#mother

My grandmother was a teacher, my sister was a teacher, my daughter was a teacher and is now a superintendent in northern California, and my son-in-law is a high school principal. I am surrounded. ↗

— Loni Anderson

#california #daughter #grandmother #high #high school

The memories of home and of her children rose up in her imagination with a peculiar charm quite new to her, with a sort of new brilliance. That world of her own seemed quite new to her now so sweet and precious that she would not on any account spend an extra day outside it, and she made up her mind that she would certainly go back next day. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#imagination

My father was frightened of his mother; I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me. ↗

— King George V

#children #damned #father #frightened #going

To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man! ↗

— Elizabeth Gaskell

#different thing #girl #man #second #stepmother

Your power as a woman, as a mother, is your medicine, and it saved you. Take your courage in that. ↗

— Jim Fergus

#the-power-of-women #courage

That’s the funny thing,” she said. “Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too. ↗

— Victor LaValle

#motherhood #courage

Sydney's the kind of port that leaves a mark on a sailor," the old man mused. "Really?" Haakon said, wondering what the man meant. "It did on me," he said, opening up his shirt to display his chest. It was covered with tattoos! At the top, SYDNEY was printed in elaborate red and blue letters. Beneath that was an enticing selection of names and dates. "Mary, 1838...Adella, 1840..." The old sailor began laughing. "Beatrice, 1843...Helen, 1846." And then finally, "Mother." There was no date after "Mother." "Mothers you love forever," he said. Everybody laughed then, including Haakon, though the thought brought some sadness to his heart. He did love his mother forever, and he missed her as well. ↗

— Bonnie Bryant Hiller

#pirates #tattoos #dating

You know that euphemism, she’s expecting? It’s apt. The birth of a baby, so long as it’s healthy, is something to look forward to. It’s a good thing, a big, good, huge event. And from thereon in, every good things, too,” I added hurriedly, “but also, you know, first steps, first dates, first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves- in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems,” I supposed idiotically, “at least they wouldn’t be our same old problems... ” (22) ↗

— Lionel Shriver

#motherhood #dating

No matter how much he talked, she never answered him, but he knew she was still there. He knew it was like the soldiers he had read about. They would have an arm or a leg blown off, and for days, even weeks after it happened, they could still feel the arm itching, the leg itching, the mother calling. ↗

— Pat Cunningham Devoto

#death #loss #missing #mother #sadness

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? (Just to give you an idea, Proust's reply was 'To be separated from Mama.') I think that the lowest depth of misery ought to be distinguished from the highest pitch of anguish. In the lower depths come enforced idleness, sexual boredom, and/or impotence. At the highest pitch, the death of a friend or even the fear of the death of a child. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#children #death #fear #friends #idleness