“That sounds terrific. Just you, your comatose wife, your shell-shocked son, and you daughter who hates your guts. Not to mention that your two kids may be in love with each other. Yeah, that sounds like a perfect family reunion.”

“In every relationship there are two halves of that relationship. One half is you, and the other half is your son, your daughter, your father, your mother, your friend, your partner. Of those halves, you are only responsible for your half; you are not responsible for the other half.”

Miguel Ángel Ruiz (1952) Mexican writer and philosopher

“Under the plan of heaven, the husband and the wife walk side by side as companions, neither one ahead of the other, but a daughter of God and a son of God walking side by side. Let your families be families of love and peace and happiness. Gather your children around you and have your family home evenings, teach your children the ways of the Lord, read to them from the scriptures, and let them come to know the great truths of the eternal gospel as set forth in these words of the Almighty.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“You may love your country and hate your government.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“Each of us carries a room within ourselves, waiting to be furnished and peopled, and if you listen closely, you may need to silence everything in your own room, you can hear the sounds of that other room inside your head.”

Susan Sontag book In America

“Keep your language. Love its sounds, its modulation, its rhythm. But try to march together with men of different languages, remote from your own, who wish like you for a more just and human world.”

Helder Camara (1909–1999) Brazilian Catholic priest, archbishop of Olinda and Recife

“Anytime you start to imagine being the son or daughter of God, then now is a good time to go back to your family tree. Also check your chronological age.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“You gave your body to the lonely,
They took your clothes.
You gave up a wife and a family
You gave your ghost.
To be alone with me.
To be alone with me
You went up on a tree.
I've never met a man who loved me.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.”

Maya Angelou And Still I Rise

“If you can keep your son off the pipe and your daughter off the pole, you're ahead of the game.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director