#at

I was thinking how complicated life is and how there are no simple roads or paths. We are a fabric of mistakes and hurts; a family tree of fumbled attempts, successes and failures. ↗

— Belinda Jeffrey

#complicated #fabric #failures #family-tree #hurts

And so that means..." "We have to rob the Henley," Simon said. Kat sank onto a truly uncomfortable sofa. "Again. ↗

— Ally Carter

#gabrielle #heist-socity #henley #kat #simon

[I]n Africa I was a member of a family—of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven't known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their family is like a hand, of which they are the fingers. They are fully aware of being a family but are very little aware of being individuals. Here in the zoo there were other gorillas—but there was no family. Five severed fingers do not make a hand. ↗

— Daniel Quinn

#community #family #philosophy #family

How we take it for granted – those trivial conversations; those mundane moments that we think hold no meaning. We never realise how much we rely on the ordinariness of everyday life. When love is gone – when our entire world is gone – only then do we understand those moments are what we live for. ↗

— Dianna Hardy

#grief #life #living #loss #love

However self-sufficient we may fancy ourselves, we exist only in relation -- to our friend, family, and life partners; to those we teach and mentor; to our co-workers, neighbors, strangers; and even to forces we cannot fully conceive of, let alone define. In many ways, we are our relationships. ↗

— Derrick A. Bell

#self #self-sufficency #family

A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart. ↗

— Keri Hulme

#family #relationships #family

I admire how she protects her energy and understands her limitations. ↗

— Terry Tempest Williams

#self-knowledge #family

She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out of the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Sugar and spice - cinnamon - burned into the crust. But she's wearing these dark glasses in the kitchen at ten o'clock in the morning - everything nice - as she watches me break off a piece, bring it to my mouth, and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen, in winter. I fork the pie in and tell myself to stay out of it. She says she loves him. No way could it be worse. ↗

— Raymond Carver

#domestic-abuse #domestic-violence #family #fathers #love

Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot h'ors d'ourves. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground. ↗

— Paul Rudnick

#indians #native-americans #pilgrims #thanksgiving #family

I now know for certain that my mind and emotions, my fix on the real and my family's well-being, depend on just a few grams of salt. But treatment's the easy part. Without honesty, without a true family reckoning, that salt's next to worthless. ↗

— David Lovelace

#family #lithium #manic-depression #medication #mental-illness