Quotes & Sayings About Your Mother From Daughter

When a mother loses a daughter, she grieves over the future that her daughter will never have, but she can take solace in memories of close-knit days. But when your daughter runs away, it is the fond memories that have been laid to rest; and your daughter's future, alive and well, recedes from you like a wave drawing out to sea. — Amor Towles

I didn't get to grow up and pull away from her and bitch about her with my friends and confront her about the things I'd wished she'd done differently and then get older and understand that she had done the best she could and realize that what she had done was pretty damn good and take her fully back into my arms again. Her death had obliterated that. It had obliterated me. It had cut me short at the very heigh of my youthful arrogance. It had forced me to instantly grow up and forgive her every motherly fault at the same time that it kept me forever a child, my life both ended and begun in that premature place where we'd left off. She was my mother, but I was motherless. I was trapped by her, but utterly alone. She would always be the empty bowl that no one could full. I'd have to fill it myself again and again and again. — Cheryl Strayed

Soon after they went back, Jules said to Jim: 'I love Magda. But it's a habit; it's not a great Love, not the real thing. To me, she's like a young mother and an attentive daughter, both at once.' 'But that's fine!' 'It's not the love I've always dreamed of having.' 'Does that kind of love exist?' said Jim. 'Of course! My love for Lucie.' Jim checked himself from saying, 'Because you do not possess her.' 'Besides,' Jules went on, 'knowing myself as I do, I shall never be able to forgive any woman for loving me. To love me is a sign of perversion or compromise -- and Lucie doesn't suffer from either. There's not a particle of me that she accepts.' 'With her, any man could think that.' 'Yes, could...' said Jules 'But I do.' 'Oh well,' said Jim, 'it's heroic and one can't help respecting it. It's a bit like martyrdom. And it's the key to your Life. If Lucie loved you...' 'She wouldn't be Lucie.' said Jules. — Henri-Pierre Roche

You would think a person could only die once. You would think you would only find you sister's lifeless body once. You would think you would only have to watch your mother's reaction once after finding out her only daughter is dead.
Once is so far from accurate.
It happens repeatedly.
Every single time I close my eyes I see Les's eyes. Every time my mother looks at me, she's watching me tell her that her daughter is dead for the second time. For the third time. For the thousandth time. Every time I take a breath or blink or speak, I experience her death all over again. I don't sit here and wonder if the fact that she's dead will ever sink in. I sit here and wonder when I'll stop having to watch her die. — Colleen Hoover

I will not be spoken to in that tone," she said to her mother.
Enid's mouth gaped open. For only a moment, however, until she began to protest.
"You've gotten snippy since your marriage, haven't you? I'll not take that behavior from you, child. Your sister would never have disrespected me in such a fashion."
"Enough!" Ellice held up her hand, her gaze never once leaving her mother.
"When have you ever respected me, Mother? I'm only a poor substitute for Eudora." She took a deep breath. "I'm not Eudora," she said. "I'm not your beloved daughter who died. I'm the one who lived. I'm tired of hearing about what my sister did or would have done. I suspect that Eudora would have silenced you long before now."
She grabbed her skirts and walked around her mother, heading for the kitchen. At the door, she stopped and turned.
"Must I die before you begin to value me as well? — Karen Ranney

He was swaying back and forth with their daughter gazing adoringly into his face from the cradle of his arms. "I'm going to do my best to make sure your life is awesome, but it won't always be. Those are the times you need to dance in the kitchen the most. It's good for your soul."
Beth sighed and leaned her head against the corner of the wall, as enchanted as Lily by the soft, tender timbre of his voice.
"You don't even need music," he told Lily. "You can dance to the music in your head. Hopefully not to that country-and-western shit your mother listens to, though. Oh ... damn. Don't say shit, Lily-bean. Or if you do and Mommy hears you, don't tell her you heard it from me, okay? Tell her Uncle Mike said it. — Shannon Stacey

Some of her fear must have shone through her effort to maintain a reassuring facade, for her father took one of her hands and exerted a feeble tug to bring her closer to him. "Evie," came his faint whisper, "I'm going to your mother, y'see ... she's got 'em to leave a back door open ... so I can steal into 'eaven."
She laughed quietly even as a few hot tears spilled from her eyes. — Lisa Kleypas

The shoes always tell the story,' said the shoe poet.
'Not always,' I countered.
'Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made. That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for and older woman. That tell me they probably belong to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story. — Ruta Sepetys

If your voice could overwhelm those waters, what would it say?
What would it cry of the child swept under, the mother
on the beach then, in her black bathing suit, walking straight out
into the glazed lace as if she never noticed, what would it say of the father
facing inland in his shoes and socks at the edge of the tide,
what of the lost necklace glittering twisted in foam?
If your voice could crack in the wind hold its breath still as the rocks
what would it say to the daughter searching the tidelines for a bottled message
from the sunken slaveships? what of the huge sun slowly defaulting into the clouds
what of the picnic stored in the dunes at high tide, full of the moon, the basket
with sandwiches, eggs, paper napkins, can-opener, the meal
packed for a family feast, excavated now by scuttling
ants, sandcrabs, dune-rats, because no one understood
all picnics are eaten on the grave? — Adrienne Rich

