Black Sheep Of The Family Quotes

Lieutenant Mortas is the black sheep of the family--I thought you knew that. ~ Henry V. O'Neil

I was the black sheep of the family, and my mother never really understood me. ~ Andre Rieu

I never really was good at being a family general man, really. I hardly ever spent any time with my mum and dad whatever, really, or brothers or sisters. We just really didn't get along. I was pretty much like the black sheep of the family, to be honest. ~ Andrew Chan

Me? I'm the king of the twentieth century. I'm the bogeyman. The villain ... The black sheep of the family. ~ Alan Moore

I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family. ~ Alan Moore

When I was on 'One Life to Live,' I always wanted to delve into my character, Layla, to find out why she was the black sheep of the family. I so wanted to have some edge. I have no idea why there was a reluctance to do that or why we so rarely see it. ~ Tika Sumpter

I was literally the black sheep of the family, and there were definitely moments of discomfort while my grandmother was working through her racism. ~ Lisa Bonet

Somehow I think it was declared very early on that I was the - if not the black sheep of the family, not a very good student. ~ Dustin Hoffman

I'll bet he misses it."
"Almost as much as I miss him being on the road."
She frowned. "You don't really mean that."
"Mostly not."
"Good. But I do sort of get it," she said slowly. "The siblings-driving-you-crazy thing. My sisters .
. well, they're perfect. As far as my parents are concerned."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. They're married."
"And that's perfect, huh? What about you? You're successful, right? Your column is pretty big."
"Oh, it's huge," she said, her tone overdramatic, earning a chuckle from Cole. "I'm kind of a big
deal. But I don't have a husband, so ... my parents think maybe I'm not such a big deal."
"So, you're the black sheep."
"Baaaaa."
"Nice."
"Thanks. ~ Maisey Yates

If you think about it, I was at college, and then three months later, I was a massive pop star. It's stress-making, especially when you're a bit of an oddball as I was, the black sheep left to your own devices, and then suddenly everyone's interested in you. ~ Alison Moyet

That girls should not marry for money we are all agreed. A lady who can sell herself for a title or an estate, for an income or aset of family diamonds, treats herself as a farmer treats his sheep and oxen
makes hardly more of herself, of her own inner self, in which are comprised a mind and soul, than the poor wretch of her own sex who earns her bread in the lowest state of degradation. ~ Anthony Trollope

In genealogy you might say that interest lies in the eye of the gene holder. The actual descendants are far more intrigued with it all than the listeners, who quickly sink into a narcoleptic coma after the second or third great-great-somebody kills a bear or beheads Charles I, invents the safety pin or strip-mines Poland, catalogues slime molds, dances flamenco, or falls in love with a sheep. Genealogy is a forced march through stories. Yet everyone loves stories, and that is one reason we seek knowledge of our own blood kin.
Through our ancestors we can witness their times. Or, we think, there might be something in their lives, an artist's or a farmer's skill, an affection for a certain landscape, that will match or explain something in our own. If we know who they were, perhaps we will know who we are. And few cultures have been as identity-obsessed as ours. So keen is this fascination with ancestry, genealogy has become an industry. Family reunions choke the social calendar. Europe crawls with ancestor-seeking Americans. Your mother or your spouse or your neighbors are too busy to talk to you because they are on the Internet running "heritage quests." We have climbed so far back into our family trees, we stand inches away from the roots where the primates dominate. ~ Ellen Meloy

I scarce ever knew a city that did not wish the destruction of its neighbouring city, nor a family that did not desire to exterminate some other family. The poor in all parts of the world bear an inveterate hatred to the rich, even while they creep and cringe to them; and the rich treat the poor like sheep, whose wool and flesh they barter for money ~ Voltaire

The brotherhood of men does not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same. ~ Aldous Huxley

I feel kind of like the black sheep in Congress, but here I am. ~ Sonny Bono

He looked beyond. He looked to the peoples of the Earth and saw the destruction of the family because of the lack of children. Paul VI was courageous. He was a good pastor. He warned his sheep about the wolves that were approaching, and from the heavens he blesses us today. ~ Pope Francis

An ancestor of mine, Jesse Wiggins, was hung for stealing sheep, and I don't know how I feel about that. Was he a dashing, swashbuckling 'outlaw' or a desperate, brutal criminal? I'd like to think he was a rustler or possibly a highwayman, a 'knight of the road.' Dick Turpin or maybe Sixteen-String Jack Rann. But in all likelihood Jesse Wiggins was simply hungry and stole a battered old sheep to feed his family, and that's what cost him his life. ~ Karl Wiggins

His lovely wife tends her zinnias in the mild morning light and his find young man comes fondly mishandling that perpetually lost sheep of a cat, Soapy, once more back from perdition for the time being, to what would have been general rejoicing. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Within three months I had gone from being this black sheep of the town to suddenly becoming a pop star. ~ Alison Moyet

He saw the threat of the family being destroyed by not being open to life or children. Paul VI was brave. He was a good pastor. He alerted his sheep, telling them that the wolves were approaching. ~ Pope Francis

