narrows her eyes at the winter land. "Frankly, I don't care much for Stuart. He doesn't know how lucky he was to have you. — Kathyrn Stockett

A friend's mother ate nothing but clams for six months. Morning, noon, and night, nothing but clams. 'I don't know what it is - I can't seem to get enough of them' she told her son. He shakes his head, but I understand. I eat nothing but broccoli for a month, then yogurt for six days, then (for one glorious week) lamb chops. One day I roasted a chicken and had seven chicken sandwiches before nightfall. If I like something, I like it a lot. Just one doesn't cut it. I don't know what it is I can't get enough of. — Abigail Thomas

People mean well; they just aren't here enough to get what we are dealing with or what home means to my mother. Everyone thinks they know what should be done, and their suggestions make me suspect they must consider me an idiot who doesn't comprehend the situation. — George Hodgman

If he even survives." She shivered, and Amon put his arm around her, drawing her into his steady warmth.
"It's that bad?"
Raisa nodded. "He looked ... he looked awful, Amon. Willo doesn't know if he'll ... She's worried about him. My mother died, and I never got to tell her that I loved her, that I finally understood - just a little anyway. If Han dies too, I don't know what I'll do. — Cinda Williams Chima

No, we're not getting married," I told my mother on the phone when she asked. "He's going to California and I'm staying here." Usually she doesn't phone. Usually she just does things like send me notes with histrionic scrawlings that read, "Well, you know, I can't use these," and along with the notes she encloses coupons for Kotex or Midol. — Lorrie Moore

Destiny doesn't always come when it's convenient or when you think it should. It comes when you're ready, whether you know it or not. — Kelly Thompson

Naz," I whisper. "What's going on?" "What's going on is your mother isn't happy to see you near me." "Why?" I ask, my voice trembling. "Who are you?" "You know who I am," he says. "The question you should be asking is who are they." "Mom," I call out. "Mom, what's happening? How do you know Naz?" She doesn't look at me, but I know she hears my words. Her alarm grows when I call him Naz. She pleads with him more. "Please, she's my daughter... my little girl. — J.M. Darhower

He acts like he's in one of those Hollywood movies where after spending a couple of weeks with the natives in a remote Amazonian village, the white explorer is already debating the nature of the universe with the Chief in passable lingo. Except that in the movie, he ends up shagging the prize virgin whose body looks as if the jungle is really just a spa. What he doesn't know is that ten years down the road, she will wind up looking like all the other women in the village: saggy tits, rotten teeth, and about as supple as a mother of eight can be. — Sorin Suciu

How, I asked, could I have gone my whole life not knowing about my mother? How could I have not known what Keith knew when he saw our house? "It's your mom," Helder said. "Because it's Mom." He sounded firm and knowing and clear. "When a child has an alcoholic father, he sees him drink all day long but he doesn't have a label, a concept. You just know that at night, when the tires make a certain sound in the driveway and the doors slam a certain way, with a certain sound, you just know you need to hide. — Heather Sellers

He (son Jason) doesn't see me as a (gay) icon, he sees me as his mother who touches his hair too much. No, I love being an icon to anybody. Equal rights, you know? — Barbra Streisand

Mama?"
"Yes, Emmy."
She traced a rivulet of rain with her finger as it made its journey down the glass. "How do you know when it's been long enough?"
Emmy could sense her mother smiling into the phone. "When you relaize that love doesn't have a time span. Only pain does. I think sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two, so we just hold on to both of them like they're inseparable. — Karen White

He's basically a good man. But he doesn't know me. Any more than he knew that girl that looked after your mother. He can't know me, not the way I know him. Maybe some of these Hawaiians can, or the Indians on the reservation. They've seen their fathers humiliated. Their mothers desecrated. But your grandfather will never know what that feels like. — Barack Obama

Very early on in writing the series, I remember a female journalist saying to me that Mrs Weasley, 'Well, you know, she's just a mother.' And I was absolutely incensed by that comment. Now, I consider myself to be a feminist, and I'd always wanted to show that just because a woman has made a choice, a free choice to say, 'Well, I'm going to raise my family and that's going to be my choice. I may go back to a career, I may have a career part time, but that's my choice.' Doesn't mean that that's all she can do. And as we proved there in that little battle, Molly Weasley comes out and proves herself the equal of any warrior on that battlefield. — J.K. Rowling

