Mother
Quotes - Think of your mother and smile for all of the good precious moments
“To
see her, amid all of it. To see that contentment and beauty were not
unattainable things.”
―
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
“You
may have tangible wealth untold; caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer
than I you can never be. I had a mother who read to me.”
―
Strickland Gillian
“I
love you every day, Mom”
―
Mitch Albom, For One More Day
“Mom
loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her
love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a
different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her
it.”
―
Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“My
mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up.”
―
Donald E. Westlake
“You
know who you belong to, Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“Yourself.”
He’s
wrong, actually, I belong to Ma.”
―
Emma Donoghue, Room
“What
she did have, after raising two children, was the equivalent of a PhD in
mothering and my undying respect.”
―
Barbara Delinsky, Escape
“My
mother always wanted to live near the water," she said. "She said
it's the one thing that brings us all together. That I can have my toe in the
ocean off the coast of Maine, and a girl my age can have her toe in the ocean
off the coast of Africa, and we would be touching. On opposite sides of the
world.”
―
Megan Miranda, Vengeance
“You
see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life
of one's own.”
―
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
“Think
of your mother and smile for all of the good precious moments.”
―
Ana Monnar
“So
what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me.
"Barbie,"
I said. "All their names are Barbie."
"I
see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone
having the same
name."
I
thought about this, then said, "Okay, then her name is Sabrina."
"Well,
that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread,
kneading
the dough
between
her thick fingers. "What does she do?"
"Do?"
I said.
"Yes."
She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. "What
does
she do?"
"She
goes out with Ken," I said.
"And
what else?"
"She
goes to parties," I said slowly. "And shopping."
"Oh,"
Boo said, nodding.
"She
can't work?"
"She
doesn't have to work," I said.
"Why
not?"
"Because
she's Barbie."
"I
hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town house
and
the Corvette,"
Boo
said cheerfully. "Unless Barbie has a lot of family money."
I
considered this while I put on Ken's pants.
Boo
started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top.
"You
know what I
think,
Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me.
"What?"
"I
think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have a
productive
and satisfying
career
of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting its
position
on the rack.
"But
what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning the
house
and going to PTA.
I
couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots,
doing
s.uch things.
Boo
came over and plopped right down beside me. I always remember
her
being on my level; she'd sit
on
the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened
to
the
radio.
"Well,"
she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique.
"What
do you want to
do
when you grow up?"
I
remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor,
cross-
legged,
holding my
Ken
and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother's
PTA
and Boo's
strange
ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,
and
led right to me.
"Well,"
I said abruptly, "I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where
this came
from.
"Advertising,"
Boo repeated, nodding. "Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to go
to
work every day,
coming
up with ideas for commercials
and
things like that."
"She
works in an office," I went on. "Sometimes she has to work
late."
"Sure
she does," Boo said. "It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're
Barbie."
"Because
she wants to get promoted," I added. "So she can pay off the town
house.
And
the Corvette."
"Very
responsible of her," Boo said.
"Can
she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials
and
ideas?"
"She
can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her
freckled
face
so solemn, as if
she
knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.”
―
Sarah Dessen, Dreamland
“There
is no one who takes care of us as lovingly as our mother does. She is our
living God.”
―
Mohtasham Usmani
“But
will you not have a house to care for? Meals to cook? Children whining for this
or that? Will you have time for the work?" "I'll make time," I
promised. "The house will not always be so clean, the cooking may be a
little hasty, and the whining children will sit on my lap and I'll sing to them
while I work.”
―
Gloria Whelan
“Mama
said it's probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a
child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I
don't think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was
different before, I don't remember.”
― Nancy
E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
“The
beauty of the sea is that it never shows any weakness and never tires of the
countless souls that unleash their broken voices into its secret depths.”
―
Zeina Kassem, Crossing
“One
sister may internalize the message and say, “Okay, I will show you what I can
do and how worthy I am” and become an overachiever and a perfectionist. The
other sister may internalize this message of inferiority and give up, feeling
that she can’t make the grade anyway; she becomes an underachiever or engages
in some kind of lifelong self-sabotage.”
―
Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of
Narcissistic Mothers
“Listen,
ah don't wanna speak ill of the dead but have ah told you that mah mother was a
great whopping whale of a cunt? Well she was precisely that - a great whopping
whale of a hog's cunt with a dirty maggot for a brain.”
―
Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel
“Psychology
researchers now claim that it is important for babies to learn how to stop
crying by themselves. Fortunately, many parents still prefer to comfort their
babies. If they didn't, we might find ourselves living in a society of very
solitary people, who had learned to control thier distress rather than to find
strength through sharing it.”
―
Naomi Stadlen, What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing
“It
lasted just a moment, whatever that is. One held breath? An ant's afternoon? It
was brief, I can promise that much, for although it's been many years now since
my children ruled my life, a mother recalls the measure of the silences.”
―
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
“I
think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in
blue dress across the floor of her dressing room”
―
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
“Being
a mother is not a matter of running through a succession of chores.”
―
Naomi Stadlen, What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing
“In
half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldn't: my past.”
―
Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts
“New
mothers are often told that once they've fed, burped, and changed their baby
they should leave their baby alone to self-soothe if they cry because all of
their needs have been met. One day I hope all new mothers will smile
confidently and say, "I gave birth to a baby, not just a digestive system.
My baby as a brain that needs to learn trust and a heart that needs love. I
will meet all of my baby's needs, emotional, mental, and physical, and I'll
respond to every cry because crying is communication, not manipulation.”
―
L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and
Stages
“Never
argue with a mother who's scolding her child.”
―
Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
“But
a mother-son relationship is not a coequal one, is it? He is lonely with only
you just as you are lonely with only him.”
―
Mary Balogh, Simply Love
“Not
crazy in a 'let's paint the kitchen bright red!' sort of way. But crazy in a
'gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God' sort of way. Gone were the days when
she would stand on the deck lighting lemon-scented candles without then having
to eat the wax.p28”
―
Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors
“I've
spoken of the patient Peter who was obsessively forced to make conquests with
women, to seduce and then to abandon them, until he was at last able to
experience how he himself had repeatedly been abandoned by his mother.”
―
Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
“I
had spent my childhood and the better part of my early adulthood trying to
understand my mother. She had been an extraordinarily difficult person,
spiteful and full of rage, with a temper that could flare, seemingly out of
nowhere, scorching everything and everyone who got in its way. [pp. 40-41]”
―
Dani Shapiro, Devotion
“I
had discovered, or rediscovered, that crying is a pleasure—that it can be a
pleasure beyond all reckoning if your head is pressed in your mother's waist
and her hands are on your back, and if she happens to be wearing clean
clothes.”
―
Richard Yates, The Collected Stories
“the
first time i met my mother.
i
knew she was not mine”
―
Nayyirah Waheed, Nejma