Madhav literally grew up in all their restaurants. He got used to Aavin milk when he was five months old and filter coffee a year later. When he was five, Padmavathy would pick him up from school at noon and take him to one of their restaurants. He would do his homework as she supervised the eatery. Idly, dosa and vada filled his ears as much as 'Baa-baa black sheep'. 'Three portions of rice and one portion of udat dal for idly' was as much a formula he memorised as (a+b)2. ~ Hariharan Iyer

Why do we like being Irish? Partly because
It gives us a hold on the sentimental English
As members of a world that never was,
Baptised with fairy water;
And partly because Ireland is small enough
To be still thought of with a family feeling,
And because the waves are rough
That split her from a more commercial culture;
And because one feels that here at least one can
Do local work which is not at the world's mercy
And that on this tiny stage with luck a man
Might see the end of one particular action.
It is self-deception of course;
There is no immunity in this island either;
A cart that is drawn by somebody else's horse
And carrying goods to somebody else's market.
The bombs in the turnip sack, the sniper from the roof,
Griffith, Connolly, Collins, where have they brought us?
Ourselves alone! Let the round tower stand aloof
In a world of bursting mortar!
Let the school-children fumble their sums
In a half-dead language;
Let the censor be busy on the books; pull down the
Georgian slums;
Let the games be played in Gaelic.
Let them grow beet-sugar; let them build
A factory in every hamlet;
Let them pigeon-hole the souls of the killed
Into sheep and goats, patriots and traitors.
And the North, where I was a boy,
Is still the North, veneered with the grime of Glasgow,
Thousands of men whom nobody will employ
Standing at t ~ Louis MacNeice

An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. ~ Barry Lopez

Growing up in eastern Turkey, I was not really involved with the family business - sheep and cow farming, yogurt and cheese making. But I think I learned from my father the unspoken business language or instincts that go back thousands of years. ~ Hamdi Ulukaya

After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm. ~ Ernest Lehman

Sweet to me your voice, said Caolcrodha Mac Morna, brother to sweet-worded sweet-toothed Goll from Sliabh Riabhach and Brosnacha Bladhma, relate then the attributes that are to Finn's people.

[...]

I will relate, said Finn. Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn's people through the bogs and the marsh-swamps of Erin with two odorous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted of Finn's people. For five days he must sit on ~ Flann O'Brien

Despite all her diligent efforts to remake herself into a model of propriety, when it come to falling in love she'd reverted to from and fallen in love with a man who was a renegade, a black sheep, a daring, cynical, tough social outcast who in some ways reminded her of the boys she'd known on the Chicago streets. ~ Judith McNaught

When You Return

Fallen leaves will climb back into trees.
Shards of the shattered vase will rise
and reassemble on the table.
Plastic raincoats will refold
into their flat envelopes. The egg,
bald yolk and its transparent halo,
slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
Curses will pour back into mouths,
letters un-write themselves, words
siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
will darken and become the feathers
of a black swan. Bullets will snap
back into their chambers, the powder
tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
will disappear from maps. Rust
revert to oxygen and time. The fire
return to the log, the log to the tree,
the white root curled up
in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
into the lark's lungs, answers
become questions again.
When you return, sweaters will unravel
and wool grow on the sheep.
Rock will go home to mountain, gold
to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
to the spider's belly. Night moths
tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
will be returned to coal, coal
to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
to stars sucked back and back
into one timeless point, the way it was
before the world was born,
that fresh, that whole, nothing
broken, nothing torn apart. ~ Ellen Bass

In the king's bed is always found, just before it becomes a museum piece, the droppings of the black sheep. ~ Nathanael West

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I feel like you can't judge a book by its cover, that's always been the story of my life. I can walk into any restaurant and people would be floored to learn that I know what I do about wine, let alone that I ran one of the best wine programs in the world. ~ Andre Hueston Mack

Liv, stop it!" hissed Mia. "You look like a lovelorn sheep!"
I gave a start. "As bad as that? Oh, that's terrible." I added - and I was to regret it in the course of the day - "If you see me looking like that again, give me a nudge or throw something at me. Promise?"
"With pleasure," said Mia, and three hours later, because she always kept her promises, I was black and blue around the ribs and had been hit by assorted flying objects: several chestnuts, a spoon, and a blueberry muffin. ~ Kerstin Gier

He was your usual man when it came to romance, which is to say he couldn't recite Baa Baa Black Sheep when sober, whereas when drunk, sixteen cantos of Byron's Don Juan was par for the course. ~ Tyne O'Connell

In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it. ~ Daryl Hall

I saw a young sister, just before this service; and I said to her, "When did you find the Lord?" She replied, "It was when I was very ill." Yes, it is often so; God makes us ill in body that we may have time to think of Him, and turn to Him ... What would become of some people if they were always in good health, or if they were always prospering? But tribulation is the black dog that goes after the stray sheep, and barks them back to the Good Shepherd. I thank God that there are such things as the visitations of correction and of holy discipline, to preserve our spirit, and bring us to Christ. ~ Charles Spurgeon