I run back to the peephole and see all three of them as they walk past with these things in their hands, I can hear the woman who I assume is their mother telling them a joke. I know the joke, but when I first heard it a long time ago, it didn't make me laugh. When she's done, I can hear the kids laughing. The joke still doesn't make me laugh, what makes me laugh are the laughing kids. That high pitched fast paced laugh that kids have. It's not until we get older that this laugh becomes low and drawn out. Trying to figure out when it's appropriate to laugh and when it's not. — M.B. Julien

It is said a man doesn't get old while his mother lives. I think it's true. You are always a child in her eyes. It is irritating in the extreme. But you know, when they have gone, you'd give the earth just to hear them treating you like a child once more. — David Gemmell

It is so beautiful to be loved as Laurie loves me; he isn't sentimental, doesn't say much about it, but I see and feel it in all he says and does, and it makes me so happy and so humble that I don't seem to be the same girl I was. I never knew how good and generous and tender he was till now, for he lets me read his heart, and I find it full of noble hopes and impulses and purposes, and am so proud to know it's mine. He says he feels as if he 'could make a prosperous voyage now with me aboard as mate, and lots of love for ballast.' I pray he may, and try to be all he believes me, for I love my gallant captain with all my heart and soul and might, and never will desert him while God lets us be together. Oh, Mother, I never knew how much like heaven this world could be when two people love and live for one another! — Louisa May Alcott

Sometimes," I ventured, "it doesn't occur to boys that their mother was ever young and pretty ... I couldn't stand it if you boys were inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who looked after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there's nobody like her ... — Willa Cather

Gods are boring creatures, Bet. Most are nosthing more than spoiled children with powers they never hesitate to use against those weaker. And while your father can be juvenile at times, there is a danger to him. He understands his power ans he's fierce with it. More than that, he doesn't prey on those weaker, he only attacks those who are stronger/ That was what dreq me to him and why i agreed tp be the mother of his daugher. His strength, and the fact that he never once did he use it against me. Your father is like having a lion for a pet. You know that it's a creature of utter and supreme violence whose mere nature and talent is murder, and yet it lies down at your side and purrs for your touch alone. There is nothing more titillating.
But more than that was hpw you father made me feel. He awoke something inside me that had never lived before. He breathed life into my soul and I was a better person for having known him — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Mothers are programmed to teach the fit. They are unequipped to listen to pleas, to alter their patterns. Mothers know how to nurse and nurture those who they have hope for - they coo over babies with infections they can help heal, they give advice for things they know, they protect from the dangers they know how to fear. But once their baby becomes so hurt the mother doesn't know how to heal her, she neglects because she doesn't know better. The tricks she knows don't work, she fears, and, eventually, when she is so lost she feels hopeless, she abandons. — Aspen Matis

When we [adoption agency] have a birth mother who is pregnant and she doesn't know the race of the father, she is using drugs, and she is in crisis, usually we cannot place that baby with a heterosexual family. Almost all of the times when we have a drug-addicted child, we place the baby in a homosexual family. — Rosie O'Donnell

My mother is from another time - the funniest person to her is Lucille Ball; that's what she loves. A lot of times she tells me she doesn't know what I'm talking about. I know if I wasn't her son and she was flipping through the TV and saw me, she would just keep going. — Steven Wright

I return to the sprinklers and sit down. George plunks down next to me. "Did you know that a bird-eating tarantula is as big as your hand?"
"Jase doesn't have one of those, does he?"
George gives me his sunniest smile. "No. He useta have a reg'lar tarantula named Agnes, but she" - his voice drops mournfully - "died."
"I'm sure she's in tarantula heaven now," I assure him hastily, shuddering to think what that might look like.
Mrs. Garret's van pulls in behind the motorcycle, disgorging what I assume are Duff and Andy, both red-faced and windblown. Judging by their life jackets, they've been at sailing camp.
George and Harry, my loyal fans, rave to their mother about my accomplishments, while Patsy immediately bursts into tears, points an accusing finger at her mother, and wails, "Boob."
"It was her first word." Mrs. Garret takes her from me, heedless of Patsy's damp swimsuit. "There's one for the baby book. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

I don't know, Jondalar. Maybe you haven't found the right woman. Maybe the Mother has someone special for you. She doesn't make many like you. You are really more than most women could bear. If all your love were concentrated on one, it could overwhelm her, if she wasn't one to whom the Mother gave equal gifts. — Jean M. Auel

