Quotes about family
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Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“I swear if that's a pair of demon horns digging into my belly and stabbing me right now, Ash, I'm going to beat you after it's born."

'Cause face it, horns on the head didn't come from my side of the family or genetic code.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

“I wondered if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.”

Jon Ronson (1967) British journalist, documentary filmmaker, radio presenter and nonfiction author

Source: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

“Tobias loved her more than he’d loved anything—his family, his duty, even himself. There, perhaps, the Herondale blood ran true.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Lost Herondale

Love

“We're playing Scrabble. It's a nightmare."

"Scrabble?" He sounds surprised. "Scrabble's great."

"Not when you're playing with a family of geniuses, it's not. They all put words like 'iridiums'. And I put 'pig'.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

“He doesn’t have to love your CD collection. He doesn’t have to love your shoes. But any good, mature guy better make an attempt to love your friends and family—especially when they’re great.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Love, Shoe, Guy

“Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work's important, family's important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Source: Three Weeks With My Brother

Life, Parting, Cheating, Forgetting

“I can't kill someone!"
"You hit your brother in the head with a fire extinguisher."
"But that was family! And I didn't kill him.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Awaken

“Yeah, the whole family knows. It's no big deal. One night at dinner I said, 'Mom, you know the forbidden love that Spock has for Kirk? Well, me too.' It was easier for her to understand that way.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Tithe

Love, Way, Moms, Understanding

“Some people are your family no matter when you find them, and some people are not, even if you are laid, still wet and crumpled, in their arms.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Source: Love Invents Us

People

“We make families of our own, Travis whispered in my arms on the last night we spent together. It starts with you and me and then it spreads. And whatever happens, there’ll always be a part of me that’s part of you. No matter what.”

Steve Kluger book Almost Like Being in Love

Source: Almost Like Being in Love

Parting, Night

“I don't know the first thing about holding together a family, especially one that resembles an heirloom vase, shattered but glued back together for its beauty, and no one mentions that you can see the cracks as plain as day.”

Jodi Picoult book Songs of the Humpback Whale

Source: Songs of the Humpback Whale

Beauty

“Insanity runs in my family, it practically gallops”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Funny, Family

“Someday every woman will have orgasms- like every family has color TV- and we can all get on with the business of life.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Source: How to Save Your Own Life

Life, Color, Business

“I hope when I'm ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Love, Hope, Home, Cooking

“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

“So that's how you're going to fix the family problem. Little Dragomirs. Good idea.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Idea, Problem

“Sometimes, though, you have to do things for family, even if you'd rather not.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Across the Great Barrier

“A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Variant: A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man
Source: The Godfather

Time, For Men

“Family is just accident, Jessie. It's nothing personal, hon. They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.”

Marsha Norman 'night, Mother

Source: 'night, Mother

Personality

“I like to stay cozy with my paranoia, not pass her around to my friends and family.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

“It seems you don't approve of the family business Katerina. Or of me. But these chances you take… These things you do… This is a dangerous life to live… alone.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Life, Business, Chance

“Family dinner. Seven-thirty sharp. Tie optional. Straight-jacker required.”

Alyson Nöel book Evermore

Source: Evermore

“Their mother had always stressed the importance of taking care of yourself first, your family second and everyone else not at all..

darkest surrender”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

“But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Source: Northanger Abbey: a play in two acts, based upon the novel

Way

“There will be no more British guys. Unless they are members of the royal family, of course.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Queen of Babble

Guy

“Family isnt about blood relationships, its about the meaning behind them. I relize now that sharing chromosoms is not the only way to having a family, its about the friendship behind it.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Friendship, Way

“Hey, you freakin' bastard," I breathed. "You hit me again and I'll take care of your family planning.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Every Which Way But Dead

“The whole family is a bunch of dangerous freaks… Most are ex-cons or junkies or deranged from inbreeding. Five have died violently, three are back in prison, two have gone insane from untreated venereal disease, and one writes book reviews.”

Tim Dorsey book Triggerfish Twist

Source: Triggerfish Twist

Books, Disease

“You see, insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”

Joseph Kesselring Arsenic and Old Lace

Source: Arsenic and Old Lace

“Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

Animals

“You can, t make yourself happy by causing other peoples misery

-Tyler Perry
The Family That Preys”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

Variant: Are You Living or Just Existing?"

