182 quotes found
“Our worth comes from the promises we keep.”
“Max.It was a sharp whisper to reinstate the silence and Max did not know what kind ofacerbic retort waited on the other side of his stilted pause. Kevin had never snapped athim before, but there wa...”
“So much had never been explained to her. They were that kind of family. Things necessary to know were passed along brother to brother, sister to sister, and this sufficient for most purposes, despi...”
“You married into the family. You have to love me. It's a contractual obligation.”
“Glory had rehearsed angry outbursts in anticipation of his arrival. She began to hope he would come so she could tell him exactly what she thought.”
“I sometimes wonder if I am crisscrossing my father's ghostly paths and we are entering same towns or roadside diners or the black ribbons of highways that gleam in the night rain. As if we were ima...”
“You're my daughter. I don't care about the factions.”
“It was about having a box in the attic or basement or attic or garage, something we could return to over and over again, something that said, this is us, this is where we were last year, and this i...”
“Even as children they had been good in fact, but also in order to be seen as good. There was something disturbingly like hypocrisy about it all...”
“The hardest thing about talking to teenagers, I had discovered, was that whatever you said inevitably came across like something an elderly aunt would say at a wedding.”
“For a second, I see into the future: she's old and grey, she has senile dementia and can't remember my name. The thought pretty much breaks my heart in two.”
“Dad was the glue to the broken pieces of our family.”
“Mmmhmmm," Mother's delicate hands touched both sides of his cheeks as she spoke, "I do. Your name means 'to give' or 'gift'. Like giving a gift, or it means you are a gift." Then she tapped his nos...”
“Mama covered her ears with her hands, but I knew she heard me. Tears streamed from her eyes and dribbled from her chin. Part of me wanted to blot her face with a tissue, real tender-like, but the e...”
“I rolled the ball of muffin and I waited and after my mother said, "That you should really take a multivitamin," my father threw up his hands in disgust, and I was positive I had no family at all, ...”
“Children become frustrated and resentful when they view their parents as not being interested in how they feel and in their point of view.”
“Then you never really feel comfortable around most people. Especially your family, who probably never seemed to understand you. But as you grow up you find others like yourself, people who support ...”
“My grandfather used to wear a black hat and coat. You are my children. You are my jewels. We old ones invest our future in you.”
“No outbreak of jealousy or malice has ever been welcomed in Gods eyes. Beatrix continued, nor shall such an outbreak ever be welcomed in the eyes of your family. If you have sentiments within you t...”
“She knew her place in this family, always had. Knew why she was conceived. And it wasn't for a photo on the mantle.”