Do you know what my daughter's nurse told her today? "In a girl's voice lies temptation - a known fact. Eloquence in a woman means promiscuity. Promiscuity of the mind leads to promiscuity of the body." She doesn't believe it yet, but she will. She'll grow up just like her mother. Marry, raise children and honor her family. Spend her youth in needlepoint and rue the day she was born a girl. And when she dies, she'll wonder why she obeyed all the rules of God and Country for no biblical hell could ever be worse than a state of perpetual inconsequence. — Margaret F. Rosenthal

Do you want to know what General Putnam is thinking? It's this. He's thinking that he can't win the war if he doesn't keep the people on his side. He's thinking that he can't keep the people on his side if the troops are running amok among the civilian population - raping the women, stealing cattle, burning houses. He is determined to scare the wits out of the troops to keep them in line. And he's thinking that it doesn't matter very much who he executes to do it. So many men have died, so many mothers have wept, so many brothers and sisters have cried. He is thinking that in the long run if he executes somebody, he'll shorten the war and save more lives. It doesn't matter to him very much who he executes; one man's agony is like another's, one mother's tears are no wetter than anybody else's. And that's why he's going to have Sam shot. — James Lincoln Collier

Do you think there'll be someone in the Xanti who'll remember your mother?"
Finn blew on the embers. "I don't know. We may not find the Xanti," he warned her.
Maia shrugged. "It doesn't matter. But if we do, will they accept me? I don't have any Indian blood."
"If they don't, we won't stay. I wouldn't let anything happen to you. I've got my gun."
"I'm not scared," said Maia. And she wasn't. She'd been scared of the nastiness of the twins and of being shut up in the Carters' bungalow, but she wasn't scared of traveling through unknown lands with a boy hardly older than she was herself. She thought perhaps she wouldn't be scared of anything ever again if she was with Finn. — Eva Ibbotson

My mother's a psychologist, my stepfather's a psychologist, my stepmother is a therapist and my dad's a lawyer. So it was all prominent in my life. I don't know anyone who doesn't know someone on some form of prescription medicine. — Zach Braff

My father is beating Melanie, then, because a large dog begins to bark in warning, he beats this dog who competely submits to his thrashing. In the same way my mother and I also allowed ourselves to be thrashed. I know that the dog is my mother, absolute submission. I ask my father why he's beating Melanie as well, and he says he won't stand for such questions, she doesn't mean anything to him, it's shameless of me to even ask about her, he keeps repeating that Melanie doesn't mean anything to him, he only needs her for a few more weeks, for a little refreshment, I have to understand that. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I can't stand stage mothers. It doesn't work. You definitely feel that with the new generation of pop stars right now they've all managed to work it out for themselves. You have to have confidence in that. When you're young, you know your market better than I will. I love having young people on the show because I can learn from them. — Simon Cowell

Time doesn't matter. When you love someone, the way I love your mother, you'll know, and the amount of time it took you to get there will be irrelevant. But what does matter, is that you find the woman who will be your reason to live, who will stick with you, not during the good times but through the hard times, and who will tell you when you're being an ass. Find the woman worth keeping, for more than sex, the one you can see your future with. And when you look at her, you'll know you've found her. — Tamsyn Bester

Where's Shauna?" I say. "Still in the hospital?"
"No, she's over there," says Zeke, nodding to the table Lynn walked back to. I see her there, so pale she might as well be translucent, sitting in a wheelchair. "Shana shouldn't be up, but Lynn's pretty messed up, so she's keeping her company."
"But if you're wondering why they're all the way over there ... Shauna found out I'm Divergent," says Uriah sluggishly. "And she doesn't want to catch it."
"Oh."
"She got all weird with me, too," says Zeke, sighing. "'How do you know your brother isn't working against us? Have you been watching him?' What I wouldn't give to punch whoever poisoned her mind."
"You don't have to give anything," says Uriah. "Her mother's sitting right there. Go ahead and hit her. — Veronica Roth

I have a grandfather. I have a king for a grandfather. A king fish.
I clear my throat. "So ... This isn't just about my mom's identity. This is Jagen making his move to take over the kingdoms? And ... you think he's getting away with it?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"But I don't understand. What could I do to stop him? I'm just a Half-Breed."
"You can come with me and show them that you have the true Gift of Poseidon. That Nalia is your mother. It will prove her identity, that the Royals aren't lying, and that they haven't strayed."
"Won't it technically prove that they have strayed? I mean, you know how babies are born right? That means my mom and my dad-"
"I know how it works. And, uh, I don't want to talk about it with you. And I'm pretty sure Galen doesn't want me to, either. — Anna Banks

