#moth

God in His infinite wisdom blessed humans with redundant tongues: one to outfit the mouth for speech. And a mother tongue to give it meaning... Though it wags out such inconceivable beauty, attached to the mother tongue lies one much maligned woman. ↗

— David B. Lentz

#bostoniad #david-b-lentz #mother-tongue #beauty

It was Sunday, and Mumma had gone next door with Lena and the little ones. Under the pepper tree in the yard Pa was sorting, counting, the empty bottles he would sell back: the bottles going clink clink as Pa stuck them in the sack. The fowls were fluffing in the dust and sun: that crook-neck white pullet Mumma said she would hit on the head if only she had the courage to; but she hadn't. ↗

— Patrick White

#children #fathers #fowls #mothers #recycling

You just stood up to your mother.... I should think now you could take on the world. ↗

— Elizabeth Strout

#mother #mothers #mothers-and-sons #standing-your-ground #courage

You think Bernadette Maguire killed him?” “Uh… no. She’s, like I said, she’s old.” “Old people can kill people too.” “I know, but…” “She could be a ninja.” “She’s not a ninja, for God’s sake. She’s somebody’s great grandmother.” “I want you to think carefully about this, Kenny. Have you ever seen her with a sword?” “What?” “How about throwing stars?” “This is ridiculous.” “Have you ever seen her dressed up as a ninja? That would have been my first clue.” The girl sucked in her cheeks so she wouldn't laugh out loud. ↗

— Derek Landy

#laugh #ninja #death

...for all its apparent speed, the ship was almost perfectly silent, and he experienced an enervating, eerie feeling, as though the ancient warship, mothballed all those centuries, had somehow not yet fully woken up, and events within its sleek hull still moved to another, slower tempo, made half of dreams. ↗

— Iain Banks

#dreams #jernau-morat-gurgeh #made-half-of-dreams #mothballed #silence

He stood there, his eyes like they had been before. Their beauty stabbed at her heart like a great knife; the hair looked so like she had just pressed the wet comb to it and perhaps put a little pomade on the sides; and the small face was clean and sad. Yet her arms somehow did not ache to hold him like her heart told her they should. Something too far away and too strong was between her and him; she only saw him as she had always seen resurrection pictures, hidden from us as in a wonderful mist that will not let us see our love complete. ↗

— James Purdy

#mothers-love #beauty

Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place. ↗

— Angela Carter

#cults #does #emotional #father #first

My grandmother was a Jewish juggler: she used to worry about six things at once. ↗

— Richard Lewis

#grandmother #jewish #juggler #once #she

My parents raised me that you never ask people about their reproductive plans. “You don’t know their situation,” my mom would say. I considered it such an impolite question that for years I didn’t even ask myself. Thirty-five turned into forty faster than McDonald’s food turns into cold nonfood. ↗

— Tina Fey

#impolite #kids #mcdonalds #mother #food

I save all my problems for my mother. ↗

— Chloe Sevigny

#mother #problems #save