God bless you, my dear master! I said. God keep you from harm and wrong
direct you
solace you
reward you well for your past kindness to me."
"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered; "without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love: yes
nobly, generously."
Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at once quitted the room.
"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell for ever!"
... immeasurable distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart
"my daughter, flee temptation."
"Mother, I will. — Charlotte Bronte

It's a very odd feeling for a daughter to see her mother blush over a man."
"You wouldn't?" Alan skimmed a thumb over her cheekbone. Shelby forgot her mother altogether.
"Wouldn't what?"
"Blush," he said softly, tracing her jawline. "Over a man."
"Once-I was twelve and he was thirty-two." She had to talk-just keep talking to remember who she was. "He,uh, came to fix the water heater."
"How'd he make you blush?"
"He grinned at me.He had a chipped tooth I thought was really sexy."
On a quick ripple of laughter, Alan kissed her just as Myra opened the door.
"Well,well." She didn't bother to disguise a self-satisfied smile. "Good evening.I see you two have met."
"What makes you think that?" Shelby countered breezily as she stepped inside.
Myra glanced from one to the other. "Do I smell strawberries?" she asked sweetly.
"Your lamp." Shelby gave her a bland look and indicated the box Alan carried. "Where would you like it? — Nora Roberts

Never stray from your own kind, Jessen," my mother would say, "or you could end up like Princess Morga, a slave and outcast to be abhorred."

The problem was, I'd never been a very obedient daughter. Never the one to do exactly as I was told. And fairy tales have no meaning when the stars align and Fortune spins her wheel, weaving her own story for your heart. — Juliette Cross

How do you explain to your friend's mother why a night out with friends has left her daughter dying from an ecstasy overdose? — A.C. Flanagan

The old man spoke of nothing but shoes. He spoke of them with such love and emotion that a woman in our group had crowned him "the shoe poet." The woman disappeared a day later but the nickname survived. "The shoes always tell the story," said the shoe poet. "Not always," I countered. "Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made. That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for an older woman. That tells me they probably belonged to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story." I paused in the center of the frozen road and watched the stubby old cobbler shuffle ahead of me. The shoe poet was right. Mother had sacrificed for me. — Ruta Sepetys

The best love in the world, is the love of a man. The love of a man who came from your womb, the love of your son! I don't have a daughter, but maybe the love of a daughter is the best, too. I am first and foremost me, but right after that, I am a mother. The best thing that I can ever be, is me. But the best gift that I will ever have, is being a mother. — C. JoyBell C.

Castiza: "False! I defy you both!
I have endured you with an ear of fire;
Your tongues have struck hot irons on my face!
Mother, come from that poisonous woman there."
Gratiana: "Where?"
Castiza: "Do you not see her? She's too inward then. — Thomas Middleton

Back in New York, my dad refused to admit that he had a wife, much less a daughter on the way. This fantasy came to an end when he picked up his mail to find a postcard from a grinning woman, with a swelling belly, firing off automatic weapons with a group of equally happy Uzbek men. The caption read, 'Enjoying the afternoon with your daughter!'

On July 19, exactly four weeks before I was born, my father opened the door to find a woman wearing a burka, the traditional dress of Iran. When my mother finally went into labor at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, my dad was finally forced to venture outside his circle of comfort. Having done so - and meeting me - he realized it wasn't so bad out there. — Nicolaia Rips

If in poetry court she was called
to testify on matters where
I was condemned to imprisonment: parking my ego
at a broken meter, line violations, forced rhyme,
dealing stanzaics to children, shooting
off my mouth, getting cute, for even this
latest attempt at verse, she would tell the whole truth,
she would admit from the pit
of her unsung brilliance,
from all of the paintings and poems
she herself has been making
and storing in the vast empire of her
singing soul, your Honor, my daughter is guilty
of plagiarizing my cells. — Kristen Henderson

When were were cast out of Paradise, we lost part of our soul forever. As part of our punishment, we were cursed never to learn to love again. Instead, we were bound to a destiny that was set from the beginning. Azrael and I never chose each other; the choice was made for us. We never knew anything else.
The ring you hold is part of my soul that your mother helped me recover. It was she who saved us from the Dark and led us back to the Light. As her daughter, you too are an Angel of Light. The fire does not harm you. I lost the ring during the crisis in Rome. But now it has been returned to me.
This ring has been blessed by Gabrielle herself.
I have never given this ring, my soul, to anyone. Azrael has never had any part in this.
This is the only part of myself that is truly mine, and now it is yours. — Melissa De La Cruz

She had his dark hair, his lashes, and from the glimpse he had, she bore his eyes, as well. But the shape of her face, a perfect oval, was her mother's. She had Anais's cheeks. Anais's lovely mouth and proud chin. He kissed her chin, feeling the softest of fluttering against his cheek - baby's breath. There was nothing sweeter than the feel of an innocent child's breath against one's cheek - nothing more wondrous than knowing that the baby was your own flesh and blood.
Mina stretched against him, yawning widely and throwing her arms up wide alongside her head. He laughed through his tears and reached for her little fist and brought it to his mouth, kissing her with such love he thought he would die of it. "You will consume me, little Mina, just as your mother has."
-Linsay to his infant daughter. — Charlotte Featherstone

