A Mothers Love Quotes

A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy, the smile that accepts a lover before words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first born babe, and assures it of a mother's love. ~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton

A mother's love never fades. ~ Jen Minkman

I learned the most important aspect of a mother's love was not the intensity but its reliable consistency. ~ Tawni O'Dell

There's no way to repay a mother's love, or lack of it. ~ Mignon McLaughlin

I was like a ten-year-old kid who had been scraped off a mother's love so sudden and surreal that I kept hoping I could chant a few magical words and slowly, Mama Jas would materialise in front of me. ~ Diyar Harraz

From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life long, from the years that were to come. And on its way that breeze had leveled out all the ideas that people tried to foist on me in the equally unreal years I then was living through. What difference could they make to me, the deaths of others, or a mother's love, or his God; or the way a man decides to live, the fate he thinks he chooses, since one and the same fate was bound to "choose" not only me but thousands of millions of privileged people who, like him, called themselves my brothers. ~ Albert Camus

A mother's love is like a beacon, Burning bright with Faith and Prayer, And through the changing scenes of life, We can find a haven there ... ~ Helen Steiner Rice

Pieces of your heart broke every day when you were a mother. ~ Dianna Hardy

A mother's love is like an everlasting bed of roses, that continues to blossom. A mother's love bears strength, comfort, healing and warmth. Her beauty is compared to a sunny day that shines upon each rose petal and inspires hope. ~ Ellen J. Barrier

For a mother's love is fashioned, After God's enduring love, It is endless and unfailing, Like the love of Him above. ~ Helen Steiner Rice

…He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who'd come up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life and sure of my death I had waiting for me… I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that… Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I've lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? ~ Albert Camus

Love her as in childhood
Through feeble, old and grey.
For you'll never miss a mother's love
Till she's buried beneath the clay. ~ Frank McCourt

Which is more abiding – a mother's love or a child's need for it? ~ Barbara Delinsky

Through the grace shown to us in the gospel, there is something distinctly Christlike about a mother's love for her child. ~ Gloria Furman

It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses - say mother love or patriotism - are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad ... There are situations in which it is the duty of a married man to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people's children or countries. ~ Timothy Keller

No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother's love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

But Mrs. Meany, see, the women went on, leaning forward, despite how her heart was broken, pulled herself together, anyway, to put on a good face for the rest of the family at home. And she went back, Sunday after Sunday, right up until the Sunday before she died. Mrs. Meany put her beautiful love - a mother's love - against the terrible scenes that brewed like sewage in that poor girl's troubled mind. She persevered, she baked her cakes, she hauled herself (the goiter swinging) on and off the ferry, and she sat, brokenhearted, holding her daughter's hand, even as Lucy shouted her terrible words, proving to anyone with eyes to see that a mother's love was a beautiful, light, relentless thing that the devil could not diminish. ~ Alice McDermott

A mothers Love is as deep and powerful as any ocean, in the depths of it forgiveness forever is found for her wandering child. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

That's when I figured out the ugly secret of a mother's love: you protect them to protect yourself. ~ Gayle Forman

A mother's love - how sweet the name! What is a mother's love? - A noble, pure and tender flame, Enkindled from above, To bless a heart of earthly mould; The warmest love that can grow cold; This is a mother's love. ~ James Montgomery

Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too. ~ Albert Camus

There is an emptiness inside of me
a void that will never be filled. No one in your life will ever love you as your mother does. There is no love as pure, unconditional and strong as a mother's love. And I will never be loved that way again. ~ Hope Edelman

A mother's love for her child is incomparable. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa

In the soft and gentle arms of a mother's love,
children can come to know the voice of the Lord. ~ Dwan J. Young

This life is difficult. We lose fathers, brothers, mothers, songbirds and pieces of ourselves. Whips strike the innocent, honors go to the guilty, and there is too much loneliness. I would be a fool to pray for my children to escape all of that. Ask for too much and it might actually turn out worse. But I can pray for small things, like fertile fields, a mother's love, a child's smile - a life that's less bitter than sweet. ~ Nadia Hashimi

