“Your father bears an iron reed
Filled with a flame that makes us bleed;
Your kindly mother loves to tear
Feathers and skin to deck her hair.”

“His shroud was damp, his face was white:
He said,—"I cannot sleep,
Your tears have made my shroud so wet;
Oh, mother, do not weep!"
Oh, love is strong!—the mother's heart
Was filled with tender fears;
Oh, love is strong!—and for her child
Her grief restrained its tears.”

“Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.
-An-mei”

“The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know.

If you care about something enough, it's going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad.”

“Your mother waits, heart-weary, at the door.
Your child in hunger cries for its chewed rice.
I feed your mother, serving as her son,
and like a father teach your child to read.”

“There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears.”

“You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular…. The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.”

“Your father is a fool skin deep; but you are a fool to your very marrow.”

“I cannot bear a mother's tears.”
Nequeam lacrimas perferre parentis.

“And now it was your purpose to weep Vesuvius' flames in pious melody and spend your tears on the losses of your native place, what time the Father took the mountain from earth and lifted it to the stars only to plunge it down upon the hapless cities far and wide.”
Jamque et flere pio Vesuvina incendia cantu mens erat et gemitum patriis impendere damnis, cum pater exemptum terris ad sidera montem sustulit et late miseras deiecit in urbes.