Would it surprise you to hear that man's unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness? You know this already from your own life. For when you have been unhappy, you have been unhappy with others - with your father or mother, your sister or brother, your spouse, your son, your daughter. If unhappiness is with others, wouldn't it stand to reason that happiness must be with others as well? — Anasazi Foundation

Who ever he is, I agree with your mother," said Dad as he entered the kitchen. "Stay away from him. Stay away from them all until you're of marrying age. Once you reach a nice, mature fifty-four, gentlemen callers will be welcomed here. — Sarah Rees Brennan

She was a daughter of the Virgin of Montserrat, and she felt instinctively and of course heretically that the Virgin herself was only a symbol of a yet greater sister-mother who was carefree and sorrowful all at once, a goddess who didn't guide you or shield you but only went with you from place to place and added her tangible presence to your own when required. — Helen Oyeyemi

Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?" Mrs. Bennet clenched both her fists. "Yes, or I will never see her again!" she sobbed. "An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth." Mr. Bennet tsk-tsked. "From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do." Lizzy shared a warm smile with her dad. She double-tapped her chest, he double-tapped his, and they did their super secret Favorite Daughter-Daddy handshake. Mrs. Bennet, at the sight of it, broke into sobs anew, and Mr. Collins quietly disappeared down the road, muttering that he would be spending the remainder of his visit at Lucas Lodge, if anybody gave a shit. Which emphatically they did not. — J.K. Really

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

Sleep tight in the secure arms of your daddy. I know I have. He'll be good at making you feel safe.
When you're scared, let him remind you that he's right there, always ready to hold you when you need it.
More than anything, I want to tell you this: You are a fighter. You are strong. You are brave. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. This world is yours to make the most of, and I believe you will live a life so full of happiness that I will feel it from above.
Never let others bring you down. Their words don't change who you are. You are in control of who you are. You, my sweet Lila Kate, are your mother's daughter. We fight for what we want and what we believe in. We don't listen to others, and we are secure in who we are. Show the world how amazing Lila Kate Carter is, and climb mountains, baby girl. Climb them all. — Abbi Glines

Dear friends, I want you to hear this: what is said of Jesus is said of you. I know this can be hard to affirm. You are the beloved daughter or son of God. Can you believe it? Can you hear it not only in your head through your physical ears but in your gut, hear it so that your whole life can be turned around? Go to the scriptures and read: "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have written your name in the palm of my hand from all eternity. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you in your mother's womb. I love you. I embrace you. You are mine and I am yours and you belong to me." You have to hear this, because if you can hear this divine voice speak to you from all eternity, then your life will become more and more the life of the beloved, because that is who you are. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

From my father I heard only these words: "But you were born for such a day as this." He closed the book and my mother joined him in embracing me. They prayed over me and they gave me a blessing. And some blessings, like the one my conservative Christian parents gave to their soon-to-be-Lutheran pastor daughter who had put them through hell, are the kind of blessings that stay with you for the rest of your life. The kind you can't speak of without crying all over again. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg.
Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter ... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold ... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermo-dynamic miracle. — Alan Moore

Angelina said, "Mom. I don't want you to die. That's the whole thing. You took from me the ability to care for you in your old age, and I wanted to be with you when you died, when you die. Mom. I wanted that. — Elizabeth Strout

But most important, I see me . . . or rather, the me I've become. Because I can finally see that all the terrible parts of my life, the embarrassing parts, the incidents I wanted to pretend never happened, and the things that make me "weird" and "different," were actually the most important parts of my life. They were the parts that made me me. And this was the very reason I decided to tell this story . . . to celebrate the strange, to give thanks for the bizarre, and to one day help my daughter understand that the reason her mother appeared mostly naked on Fox News (that's in book two, sorry) is probably the same reason her grandfather occasionally brings his pet donkey into bars: Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. Because there is joy in embracing - rather than running screaming from - the utter absurdity of life. And because it's illegal to leave an unattended donkey in your car, even if you do live in Texas. — Anonymous

Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment - with which your eyes are now almost overflowing - with which your heart is heaving - with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent - my arms wait to receive her. — Charlotte Bronte

What daughter thinks of her parents in flagrante delicto? Yet, my mother, even after years with him, dropped hints such as, 'You know, your father enjoys his matinees.' I never even saw them go to the movies together. What could she mean? All those afternoons, I thought she was upstairs listening to La Traviata, and those high notes apparently were not coming from the radio. — Joy Behar

I always say about my daughters, they save me from my miserable self. They take me out, you know, a comedian, you could live in your head a lot. And you're writing and you're doubting. But when I'm with my kids and my family, it's all about them. — Chris Rock

And as we see from the parable of the farmer and his daughter who were travelling to Jericho in a wagon when they fell among thieves, and all was taken from them save some jewels that the daughter contrived to hide in her vagina. After the thieves had gone, she gave these jewels to her father, to raise his heart again. And her father said unto her: If only your mother was here. We could have saved the horse and the wagon also. — Robert Nye