A Mother's love is something that no one can explain, It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain, It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may For nothing can destroy it or take that love away ~ Helen Steiner Rice

A mother's love is like a tower, Rising far above the crowd, And her smile is like the sunshine, Breaking through a threatening cloud. ~ Helen Steiner Rice

Wrapped in a mother's love is the most beautiful and safest place on earth for a child. ~ Debasish Mridha

Tender as a mothers love ... And with my mother, that was certainly true. ~ Bob Ross

A mother's love is everything, Jared. It is what brings a child into this world. It is what molds their entire being. When a mother sees her child in danger, she is literally capable of anything. Mother have lifted cars off of their children, and destroyed entire dynasties. A mother's love is the strongest energy known to man. You must that love, and it's power. ~ Jamie McGuire

There is no human love like a mother's love. There is no human tenderness like a mother's tenderness ... In all ages everywhere, the true children of a true mother 'rise up and call her blessed'; for they realize, sooner or later, that God gives no richer blessing to man than is found in a mother's love. ~ Henry Clay Trumbull

A mother's love for her child is legendary. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa

If you knew how great is a mother's love, you would have no fear. ~ J.M. Barrie

Love of democracy can be likened to a mother's love for her son.It must be cherished,nurtured and protected for all of time ~ J.R. Ortiz

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever? ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Most of us love a non-self, or something extrinsic and apart from our inner life; but a mother's love during the time she is a flesh-and-blood ciborium is not for a non-self but for one that is her very self, a perfect example of charity and love which hardly perceives a separation. Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

So rest and relax and grow stronger, Let go and let God share your load, Your work is not finished or ended, You've just come to "a bend in the road".

"When you ask God for a gift, be thankful if He sends, not diamonds, pearls or riches, but the love of real true friends."

"It takes a Mother's Love to make a house a home, a place to be remembered, no matter where we roam."

"When you are in troubled and worried and sick at heart
And your plans are upset and your world falls apart,
Remember God's ready and waiting to share
The burden you find much to heavy to bear–
So with faith, "Let Go and Let GOD" lead your way. ~ Helen Steiner Rice

The basic attitude of reverence is the presupposition for every true love, above all, the love of neighbor, because it alone opens our eyes to the value of men as spiritual persons, and because, without this awareness, no love is possible. Reverence for the beloved one is also an essential element of every love. To give attention to the specific meaning and value of his individuality, to display consideration toward him, instead of forcing our wishes on him, is part of reverence. It is from reverence that there flows the willingness of a lover to grant the beloved the spiritual "space" needed to freely express his own individuality. All these elements of every true love flow from reverence. What would a mother's love be without reverence for the growing being, for all the possibilities of value that yet lie dormant, for the preciousness of the child's soul? ~ Dietrich Von Hildebrand

The care of babies involves education, and is entrusted only to the most fit," she repeated.

"Then you separate mother and child!" I cried in cold horror, something of Terry's feeling creeping over me, that there must be something wrong among these many virtues.

"Not usually," she patiently explained. "You see, almost every woman values her maternity above everything else. Each girl holds it close and dear, an exquisite joy, a crowning honor, the most intimate, most personal, most precious thing. That is, the child-rearing has come to be with us a culture so profoundly studied, practiced with such subtlety and skill, that the more we love our children the less we are willing to trust that process to unskilled hands - even our own."

"But a mother's love - " I ventured.

She studied my face, trying to work out a means of clear explanation.

"You told us about your dentists," she said, at length, "those quaintly specialized persons who spend their lives filling little holes in other persons' teeth - even in children's teeth sometimes."

"Yes?" I said, not getting her drift.

"Does mother-love urge mothers - with you - to fill their own children's teeth? Or to wish to?"