London is a friend whom I can leave knowing without doubt that she will be the same to me when I return, to-morrow or forty years hence, and that, if I do not return, she will sing the same song to inheritors of my happy lot in future generations. Always, whether sleeping or waking, I shall know that in Spring the sun rides over the silver streets of Kensington, and that in the Gardens the shorn sheep find very green pasture. Always the plaited threads of traffic will wind about the reel of London; always as you up Regent Street from Pall Mall and look back, Westminster will rise with you like a dim sun over the horizon of Whitehall. That dive down Fleet Street and up to the black and white cliffs of St. Paul's will for ever bring to mind some rumour of romance. There is always a romance that we leave behind in London, and always London enlocks that flower for us, and keeps it fresh, so that when we come back we have our romance again. ~ Stella Benson

The latter part of our Journey from the entrance of Wiltshire into Salisbury was very rough and abounded with Jolts, the Holes we were obliged to go through being very many and some of them Deep; and so it was with much Relief that we left the Coach at Salisbury and hired two Horses for the road across the Avon to the Plain and Stone-henge. When we came to the edge of this sacred Place, we tethered our Horses to the Posts provided and then, with the Sunne direct above us, walked over the short grass which (continually cropt by the flocks of Sheep) seemed to spring us forward to the great Stones. I stood back a little as Sir Chris. walked on, and I considered the Edifice with steadinesse: there was nothing here to break the Angles of Sight and as I gaz'd I opened my Mouth to cry out but my Cry was silent; I was struck by an exstatic Reverie in which all the surface of this Place seemed to me Stone, and the Sky itself Stone, and I became Stone as I joined the Earth which flew on like a Stone through the Firmament. And thus I stood until the Kaw of a Crow rous'd me: and yet even the call of the black Bird was an Occasion for Terrour, since it was not of this Time. I know not how long a Period I had traversed in my Mind, but Sir Chris. was still within my Sight when my Eyes were cleard of Mist. He was walking steadily towards the massie Structure and I rushed violently to catch him, for I greatly wished to enter the Circle before him. I stopped him with a Cry and then ran on: whe ~ Peter Ackroyd

He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, ~ Oscar Wilde

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people. ~ Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

This is absurd," Colin grumbled. "At this rate, we'll arrive next Tuesday."
"Stop talking. Start moving." Bram nudged a sheep with his boot, wincing as he did. With his leg already killing him, the last thing he needed was a pain in the arse, but that's exactly what he'd inherited, along with all his father's accounts and possessions: responsibility for his wastrel cousin, Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne.
He swatted at another sheep's flank, earning himself an indignant bleat and a few inches more.
"I have an idea," Colin said.
Bram grunted, unsurprised. As men, he and Colin were little more than strangers. But during the few years they'd overlapped at Eton, he recalled his younger cousin as being just full of ideas. Ideas that had landed him shin-deep in excrement. Literally, on at least one occasion.
Colin looked from Bram to Thorne and back again, eyes keen. "I ask you, gentlemen. Are we, or are we not, in possession of a great quantity of black powder? ~ Tessa Dare

He supposed it would be considered pastoral-there were trees clustered in a meadow, with two muscular black cows and two improbably fluffy sheep arranged beneath them-and in the sky were two winged cherubs so fat that surely the miracle in question as how they have gotten aloft at all. They would have needed to have the wingspans of albatrosses, not those foolish wee flaps sprouting from their shoulders, he decided, irritated. One of the cows was looking up at them with what he fancied was an expression of surpise and alarm. Which was precisely the expression he would wear if he'd suddenly noticed two fat cherubs bearing down on him. ~ Julie Anne Long

From the window, above the clatter of pots and the slamming of cabinets, Francis was singing, as though it was the happiest song in the world: 'We are the little black sheep who have gone astray ... Baa baa baa ... Gentlemen songsters off on a spree ... Doomed from here to eternity ... ~ Donna Tartt

I had choosen the path of the black sheep rather than that of the unicorns and puppies. ~ Magenta Periwinkle

I can't explain the motive of ever Christian, but for me... the answer is obvious. Our Savior was Jewish. His disciples were Jewish. They were born in Israel. They lived in the Promised Land. Jesus preached to 'the lost sheep of Israel.' He died on the cross in Jerusalem. He was raised from the dead in Jerusalem. And the Bible teaches that our Savior is coming back again to reign and rule from Jerusalem. Why shouldn't we love Jews, then? Jesus never taught us to hate anyone. He taught us to love, and he set the supreme example for us to follow. Jesus commanded us to love one another. He commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves. You're my neighbor, Jacob, If not you, then who? You're from the same family and people as my Savior. How could I hate you or do you wrong? ~ Joel C. Rosenberg

Sometimes John had recorded new compositions, or lines from his new poems. Sometimes he'd just record a busy night in The Green Man. Sometimes sheep, seals, skylarks, the wind turbine. If Liam were home there would be some Liam. The summer fair. The Fastnet Race. I would unfold my map of Clear Island. Those tapes prised the lid off homesickness and rattled out the contents, but always at the bottom was solace. ~ David Mitchell

It were the black one," the man said, in a Ghiscari growl, "the winged shadow. He come down from the sky and … and …"

No. Dany shivered. No, no, oh no….

…"Those are no sheep bones. ~ George R.R. Martin