Quotes about family
page 6

“I believe in me. And my family does. And Mrs. V.
It's the rest of the world I'm not so sure of.”

Source: Out of My Mind

“I didn't bother to explain about the glitter in my hair. I figured they could think it was a family trait. We all glittered, just like the Cullens in Twilight.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: My Double Life

Thinking

“The actual stuff my family owned, those boxes under my stairs, I can't quite bear to look at. I like other people's things better. They come with other people's history.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

People, History, Box

“I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.”

David Sheff Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Source: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Problem, Time

“The house of Life doesn’t trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn’t trigger each other’s magic.”
“Bloody awful reason to keep us apart,” I muttered.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Life, Moms, Housing

“Jerome said, It's like, a family doesn't work anymore when everyone in it is more miserable than they would be if they were alone, You know?”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

“Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Family

“In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

World

“… Families are Forever, and wondered if the slogan was meant as a promise or a threat.”

Brady Udall book The Lonely Polygamist

Source: The Lonely Polygamist

“I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. They are the real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them.”

Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter

Still Me (1999); also quoted at the Christopher Reeve Foundation http://www.christopherreeve.org/site/c.geIMLPOpGjF/b.1097025/k.6FF5/Christopher_and_Dana_Reeve.htm <br class="br">Context: When the first Superman movie came out, I gave dozens of interviews to promote it. The most frequent question was: What is a hero? My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences. Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. They are the real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them.

Thinking, Perseverance

“That’s family for you. Can’t live with them, can’t murder them.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

“My bookstore obsession grew to the point where I'd search for new shops during family trips, as though that were the reason for our travel.”

Lewis Buzbee (1957) American writer

Source: The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History

Travel, Search

“When I go around and speak on campuses,
I still don't get young men standing up and saying,
How can I combine career and family?”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Men

“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, The Great Learning
Context: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.

Knowledge, Heart, Personality, Sincerity

“Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

“42 is a nice number that you can take home and introduce to your family.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Home

“Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction!

Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Source: Arcadia

Time, Night

“Simon was still trying to work out how Shadowhunter government and also Shadowhunter family trees worked. They all seemed to be related to each other and it was very disturbing.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy

Tree

“You have everything," she said slowly, as if she were explaining the order of the world to a small child. "A family, a great job, a lot of people who look up to you. You've got a place to go home to." She smiled a little. "So go.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

People, World, Smile, Home

“I’ll keep it short and sweet - Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Friendship, Religion, Business

“Happy or Unhappy, families are all mysterious.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Happiness

“But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but the others-the ones who have died… They're with me still. They're here…”

Wally Lamb book She's Come Undone

Source: She's Come Undone

Thinking

“Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?”

Carrie Fisher book Wishful Drinking

Source: Wishful Drinking

“Family, like arsenic, works best in small doses… unless you prefer to die.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Time

“we must take care of our families wherever we find them.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Family

“Families break up when they get hints you don't intend and miss hints that you do.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

As quoted in Bartlett's Book of Love Quotations (1994) 
General sources
Context: The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended — and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended.

“How long can we maintain? I wonder. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family. Will he make that grim connection..”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Home, Boy, Thinking

“This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Hurt, Family

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Variant: If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
Source: Immaturity

Dance, Family

“There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are.”

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

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Do you know what most people have from their grandmother? A tea set. Or a quilt.” Curran smiled. “If your family had a quilt, it would be made out of chimera skin and stuffed with feathers from dead angels.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

People, Smile, Angels, Tea

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Alexander Donald (7 February 1788)
1780s
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Books, World

“Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

People, Family

“I decided it was well past time to take him home and place him in bosom of his family. If you had rather I put him in an orphanage, I fully understand.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Home, Understanding, Time, Past

“When a family breaks you don't hear the crack of the breaking. You don't hear a sound.”

Jude Watson (1956) novelist

Source: Strings Attached

“Me? I'm the king of the twentieth century. I'm the bogeyman. The villain… The black sheep of the family.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Variant: I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family.
Source: V for Vendetta

“For the first time, he looked at her, and she wasn’t a stranger, she was Clary—his friend. His family. The girl he’d sworn always to protect. The girl he loved as fiercely as he loved himself.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Lost Herondale

Love, Girl, Time

“Note: 'family' does NOT only mean a biological unit composed of people who share genetic markers or legal bonds, headed by a heterosexual-mated pair. Family is much, much more than that.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

People

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.”