"Why no - of course not," I protested. "But that is a highly specialized craft. Surely the care of babies is open to any woman - any mother!"

"We do not think so," she gently replied. "Those of us who are the most highly ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A mother's love is a blessing
No matter where you roam.
Keep her while you have her,
You'll miss her when she's gone. ~ Frank McCourt

A mother's love is stronger than distance, more powerful than time and can transcend the grave. ~ Tyler Perry

a mother's love is fierce. ~ Clare Vanderpool

We all intuitively know that a mother's love is crucial to the creation of a well-adjusted human and that we are all born with an instinctive expectation of receiving unconditionally selfless love from our mother. ~ Jeremy Griffith

It takes a Mother's Love to make a house a home, a place to be remembered, no matter where we roam. ~ Helen Steiner Rice

A mother's love, it knows no end. It begins with a dream, with a silent wish, and it never ever ends. ~ Kelly DeBie

Where once Kathryn had embraced a delicate child in the body of a young woman, now she received the tenderness of a mother's love from a spirit grown unimaginably old. ~ Kirsten Beyer

Blessings and worry, happiness and fear – this is a mother's love. ~ Lisa See

Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship. ~ Mortimer Adler

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all. ~ Washington Irving

He's the opposite of cute. He's like a cross between an Orc and Ent. He has the big, brutish body of an Orc but he got some Ent genes, probably from his mother's side. Basically a tree-trunk with good hair."

Peyton's nose twitched. Lord of the Ring references were not her jam. "You've given this a lot of thought. ~ Kate Meader

I didn't really understand what mothers were, because mine was in a tree, but I knew they were very good things and you were very angry and sad if you lost them. ~ Naomi Novik

By the time she was sixteen, Jane had heard enough about this to last her several lifetimes. In her mother's account of the way things were, you were young briefly and then you fell. You plummeted downwards like an overripe apple and hit the ground with a squash; you fell, and everything about you fell too. You got fallen arches and a fallen womb, and your hair and teeth fell out. That's what having a baby did to you. It subjected you to the force of gravity. ~ Margaret Atwood

Good-bye, I say to Grandfather, and to my father, and I hold the tube in the river and pause a moment. We hold the choices of our fathers and mothers in our hands and when we cling on or let them slip between our fingers, those choices become our own. ~ Ally Condie

A woman at one of mother's parties once said to me, "Do you like reading?" which smote us all to silence, for how could one tell her that books are like having a bath or sleeping, or eating bread - absolute necessities which one never thinks of in terms of appreciation. And we all sat waiting for her to say that she had so little time for reading, before ruling her right out for ever and ever. ~ Rachel Ferguson

I'm so sorry we've kept this for such a long time," she said, pulling the watch from her skirt pocket. She unfolded Mother's handkerchief from around it, and offered it to Lord Bradford cradled in her hands. "We shouldn't have taken it in the first place."
Lord Bradford's eyebrows rose at the offering, and he opened his mouth, then closed it. He lowered his eyes to the books in his hands, then back to Azalea, and he managed a smile.
"When we first met," he said, "ages ago, you gave me a candy stick. Just like you did now, with your hands like that. Do you remember?"
Azalea raised an eyebrow.
"It happened when my father had just died," he said, quietly. "You came to the graveyard, licking a candy stick. You saw me. You put the stick in my hands, folded my fingers over it, and kissed my fingertips."
"That must have been sticky," said Azalea. ~ Heather Dixon

My mother hasn't asked the questions that a normal person would ask, and I'm grateful for it. It's like the world has become so crazy that it makes sense to her now.
I turn on the engine and drive us out. 'Thanks, Mom. For coming to rescue me.' My voice comes out reedy and a little wobbly. I clear my throat. 'Not every mom would do that in a world like this. ~ Susan Ee

A mother's got to be there to raise the children. That's all there is to it. I feel badly for those mothers who work hard, and can't do it all the time. ~ Eric Braeden

