#mothers

We all have the best laid plans for our children, and they go and ruin it all by growing up any way they want to. What the hell was it all for, then? (Real Life and Liars) ↗

— Kristina Riggle

#fiction #life #mothers #parenting #poignant

I suppose the mothers of most twelve-year-old boys live with the uneasy conviction that their sons are embarked upon a secret life of crime. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#mothers-and-sons #life

I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think? ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#god #mothers #love

So I'm smoking in the house, Mother said. And Bobbie's got a dog in her room. And your son Will's got an Injun in his. So there it is, Mother said. Like it or lump it! ↗

— Tom Spanbauer

#love

In its various forms, so far as we know them, Love seems always to have a deep significance and a most practical importance to us little mortals. In one form, as the mere semi-conscious Sex-love, which runs through creation and is common to the lowest animals and plants, it appears as a kind of organic basis for the unity of all creatures; in another, as the love of the mother for her offspring—which may also be termed a passion—it seems to pledge itself to the care and guardianship of the future race; in another, as the marriage of man and woman, it becomes the very foundation of human society. And so we can hardly believe that in its homogenic form, with which we are here concerned, it has not also a deep significance, and social uses and functions which will become clearer to us, the more we study it. ↗

— Edward Carpenter

#animals #homosexuality #human-sexuality #love #marriage

I believe if I refuse to grow old, I can stay young 'til I die. ↗

— Stephen Schwartz

#ireneryan #musical #pippin #music

A mother isn’t the person who births you; it’s the person who rears you and shows you love. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#mother #mother-defined #motherhood #mothers-and-daughter #mothers-and-daughters

You must go further than I did," Nedra said. "You know that." "Further?" "With your life. You must become free." She did not explain it; she could not. It was not a matter of living alone, though in her case this had been necessary. The freedom she meant was self-conquest. It was not a natural state. It was meant only for those who would risk everything for it, who were aware that without it life is only appetites until the teeth are gone. ↗

— James Salter

#mothers-and-daughters #risk #women #freedom

She was not, herself, hugely in favor of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn't exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they'd been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they'd got the label which said "mother", everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said "child"... ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#motherhood #mothers #motherhood

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King's daughter, I would have gone nevertheless. ↗

— Joan of Arc

#commanded #daughter #even #fathers #god