#kin

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#breaking-down-assignment #childhood #encouragement #homework #project

So what?" I challenged, pulling the quilt tighter around myself. “All you're telling me is I won't betray my friends or family. If that's a weakness, it's one I want. ↗

— Julie Kagawa

#meghan #meghan-and-ash #the-iron-king #family

We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks—we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing? ↗

— Mitch Albom

#looking-back #mundane-life #realization #truth #wrapped-up

My dad is shagging your aunt, probably right now. That makes us almost family. ↗

— Jennifer Ashley

#family

What could my mother be to yours? What kin is my father to yours anyway? And how did you and I meet ever? But in love our hearts have mingled like red earth and pouring rain. ↗

— Vikram Chandra

#kinship #love #poetry #family

I tried that too, you know. After ... my family was murdered, and I was waiting for justice, I tried to hide inside a bottle. But some men, Tony, [..] are not small enough to fit into a bottle. ↗

— Aleksandr Voinov

#family

Friendship is a simple thing, and yet complicated; friendship is on the surface, something natural, something taken for granted, and yet underneath one could find worlds. ↗

— Jamaica Kincaid

#lucy #friendship

My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. “Viktor, what? ↗

— Gwenn Wright

#dark #family-saga #gothic #gwenn-wright #mystery

My only regret,” he gently tugged me back toward him, “would be leaving this world before naming you as my wife. If I die tomorrow, at least I’ll have that to my credit.” Wrapping his arms around my waist, he vowed, “You don’t have to be queen…but you will not fall into obscurity on a foreign world. You will bear the Omuran name, and I have to believe that will protect you.” He brought his forehead to rest against mine, adding sorrowfully, “I have to believe that our family line wasn’t meant to end with this. ↗

— M.A. George

#paranormal-romance #romantic #family

And yes, the Hemingways, the Fitzgeralds, the Faulkners and the Capotes. Drank while writing. Drink next to the typewriter. But the longer I lived in Brooklyn, the more writers I met, and I guess I was just too drunk to put it together before but now I realized about half of them were sober. So you could be a writer and be sober. Very interesting ↗

— Jeanne Darst

#writing #family