I grew up with all mothers, all women. I come from a long line of matriarchs, very strong women. ~ Erykah Badu

I'm really worried about what the world is going to be like when my daughters are young women, [when] they are young leaders or mothers or businesspeople - whatever they're going to be. I'm afraid they're going to have a less healthy and less biologically rich planet. ~ Jeff Corwin

High people, sir, are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman. ~ Samuel Johnson

Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother's shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course. ~ Helen Macdonald

Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother's shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drove off in a small green van. No one waved to them, she noticed, or even said goodbye. Next, her father left in his own car; lastly a blond, good-looking man and a short fat one in an enormous overcoat like a pony blanket made their way to a sports car parked under the beech trees. For a moment she really thought there must be something wrong with the fat one, he followed so slowly and so painfully. Then, seeing the handsome man hold the car door for him, he seemed to wake, and hurried forward with a lumpy skip. Unaccountably, this gesture upset her afresh. A storm of sorrow seized her and her mother could not console her. ~ John Le Carre

Rue carried her mother's parasol, which was too ugly to match any of her outfits, but was more sturdy than any of her fashionable ones. This one, felt Rue, could really cause damage to a noggin if applied with enough enthusiasm. Somehow this made her feel more secure about life in general. ~ Gail Carriger

[The Republicans] offer ... a detailed agenda for national renewal ... [On] reducing illegitimacy ... the state will use ... funds for programs to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to promote adoption, to establish and operate children's group homes, to establish and operate residential group homes for unwed mothers, or for any purpose the state deems appropriate. None of the taxpayer funds may be used for abortion services or abortion counseling. ~ Newt Gingrich

The men of the family had to be vigilant. It was their job to protect the women. That's the way it was, whether the women liked it or not. The family's honor was at stake. No one told him this in so many words, but he understood what his mother expected of him. To be an honorable man. He was his mother's favorite and he knew it. Natalie and Fern were more daddy's girls. He had ten years before he had to worry about Fern. She was just in kindergarten. By then he'd be, what-- twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight? He'd probably be married, maybe with his own kids. Jeez, that was a scary thought. ~ Judy Blume

He's basically a good man. But he doesn't know me. Any more than he knew that girl that looked after your mother. He can't know me, not the way I know him. Maybe some of these Hawaiians can, or the Indians on the reservation. They've seen their fathers humiliated. Their mothers desecrated. But your grandfather will never know what that feels like. ~ Barack Obama

Ghost?" I asked.
Moon Man pointed to Valek. "Kiki's name for him. It makes sense," he said, seeing the look of confusion on my face. "To magical beings, we see the world through our magic. We see him with our eyes, but cannot see him with our magic. So he is like a ghost to us."
Valek listened to Moon Man. Although expressionless, I could tell by the rigid set to Valek's shoulders that he was prepared to strike.
"Another relative?" Valek asked.
A broad smile stretched Moon Man's lips. "Yes. I am her mother's uncle's wife's third cousin. ~ Maria V. Snyder

Do all romantic notions and inclinations wither, sag and die as you grew older into the body of a woman who begins to resemble your mother's and then your grandmother's? ~ Abigail George

I became a novelist because of 'Gone With the Wind,' or more precisely, my mother raised me up to be a 'Southern' novelist, with a strong emphasis on the word 'Southern' because 'Gone With the Wind' set my mother's imagination ablaze when she was a young girl growing up in Atlanta. ~ Pat Conroy

Primates – and young humans who lack verbal skills – will use physical aggression to express themselves or to get their way. They will hit, push, shove, spit, kick, punch, and bite. As children grow, they add verbal aggression to their repertoire. They will shout and threaten. As children develop further and gain more social intelligence, they begin to employ indirect and nonphysical forms of aggression. From an evolutionary and anatomical point of view, girls and women are less inclined to attack anyone directly, or physically, than man and boys are – unless, as mothers, their offspring are in immediate physical danger. In addition, girls and women are culturally trained to employ indirect methods of aggression, as a low-risk, low-injury, approach.