Anaïs Nin book The Diary of Anaïs Nin

The Diary of Anaïs Nin , Volume One 1931-1934
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Death, Children, Pleasure, Books

“In a nutshell, the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back.”

Philip Yancey book The Jesus I Never Knew

Source: The Jesus I Never Knew

God

“That's the difference between family and friends. Family is always there, no matter what, even when it's not right next door. Which means that you'll find a way to keep the connection alive. Especially since you realize how important it is.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Way

“Health makes good propaganda. “'Proof' that women's activities outside the home are detrimental to the health and welfare of themselves, their families and the country as a whole” lent impetus, writes Ann Oakley, to the nineteenth-century cult of domesticity. The ovaries were seen as collective property rather than the woman's own business, as the face and body outline are seen today. Who can argue with health?”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 7 : 'Violence', p. 227

Women, Health, Home, Business

“Would you?” said Gabriel to Will, hotly. “If it was your family?” His lip curled. “Never mind. It’s not as if you know the meaning of loyalty —”
“Gabriel.” Gideon’s voice was a reprimand to his brother. “Do not speak to Will in that manner.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Loyalty

“Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Love, Girl

“We have three kinds of family
1. Those we are born to
2. Those who are born to us
3. And those we let into our hearts”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Variant: Simi? What was it you told me once about families?
We have three kinds of family. Those we are born to, those who are born to us, and those we let into our hearts.
Source: Bad Moon Rising

Heart

“Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Pain, Flowers, Time, Sun

“He remembered his home now, and that gave him new determination to succeed. He was fighting for two camps now -- two families.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Home, Fight

“I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.”

August Wilson The Piano Lesson

Source: The Piano Lesson

“Weddings are never about the bride and groom, weddings are public platforms for dysfunctional families.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

Wedding

“I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these."
- Mr. Darcy”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Source: Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Persuasion

“If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.”

Ben Fountain book Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Source: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Peace, Way

“I have been a friend to Shadowhunters. I know many of your families, going back for hundreds of years."
"There is nothing we can do to correct the questionable judgments of our ancestors," Lucian said.
Magnus hated this guy.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Last Stand of the New York Institute

Hate, Guy, Question

“I wonder if what makes a family a family isn't doing everything right all the time but, instead, giving a second chance to the people you love who do things wrong.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Love, People, Chance, Time

“Because that was what you did with family when you'd been worried about them, you grabbed them and held on to them and told them how much they'd pissed you off, and it was okay, because no matter how angry you got, they still belonged to you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Beli at thirteen believed in love like a seventy-year-old widow who's been abandoned by family, husband, children and fortune believes in God.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Love, God, Children

“Writers will happen in the best of families.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Family

“In the end, the end of a life only matters to friends, family, and other folks you used to know. For everyone else, it's just another end.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Life

“How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family?”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

Love, People, Study, Parting

“I'm not prepared for Rue's family. Her parents, whose faces are still fresh with sorrow. Her fiver younger siblings, who resemble her so closely. The slight builds, the luminous brown eyes. They form a flock of small dark birds.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Bird, Parent, Siblings

“Before it is science and career, before it is livelihood, before even it is family or love, freedom is sound sleep and safety to notice the play of morning sun.”

Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Source: The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Love, Sleep, Freedom, Science

“Love, after all, was universal. Qhuinn closed his fist up tight, and knew he would never, ever take that ring off. “Always,” Blay murmured. “Because family is an always kind of thing.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover at Last

Love, Universe

“Hey No one makes me do anything. Not my family. Not your family… not even you.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

“I can't say for sure, because I have no experience, but -- well, is this what family is like? The feeling that everyone's connected, that with one piece missing the whole thing's broken?”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Feeling

“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Source: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Communication, Animals

“Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and my family and my life stolen, made it easier not to care… -Wintergirls”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Life, Pain, Thinking, Hurt

“The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo!”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

People, Cars

“Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Fear, Home

“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)

God, Family, Cute

“Am I a man? To want you so badly that nothing else matters? To see you, and know I would sacrifice honor or family or life itself to lie wi' you, even though ye'd left me?”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Life, Lie

“Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.
Pt. I, ch. 1
Variant translations: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Variant: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Happiness, Way