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Family Quotes and Quotations
 A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no aw, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.  Mother love has been much maligned. An over mothered boy may go through life expecting each new woman to love him the way his mother did. Her love may make any other love seem inadequate. But an unloved boy would be even more likely to idealize love. I don't think it's possible for a mother or father to love a child too much. Unconditional love is loving your kids for who they are, not for what they do ... it isn't something you will achieve every minute of every day. But it is the thought we must hold in our hearts every day. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found. Of course if you like your kids, if you love them from the moment they begin, you yourself begin all over again, in them and with them. You can see them alongside the shuffleboard courts in Florida or on the porches of the old folks' homes up north.... They are in love, they have always been in love, although sometimes they would have denied it. And because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures. In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony. Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper. In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit. [A mother] discovers with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them. The Family is the Country of the heart. There is an angel in the Family who, by the mysterious influence of grace, of sweetness, and of love, renders the fulfillment of duties less wearisome, sorrows less bitter. The only pure joys unmixed with sadness. Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - it doesn't matter who it is and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other. No man has ever lived that had enough of children's gratitude or woman's love. I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home. Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. The real question isn't whether or not you love your kids, but how well you are able to demonstrate your love and caring so that your children really feel loved. The last step in parental love involves the release of the beloved; the willing cutting of the cord that would otherwise keep the child in a state of emotional dependence. So if you have a grandma, Thank the Good Lord up above, And give Grandmama hugs and kisses, For grandmothers are to love. Oh, I love to see a man with a cigar. It reminds me of my grandfather. Morning to night, he used to sit with a great big stogie dangling from his lips. Oh, the hours we kids used to spend sitting on his lap, playing with the yellow whiskers beneath his nose. Then he'd take out his teeth with the cigar still in them and chase us around the room! We'd all laugh and laugh . . . then suddenly Grampa's mood would change, and we'd all have to run for our lives. . . . You can't buy memories like that. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. It is my pleasure that my children are free and happy, and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents. Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild. The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy. The whole world is my family. To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there. The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. The family with an old person in it possesses a jewel. Babies are such a nice way to start people. Each time a new baby is born there is a possibility of reprieve. Each child is a new being, a potential prophet, a new spiritual prince, a new spark of light precipitated into the outer darkness. Bringing a child into the world is the greatest act of hope there is. Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness. Children are the bridge to heaven. We are given children to test us and make us more spiritual. One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Children are the true connoisseurs. What's precious to them has no price - only value. There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. Children, like animals, use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way all over again. The only artists for whom I would make way are - children. For me the paintings of children belong side by side with the works of the masters. Why, a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up - 'cause they're looking for ideas. What do we teach our children? . . . We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique . . . You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. By giving children lots of affection, you can help fill them with love and acceptance of themselves. Then that's what they will have to give away. Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best. It is infinitely more useful for a child to hear a story told by a person than by computer. Because the greatest part of the learning experience lies not in the particular words of the story but in the involvement with the individual reading it. The parents exist to teach the child, but also they must learn what the child has to teach them; and the child has a very great deal to teach them. Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss. Children have a remarkable talent for not taking the adult world with the kind of respect we are so confident it ought to be given. To the irritation of authority figures of all sorts, children expend considerable energy in "clowning around." They refuse to appreciate the gravity of our monumental concerns, while we forget that if we were to become more like children our concerns might not be so monumental. Youth I Stay close to the young, and a little rubs off. Those who love the young best stay young longer. As long as I continue to hear "normal" people telling me I am too childish, I know I'm doing just fine. One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. All of us collect fortunes when we are children. A fortune of colors, of lights, and darkness, of movement, of tensions. Some of us have the fantastic chance to go back to his fortune when grown up. So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us. The great man is he that does not lose his child-heart. - Mencius What God is to the world, parents are to their children. - Philo Honor your father and your mother. - Bible Honor your father and mother, even as you honor God, for all three were partners in your creation. - Zohar When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. Remember, no matter how many candles you blow out this year, there's one gal who will always think of you as young, strong and handsome - your mother. There's no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one. God could not be everywhere, therefore he made mothers. Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves. The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day. If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren, I'd have had them first. Few things are more delightful than grandchildren fighting over your lap. The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship. - Epicurus Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together. The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him. What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it. - Seneca When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it. A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joy, and dividing our grief. It is not what you give your friend, but what you are willing to give him, that determines the quality of your friendship. A friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you just the same. It is not the talking that counts between friends, it is the never needing to say what counts. True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable. Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. To be a good friend remember that we are human magnets: that like attracts like and that as we give we get. Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light. Friendships are fragile things, and require as much care in handling as any other fragile and precious thing. Every man should have a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends. Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them. You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you. The only way to have a friend is to be one. Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody. It is great to have friends when one is young, but indeed it is still more so when you are getting old. When we are young, friends are, like everything else, a matter of course. In the old days we know what it means to have them. Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were the easiest for his feet. Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another. Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light. There's no way that moving in with your parents is a sign that your life is on track. Cleaning your house while your children are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children. The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant - and let the air out of the tires. Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family ... in another city. Human beings are the only creatures on Earth that allow children to come back home. Children have become so expensive that only the poor can afford them. Never brag about your ancestors coming over on the Mayflower; the immigration laws weren't as strict in those days. - Lew Lehr Whenever I'm with my [teenager], I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. - Amy Tan They are doing away with drive-ins. Now where are the teenagers going to go to not watch a movie? Big sisters are the crabgrass in the lawn of life. My son has taken up meditation - at least it's better than sitting doing nothing. A scout is a boy who dresses like a schmuck. A scoutmaster is a schmuck who dresses like a boy. It appears there's a little too much chlorine in their gene pool. In America there are two classes of travel - first class and with children. The best thing to do is to behave in a manner befitting one's age. If you are sixteen and under, try not to go bald. I think a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it. Family is just accident. . . . They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are. My father told me marijuana would cause me brain damage - because if he caught me doing it he was going to break my head. We're supposed to take our problems to a family adviser. Personally, I've never met a family adviser. They're all off somewhere listening to dirty stories. The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy. Have children while your parents are still young enough to take care of them. Let's face it, there's lots of spoiled kids out there . . . because you can't spank Grandma. Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put "I love Mom" on the license plate. You know your children are growing up when they stop asking where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going. I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes - and six months later you have to start all over again. I don't want to say anything about my kids . . . but I go to PTA meetings under an assumed name! The Jewish man with parents still alive is a fifteen-year-old boy and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die. Few mistakes can be made by a mother-in-law who is willing to baby-sit. Adolescence is when children start trying to bring up their parents. Adults are just children who earn money. I read one psychologist's theory that said, "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday? It takes about five years for a walnut tree to produce nuts, but this is not true of a family tree. My father never raised his hand to any one of his children - except in self-defense. To encourage my little kid to eat I'd sometimes say: "Just pretend it's sand." Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying. Sis, I've been wondering . . . On my birthday mom always gives me five thousand dollars. How much does she give you? My kid asked if he could borrow ten dollars. When I only gave him five dollars he said, "Okay, since you owe me the other five dollars, we'll call it even." Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. Never lend your car to someone you've given birth to. We were so poor we had no hot water. But it didn't matter because we had no bathtub to put it in anyway. In most states you can get a driver's license when you're sixteen years old, which made a lot of sense to me when I was sixteen years old but now seems insane. Home is the place, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. I love being a great-grandparent, but what I hate is being the the mother of a grandparent. I want you to know how I feel about my Italian heritage, so I'd like to say a few words in Italian: Verdi, Pavarotti, DiMaggio, Valentino, De Niro, Giuliani. . . A child prodigy is one with highly imaginative parents. I've just been to a debutant ball where all the girls were wearing low-cut gowns. It's clear why they're called coming out parties. When I reprimanded my son for hair like Michael Jackson, he said: "I don't see the problem you wear yours like Michael Jordan." Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million-dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla. Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops. Keep in mind ... to a dog you are family, to a cat you are staff. The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom. None but a mule denies his family. 
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