Girls learn that a safe way to attack someone else is behind her back, so that she will not know who is responsible. This tracks girls and women into lives of chronic gossip and rumor mongering, but it also allows girls and women to fight without physically killing each other outright. ~ Phyllis Chesler

Stop waiting for someone else to say that you count, that you matter, that you have worth, that you have a voice, a place, that you are called. Don't you know, darling? The One who knit you together in your mother's womb is the one singing these words over you, you are chosen. ~ Sarah Bessey

Of course there is no denying that all these primordial dreams appear, in the opinion of nonmathematicians, to have been suddenly realized in a form quite different from the original fantasy. Baron Munchhausen's post horn was more beautiful than our canned music, the Seven-League boots more beautiful than a car, Oberon's kingdom lovelier than a railway tunnel, the magic root of the mandrake better than a telegraphed image, eating of one's mother's heart and then understanding birds more beautiful than an ethologic study of a bird's vocalizing. We have gained reality and lost dream. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one's big and second toes; there's work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving. It is exactly as though the old, inefficient breed of humanity had fallen asleep on an anthill and found, when the new breed awoke, that the ants had crept into its bloodstream, making it move frantically ever since, unable to shake off that rotten feeling of antlike industry. ~ Robert Musil

Despite the madness of war, we lived for a world that would be different. For a better world to come when all this is over. And perhaps even our being here is a step towards that world. Do you really think that, without the hope that such a world is possible, that the rights of man will be restored again, we could stand the concentration camp even for one day? It is that very hope that makes people go without a murmur to the gas chambers, keeps them from risking a revolt, paralyses them into numb inactivity. It is hope that breaks down family ties, makes mothers renounce their children, or wives sell their bodies for bread, or husbands kill. It is hope that compels man to hold on to one more day of life, because that day may be the day of liberation. Ah, and not even the hope for a different, better world, but simply for life, a life of peace and rest. Never before in the history of mankind has hope been stronger than man, but never also has it done so much harm as it has in the war, in this concentration camp. We were never taught how to give up hope, and this is why today we perish in gas chambers. ~ Tadeusz Borowski

Father's Day was great, but all the family gatherings brought up my mother's death. Maybe it's me, because I am a wimp. We would get together, but there was someone missing! ~ Doug Davidson

When no one is watching Mother Earth, and most of the time no one is, she sings softly to herself.
Certainly no one is watching after her, to the point where she's now calling herself M. Earth, using her first initial only, like the early women writers who did not want their work to be automatically dismissed because of their gender disadvantage. Though she is grand, M. Earth is feeling, perhaps, overly feminine, and therefore vulnerable. Don't even mention the word Gaia; it's such a projection! She thinks she could benefit from a more macho profile, a little kick-ass to make her point. Perhaps a little masculine detachment would be helpful, or a thicker skin. Because, frankly, she's been trampled, poisoned, stripped bare, robbed blind, and blamed for just about everything that's come down the pike. And like all mothers, everyone just assumes she'll always be there for them with open, loving arms, and a cup of hot cocoa. That it will be her pleasure to feed them, lick their wounds, and clean a load or two of their dirty laundry. She's looking for a little more respect. ~ Sharon Weil

There are cases that I just can't forget.....What it is. I don't know. I think it's the ones where something small changes everything. Where the tiniest act , the smallest space of time, the most inconsequential of decisions, changes a life. A split second separates the long-lost friends who either see or miss each other at an airport. And from that , a relationship does or does not develop, perhaps a lifetime partnership,, perhaps even children. Human beings who might or might not have existed. Whole lives built out of the most fragile of happenstance.
And maybe that's why our lives are beautiful; why they're tragic. One perfect child can be born of an accidental encounter, and another lost to a split-second lapse in attention. If a motorist leans over to change a radio station at the same moment that it first occurs to a four year old that he can let go of his mother's hand as easily as hang onto it, and that if he lets go he will be across the road first, before his mother, and that she will certainly laugh and say, "How fast you are, Johnny!" If the child does this and the motorist does that , and if the world then changes forever and unbearably for everyone involved, then is that not life in its simplest form?
That so little matters so much, and so much matters so little. ~ Laura McBride