So what do your parents do?"
"Think up creative ways to kill each other." Vane cringed as that flew out of his mouth. He was so used to saying it that he didn't think about it until he'd heard himself say it.
"No, really."
Vane looked away uncomfortably. Bride's jaw went slack as she realized he wasn't kidding. "Why would they do that?"
Vane actually squirmed a bit before he answered. "It's a long story. My mother ran off not long after I was born and my father wants me dead, so here I am with you."
She didn't know what to think of that. "This um this family insanity, it's not hereditary, is it?"
"It doesn't appear to be," he said seriously. "But if it creeps up on me, feel free to shoot me. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

She cried, 'No choice! No choice!' She doesn't know. If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever.
I know this, because I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat my own bitterness.
and even though I taught my daughter the opposite, she still came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.
I know how it is to be quiet, to listen and watch, as if your life were a dream. You can close your eyes when you no longer want to watch. But when you no longer want to listen, what can you do? I can still hear what happened more than sixty years ago. — Amy Tan

Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.
I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make to world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist. — Peter Shaffer

It's usually painful for a woman, the first time," he murmured.
"Yes, I know."
"I don't want to hurt you."
The admission touched and surprised her. "My mother says it doesn't last for long," she said.
"The pain?"
"No, the rest of it," she said, and for some reason that made him laugh again.
-Simon & Annabelle — Lisa Kleypas

Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a child is never have his own way-- or always to have it. She doesn't know which is th' worst. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do. — Maya Angelou

She doesn't know," Cate said. "Kellen is a secret. I didn't think my mother would approve."
"Why wouldn't your mother approve?" Pugg asked.
"It's my job," Kellen said. "I kill people. It pays well, but it's not universally socially acceptable. — Janet Evanovich

If you killl yourself, Comorra, it will wreck him. Utterly. Believe me on this one. So there you go - there's another casualty of war. And sure, in the grand scheme of things, whoop-dee-doo, who gives a crap about some dude's broken heart. But what about the not-so-grand scheme? Doesn't love count for something? Do you think all this ... this carnage would have happened if the Romans hadn't taken Prasutagus away from your mother? If she hadn't been so blinded by grief maybe she would have found a way to work things out with the governor instead of goading him to war." Clare shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe two people alone in the darkness can't generate enough light to drive it back. But maybe they can be a beacon for others. A candle in the window at midnight, you know? I mean, they can at least be there for each other, right? — Lesley Livingston

My mother tells Tina that she doesn't like books where the protagonist is established as Sad on page one. Okay, she's sad! We get it, we know what sad is, and then the whole book is basically a description of the million and one ways in which our protagonist is sad. Gimme a break! Get on with it! — Miriam Toews

She's so fucking tight, and I can't wait to feel her perfect body gripping mine. We were made to be together. Everything about this feels right. She doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to make her my wife. My partner. The goddamned mother of my children. Mine. — K. Webster

My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a telegram from the old people's home: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Very sincerely yours." That doesn't mean anything. It might have been yesterday. — Albert Camus

What difference does it make?" he says. "People can think whatever they like. I don't desire their validation."
"So you don't mind," I ask him, "that people judge you so harshly?"
"I have no one to impress," he says. "No one who cares about what happens to me. I'm not in the business of making friends, love. My job is to lead an army, and it's the only thing I'm good at. No one," he says, "would be proud of the things I've accomplished. My mother doesn't even know me anymore. My father thinks I'm weak and pathetic. My soldiers want me dead. The world is going to hell. And the conversations I have with you are the longest I've ever had. — Tahereh Mafi

Your mother doesn't make mistakes." I hear her blow out the smoke. "Baby, I know what I'm doing. — Holly Black

Aha. The mom doesn't know. She's fishing. This next part has to be just right, or I'm blacklisted by the mother and hated by the daughter. The first would be an inconvenience; the second would be a tragedy. — Andrew Clements

She was a great wife ... and a wonderful mother, a good daughter, a devoted sister and a truly nice person, which doesn't sound like much but it was one of her ambitions, to be a nice person, and she really got there, I think. She was always there. Or close, anyway.
Of course, she did spend her first thrity-nine years worrying too much and waiting for rotten things to happen to her. Then when they did, and some of the things were obviously, really, truly rotten, she realised she could have a lot more fun not waiting for them.
So you know what she did then? She just stopped seeing the rot. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