-Tyler Perry
The Family That Preys

Happiness, People

“Why do people who are good at families have to be smug and assume it is the only way to live. … Why can’t they be blamed for being bad at promiscuity?”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

People, Way

“I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Problem, Thinking, Housing

“Did you really JUST fall, Jeffrey?
Why does everybody in my family talk in these dramatic CAPITAL LETTERS all the time? Why am I the only calm one?”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Time

“They called each other family and that’s what they were—sisters. Many people in the world had family of the heart, kin by choice rather than by blood, and hers had come along in her darkest hour and saved her life.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Spirit Bound

Life, People, World, Sister

“It struck me then how much the past - not just the past but history and family - was like the ocean tide. It was always the same ocean, but the waves made it fresh and new each time.”

Aimee Friedman (1979) American writer

Source: Sea Change

History, Time, Past

“I'm a 21st-century kid trapped in a 19th-century family.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: There's Treasure Everywhere

“I want to hug you. And I want to tear your gods-damned head off. Both at once."

"Ah," said Locke. "Near as I can tell, that’s the definition of 'family' right there.”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

God, Tear

“My sense of humor will always stand in the way of my seeing myself, my family, my race or my nation as the whole intent of the universe.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

Way, Sense, Universe

“Now I see some family resemblance. I was starting to wonder if Jill was adopted, but you two kind of look like each other."
"So does our mailman back in North Dakota," said Adrian.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

“For your own good, for the good of your family and your future, grow a backbone. When something is wrong, stand up and say it is wrong, and don't back down.”

Dave Ramsey (1960) American financial advisor

Source: The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

Future

“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Funny, Family

“Intimate, loving, and enduring relationships with our family and close friends will be among the sources of the deepest joy in our lives.”

Clayton M. Christensen (1952–2020) Mormon academic

Source: How Will You Measure Your Life?

Love, Joy

“Families will not be broken. Curse and expel them, send their children wandering, drown them in floods and fires, and old women will make songs of all these sorrows and sit on the porch and sing them on mild evenings.”

Marilynne Robinson book Housekeeping

Source: Housekeeping

Women, Children, Singing

“All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged."
"Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it's true.
Source: City of Bones

Life, World, Feeling

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

People, School, Learning

“Oh, I used to lie all the time as a kid." I didn't think of it as lying, though. I thought of it as playing make-believe. I told Kitty she was adopted and her real family was in a traveling circus. It's why she took up gymnastics.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Lie, Travel, Lying, Thinking

“Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Children, World, Communication, Change

“I never wanted to be away from the family. Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent.”

Junot Díaz book Drown

Source: Drown

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

People, Hell, Family

“What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Baby, Night

“Oh, yeah, insanity ran deep in the roots of that family tree.’ (Talon)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Tree

“What’s the best part of being in Hermes cabin?
Connor: You are never lonely. I mean seriously, new kids are always coming in. So you always have someone to talk to.
Travis: Or prank.
Connor: Or pickpocket. One big happy family.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

Happiness, Parting

“The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there──shared vision and values.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“I have a family full of quirky people. Someone has to be sensible so all of you can enjoy being reckless weirdos.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

People

“This is a story about a family and, as there is a ghost involved, you might cal it a ghost story. But every family is a ghost story. The dead sit at out tables long after they have gone.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Dead

“How easily this unthinking family love was forgotten.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Love

“The question is… How did a girl like Annabelle manage to talk a man like you into joining our silly little family party?”

Annabelle smiled sweetly. “I promised he could tie me up afterward and spank me.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Match Me If You Can

Smile, Girl, Question

“You can't force folks to have good sense, even if they're family. Maybe especially then.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Across the Great Barrier

Sense

“A dog is like a person—he needs a job and a family to be what he’s meant to be.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Dogs, Personality, For Mother

“Who wants us?" Bianca demanded. "Because if you think you'll get a ransom, you're wrong. We don't have any family. Nico and I—" Her voice broke a little. "We've got no one but each other.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Thinking

“Family isn't about the blood you share. It's about the people willing to bleed for you." ---Maris - Born of Fury”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fury

People

“Your success as a family… our success as a nation… depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Success, Housing, Dependency