There are three ways to approach secrets, you know. The first is what you find on soap operas and in poorly executed middle-school maneuvers. First, you uncover a piece of incriminating information, and then you use it to force a steady stream of favors or payment or behavior. The problem here is that, if extended indefinitely, the expected cost of compliance eventually outweighs the cost of exposure. Moreover, the probability that you'll lose your monopoly of your information increases with each passing day. Never, ever assume that you're only person digging for dirt, especially in Los Angeles. Vipers are measured by the pitful for a reason.

The second approach is more effective: You make one, single very carefully chosen demand. And you give your mark just one chance. This was my usual MO. If this mark doesn't do as you ask, when you ask, you leak their secret. No excuses. No mercy. Brutal consistency is the key to credibility. Mothers, dog trainers, Israel -- you know what I'm talking about.

But there's also a radical third approach: You reveal that you know the secret...and they you keep it under wraps. Do that, and they're not just going to tell you other secrets, they might even keep yours in return. And they'll think they're doing of their own free will when what you've really done is painstakingly aligned your incentives. That's all trust is, really. Some people are just incentivized by nature. ~ Elizabeth Little

The best place to cry is on a mother's arms. ~ Jodi Picoult

When our father does the things he needs to do in the world, we understand it is his due. If our mother does the things she needs to do in the world, we feel she has abandoned us. It is a miracle she survives our mixed messages, written in society's most poisoned ink. It is enough to drive her mad. ~ Deborah Levy

I saw it all suddenly while I was reading Howards End . . . Forster's the only one who understands what the modern novel ought to be . . . Our frightful mistake was that we believed in tragedy: the point is, tragedy's quite impossible nowadays . . . We ought to aim at being essentially comic writers . . . The whole of Forster's technique is based on the tea-table: instead of trying to screw all his scenes up to the highest possible pitch, he tones them down until they sound like mothers'-meeting gossip . . . In fact, there's actually less emphasis laid on the big scenes than on the unimportant ones: that's what's so utterly terrific. It's the completely new kind of accentuation - like a person talking a different language . . . . ~ Christopher Isherwood

Begin. Keep on beginning. Nibble on everything.
Take a hike. Teach yourself to whistle. Lie.
The older you get the more they'll want your stories.
Make them up. Talk to stones. Short-out electric
fences. Swim with the sea turtle into the moon. Learn
how to die. Eat moonshine pie. Drink wild geranium
tea. Run naked in the rain. Everything that happens
will happen and none of us will be safe from it.
Pull up anchors. Sit close to the god of night.
Lie still in a stream and breathe water. Climb to the
top of the highest tree until you come to the branch
where the blue heron sleeps. Eat poems for breakfast.
Wear them on your forehead. Lick the mountain's
bare shoulder. Measure the color of days
around your mother's death. Put your hands over
your face and listen to what they tell you. ~ Ellen Kort

But there were no faerie godmothers. There were only mothers and grandmothers, and there was no magic wand to wave over a person's heart and make it all better. The fairy tales lied ... Fucking Brothers Grimm. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I also have a feeling your mother's going to have a very ugly conversation with me." – Dimitri ~ Richelle Mead

I don't have a bank account because I don't know my mother's maiden name. ~ Paula Poundstone

A boy never outgrows his need for adventure. As mothers, we will need to develop a healthy balance when it comes to cultivating our sons' innate sense of adventure without overprotecting them in the process or, for that matter, not protecting them at all. ~ Vicki Courtney

If you can't go back to your mother's womb, you'd better learn to be a good fighter. ~ Anchee Min