I glance at Mom. She looks pained. I know she doesn't care what I wear to lunch, but she doesn't want to contradict her mother. Actually, that's not quite true. Mom will go against Nana's wisheds where big enormous things are concerned, like who she marries and what kind of house she lives in. But when it comes to these smaller things- my appearance at lunch when Nana comes over- Mom often gives in. I do not understand this. I think these little things are supposed to be peace offerings, but for what? For running a boardinghouse or for something else, some adult thing I am not part of?
~pgs 20-21; Hattie on growing up and mothers — Ann M. Martin

Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday. — Albert Camus

I think, therefore I am, said a man whose mother quickly
hit him on the head, saying, I hit my son on the head,
therefore I am.
No no, you've got it all wrong, cried the man.
So she hit him on the head again and cried, therefore I am.
You're not, not that way; you're supposed to think, not hit,
cried the man.

. . . I think, therefore I am, said the man.
I hit, therefore we both are, the hitter and the one who gets
hit, said the man's mother.
But at this point the man had ceased to be; unconscious he
could not think. But his mother could. So she thought, I am,
and so is my unconscious son, even if he doesn't know it . . . — Russell Edson

DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child
I am twelve-and-a-half years old
but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop?
GENTLE READER:
Growing up is the best revenge. — Judith Martin

I thought this was a cookout. You know, dogs and burgers, Tater Tots, ambrosia salad" Dexter picked up a box of Twinkies, tossing them into the cart. "And Twinkies."
"It is," ... "Except that it's a cookout thrown by my mother."
"And?"
"And my mother doesn't cook."
He looked at me waiting.
"At all. My mother doesn't cook at all."
"She must cook sometimes."
"Nope."
"Everyone can make scrambled eggs, Remy. It's programmed into you at birth, the default setting. Like being able to swim and knowing not to mix pickles with oatmeal. You just KNOW. — Sarah Dessen

Who the hell are you?" "It doesn't matter who I am. It just matters who you are. Years ago... before you were born... you were my mother." His mother? "I'm taking down your license plate and calling the police." "Kate, is everything okay?" It was Mr. Niles, their neighbor, still in a suit, his tie undone as he walked across his own lawn. Kate sized the old man. "Go." "Does the name Daniel Weaver mean something to you?" Daniel fucking what? "I said go." "Your friend Kev. Do you know who he really is?" Another chill. This one making her quiver. "He's not my friend." She searched the man's eyes. They remained kind. "Get lost." The man entered his car, and Kate watched as he started his engine, making sure he drove off. — Eric Marier

A woman is at the funeral of her mother. There, she meets a man she doesn't know and has never met, who she thinks is her dream partner. But because of the circumstances, she forgets to ask for his number, and she can't find him afterward. A few days later, she kills her own sister. Why? — Jodi Picoult

Mothers seem to be in subtle competition with teachers. There is always an underlying fear that teachers will do a better job thanthey have done with their child ... But mostly mothers feel that their areas of competence are very much similar to those of the teacher. In fact they feel they know their child better than anyone else and that the teacher doesn't possess any special field of authority or expertise. — Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

When your mother doesn't want to have the sex talk with you any more but instead wants to talk about the possibility that you might have sex on her soft furnishings, it's a watershed moment in any girl's life. I know I'll remember it fondly for many years to come. — Sarra Manning

Mother says that people like me just become intellectual old maids,' I told him.
'I don't see why,' he protested.
'Oh, well, it's probably true!' I said, rather sharply, for misery had as usual made me irritable. 'After the War there'll be no one for me to marry.'
'Not even me?' he asked very softly.
'How do I know I shall want to marry you when that time comes?'
'You know you wouldn't be happy unless you married an odd sort of person.'
'That rather narrows the field of choice, doesn't it?'
'Well
do you need it to be so very wide? — Vera Brittain

Only common mortals like the Somervilles have good old rotten hates, dear,' said her mother. 'Sir Graham manages to love everybody and wouldn't know what you're talking about. Have a bun.'

'He doesn't love the Turks,' said Philippa. 'He kills them.'