“Go out more, keep cheerful as well as busy, for you are the sunshine-maker of the family, and if you get dismal there is no fair weather.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Business, Weather

“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”

Mary Karr book The Liars' Club

Source: The Liars' Club

Personality, Family

“Living a connected life ultimately is about setting boundaries, spending less time and energy hustling and winning over people who don’t matter, and seeing the value of working on cultivating connection with family and close friends.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Life, People, Time

“The saddest thing was actually getting fed up with one another. It's like growing up in a family. When you get to a certain age, you want to go off and get your own girl and your own car, split up a bit.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Age, Cars, Girl

“In our family, you don't get a childhood. We're too busy trying to dominate the world.”

Gordon Korman book The Emperor's Code

Source: The Emperor's Code

World, Business, Childhood

“Apparently, he’d killed so many family members that he must have significantly affected the Lore’s population. Doing my part for the environment.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

Parting

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Life, Beauty, Family

“He held her close enough to kiss, close enough to whisper the most important secrets in the world, and he spoke to her as he would have wanted some good angel to speak to his family, to his own shivering young soul, long ago and in a land far away.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

Secret, World, Angels, Soul

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

Calvin Trillin (1935) American journalist

Mother's Day, For Mother

“Samuel: What's a misanthrope?
Two Bob: A misanthrope is a bugger who hates every other bugger.
Samuel: Are we misanthropes?
Arthur: Lord no! We're family.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Hate

“My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark

Source: Dead Until Dark

Women

“I think that is why we stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull- because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

People, Thinking

“So I left my wonderfully intelligent family and soaked myself in the bath and considered drowning myself. Then I remembered I still had chocolate cake left over from yesterday so I came back up for air. Some things are worth living for.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Intelligence

“Where I come from, family's defined as those who don't screw you over a paycheck. Blood makes no difference. If you can trust them with your life and know that they'll be there come whatever hell rains down, then they're your family.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Shadows

Life, Hell

“You all looked so happy together in the photograph. You looked like the
perfect family. Is there such a thing anymore because if there is, my happy
little unit was definitely not in the queue when they were handing out the
titles.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Happiness, Perfection

“We are injured and angry, scared and sad. Some families, like some couples, become toxic to each other after prolonged exposure.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Sadness

“This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values….”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Bird

“If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, then a family is more like a rope. We're lots of fragile little strands, and we survive by becoming hopelessly intertwined with each other.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Saga, Vol. 7

Strong

“I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.”

James Goldman The Lion in Winter

Source: The Lion in Winter

Knowledge

“Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

God, Way, Funny, For Bestfriend

“All families are psychotic. Everybody has basically the same family - it's just reconfigured slightly different from one to the next.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Source: All Families are Psychotic

Family

“Sticking with your family is whatit a family.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

“I know family comes first, but shouldn't that mean after breakfast?”

Jeff Lindsay book Dearly Devoted Dexter

Source: Dearly Devoted Dexter

“If it's to protect our family, be it the Kingdom or the entire world… We would make anyone our enemy! That's what it means to be Fairy Tail!!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

World

“Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“Wonderful. What's the point of throwing a hissy fit without friends and family on hand to hear it?"
-Amy Cahill”

Gordon Korman book The Medusa Plot

Source: The Medusa Plot

“You are safe," he said firmly. "You have my name and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well. The man willna lay hands on ye again, while I live.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

“No one was perfect. But we all did the best we could. I guessed you had to forgive when you could, move on when you couldn't, and love your family and friends for who they were instead of punishing them for who they weren't.”

Sarah Mlynowski (1977) Novelist

Source: Ten Things We Did

Love, Forgiveness, Perfection

“In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.”

Joyce Carol Oates book We Were the Mulvaneys

Source: We Were the Mulvaneys

“So, have a little fun. Soon enough you'll be dead and burning in Hell with the rest of your family.”

George Carlin book Brain Droppings

Source: Brain Droppings

Hell, Dead

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

As quoted in Traits of a Healthy Family (1985) by Dolores Curran, p. 199.
Context: The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

Past, Future, Family

“It runs in the family. And don't expect me to be ashamed. Yankees lock away loony relatives, but down here, we prop 'em up on parade floats and march 'em through the middle of town.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Ain't She Sweet