Emotional damage is never easy to measure, but mothers who are alive but psychically absent impose filial burdens which knot their children's feelings in a way biologic orphans are spared. ~ Eileen Simpson

If any-one accosts young girls who are dressed in the clothes of slaves, his offence will be seen as minor, and even more so if the women are dressed as prostitutes, and not as [respectable] mothers of families. Therefore, if a woman is not dressed as a matron and some-one calls out to her or entices away her attendant, he will not be liable to the action for injury ~ Alexandra Croom

What do we know of our mothers? I thought I knew her. But I'd seen her as a child sees a good mother
pure, transparent, incapable of deception. ~ Rhonda Riley

In the pits of our souls - if I amuse myself with the notion that I have a soul - Elian and I aren't so different. Two kingdoms that come with responsibilities we each have trouble bearing. Him, the shackles of being pinned to one land and one life. Me, trapped in the confines of my mother's murderous legacy. And the ocean, calling out to us both. A song of freedom and longing. ~ Alexandra Christo

Soon, things were heating up in the kitchen. The first course was a variation on a French recipe that had been around since Escoffier, Baccala Brandade. Angelina created a silky forcemeat with milk, codfish, olive oil, pepper, and slow-roasted garlic, a drizzle of lemon juice, and a shower of fresh parsley, then served it as a dip with sliced sourdough and warmed pita-bread wedges, paired with glasses of bubbly Prosecco.
The second course had been a favorite of her mother's called Angels on Horseback- freshly shucked oysters, wrapped in thin slices of prosciutto, then broiled on slices of herb-buttered bread. When the oysters cooked, they curled up to resemble tiny angels' wings. Angelina accented the freshness of the oyster with a dab of anchovy paste and wasabi on each hors d'oeuvre. She'd loved the Angels since she was a little girl; they were a heavenly mouthful.
This was followed by a Caesar salad topped with hot, batter-dipped, deep-fried smelts. Angelina's father used to crunch his way through the small, silvery fish like French fries. Tonight, Angelina arranged them artfully around mounds of Caesar salad on each plate and ushered them out the door.
For the fifth course, Angelina had prepared a big pot of her Mediterranean Clam Soup the night before, a lighter version of Manhattan clam chowder. The last two courses were Parmesan-Stuffed Poached Calamari over Linguine in Red Sauce, and the piece de resistance, Broiled Flounder with a Coriander Reduction. ~ Brian O'Reilly

The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families. ~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

We take a lot for granted as second wave feminists, what our mothers and aunts did for us. ~ Vera Farmiga

They had been there. I had seen my mother's anxious face, desperate to catch my eye and give me a warm smile. I had tried to smile back, but I had not known how. That old curse again. How to smile. If I smiled too broadly it might look like triumphalism; if I smiled too weakly it might look like a feeble bid for sympathy. If I smiled somewhere in between it would, I knew, look, as always, like plain smugness. Somehow I managed to bare my teeth in a manner that expressed, I hope, sorrow, gratitude, determination, shame, remorse and resolve. ~ Stephen Fry

You creating ones, you higher men! Whoever has to give birth is sick;
whoever has given birth, however, is unclean.
Ask women: one gives birth, not because it gives pleasure. The pain
makes hens and poets cackle.
You creating ones, in you there is much uncleanliness. That is because
you have had to be mothers.
A new child: oh, how much new filth has also come into the world! Go
apart! He who has given birth shall wash his soul! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm not a good father and they're not children any more; the eldest is in his fifties. My relationship with their mothers broke down and, because of what the law was, they went with their mothers and were imbued with their mothers' morality in life and they were not my people any more. ~ Wilbur Smith

Like a detective keenly searching for clues, our daughters are solving the mystery of womanhood itself. ~ Melia Keeton-Digby

He is a young man with a future of power and opportunity and we are young women destined to be either wives and mothers at the very best, or spinster parasites at the worst. ~ Philippa Gregory