'That isn't hate,' said Kate Somerville. 'That's simply hoeing among one's principles to keep them healthy and neat. I'm sure he would tell you he bears them no personal grudge; and they think they're going to Paradise anyway, so it does everyone good. — Dorothy Dunnett

MT: That also makes me think of Jesus's "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." And yet, doesn't Christ also speak of violence? RG: "I didn't come to bring peace but war, I came to separate the son from the father, the daughter from the mother, and so on" doesn't mean, "I've come to bring violence," but rather, "I've come to bring a kind of peace that is so utterly free of victims that it surpasses what you are capable of and eventually you'll have to come to a reckoning with your victimary phenomena." These texts are the religious texts of the modern world. They're not just Western. They don't belong to anyone, they're universal. MT — Rene Girard

Now. Maybe you think it is arrogant or self centered, or ridiculous for me to believe that God bothered to wiggle a cheap bolt out of my new used car because he or she needed to keep me away for a few days until just the moment when my old friend most needed me to help her mother move into whatever comes next. Maybe nothing conscious helped to stall me so that I would be there when I could be most useful. Or maybe it did. I'll never know for sure. And anyway, it doesn't really matter. — Anne Lamott

Does his family have money?" I asked.
"No, Ulises's family doesn't have money," said Requena. "Actually, the only family he has is his mother, right? Or at least I've never heard of anyone else."
"I know his whole family," said Pancho. "I knew Ulises Lima long before any of you, long before Belano, and his mother is the only family he has. He's broke, that I can promise you."
"Then how could he finance two issues of a magazine?"
"Selling weed," said Pancho. The other two were quiet, but they didn't deny it.
"I can't believe it," I said.
"Well, it's true. The money comes from marijuana."
"Shit."
"He goes and gets it in Acapulco and then he delivers it to his clients in Mexico City."
"Shut up, Pancho," said Barrios.
"Why should I shut up? The kid's a fucking visceral realist, isn't he? So why do I have to shut up? — Roberto Bolano

But Ruby understands now, this inclination. This desire to slip away. To seclude herself. She understands how it feels to be an island, separate from everyone else, surrounded by nothing but water. Even when she is with people (at school, at Izzy's house, at the pool), she is aware of how alone she is. Nobody can reach her, not really. She and her mother are more similar than different, but she doesn't know how to tell her mom this. What words might explain she understands. — T. Greenwood

And in her [Eleanor Roosevelt] letters, she writes the most, you know, fanciful letters: when we are together, and when we are reunited, and you know, I will be your surrogate wife. Of course she doesn't use that word, but I will be the mother to my brothers, and I will be your primary love. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

It's no fun to be yellow. Maybe I'm not all yellow. I don't know. I think maybe I'm just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn't give much of a damn if they lose their gloves. One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something - it used to drive mother crazy when I was a kid. Some guys spend days looking for something they've lost. I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much. Maybe that's why I'm partly yellow. It's no excuse, though. It really isn't. What you should be is not yellow at all. — J.D. Salinger

Walking with Murphy
through the bone-freezing chill
toward the bus stop,
I start shivering.
And somehow,
when he slips his arm around me
to warm me up,
it feels right.
Righter than anything ever has. — Sonya Sones

But it isn't easy to find the right person. It would have to be someone good with kids and horses, and ho'd be able to pitch in with the administrating to some extent and wouldn't quibble about shoving manure.Plus I'd have to be able to depend on them, and get along with them. And they'd have to be diplomatic with parents, which is often the trickiest part."
Travis picked up his soft drink again. "I might be able to point you in the right direction there."
"Oh? Listen, Dad, I appreciate it, but you know, a friend of a friend or the son or daughter of an aquaintance. That kind of thing gets very sticky if it doesn't work out."
"Actually, I was thinking of someone a little closer to home.Your mother."
"Ma?" With a half laugh, Keeley sat again. "Ma doesn't want this headache, even if she had time for it."
"Shows what you know." Smug now, he drank. "Just mention it to her, casually. I won't say a word about it. — Nora Roberts

Now there is a soft tap on the door. It's that man again. I don't know his name but I know it's him and nobody else because he always knocks five times, not four, not six, just five, and so softly too, like he fears he will make dents in the tin. Mother pulls the blankets over my head and then blows out the candle before opening the door. But what she doesn't know is that I am always awake most of the time this happens, because I am the hare. — NoViolet Bulawayo

She's her mother's daughter - full of courage, determination, and strength she doesn't even know she has. — Wanda E. Brunstetter

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he'd heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all-girl dorm.
Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy's roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn't know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a "young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood" after meeting me.
That one slays me every time. — Meg Cabot

Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas-water vapor-into the atmosphere every day and removes about the same amount every day. While this does not 'prove' that global warming is not man-made, it shows that weather systems have by far the greatest control over the Earth's greenhouse effect, which is dominated by water vapor and clouds. — Roy Spencer