Cousins Quotes

The essence of man is imperfection. ~ Norman Cousins

I live in New York, but I still get the village gossip. My apartment is a crash pad for so many Singaporean cousins and friends. ~ Kevin Kwan

I run all the brands like cousins. You want your cousins to do well, but you want to do better. All of our brands want to win, but we certainly want to fight fair and coordinate as much as we can behind the scenes. But to the consumer, we want to offer the broadest, most competitive set of products that we can. ~ Sam Yagan

I am alone all day, I read a little but it gives me a headache. I draw and I paint, as much as I can, so much so that my hand gets tired and when it begins to get dark I wait to see if Jeanne d'Armagnac [one of the cousins] will come and sit by my bed. She comes sometimes and tries to distract me and play with me, and I listen to her speak without daring to look at her, she is so tall and so beautiful! And I am neither tall nor beautiful. ~ Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

It was always easy, in open and lonely places, to be visited by Panic wilderness fear, but these are the urban fantods here, that come to get you when you are lost or isolate inside the way time is passing, when there is no more History, no time-travelling capsule to find your way back to, only the lateness and the absence that fill a great railway shed after the capital has been evacuated, and the goat-god's city cousins wait for you at the edges of the light, playing the tunes they've always played, but more audible now, because everything else has gone away or fallen silent. . . barn-swallow souls, fasioned of brown twilight, rise toward the white ceilings. . . the are unique to the Zone, they answer to the new Uncertainty. Ghosts used to be either the likeness of the dead or wraiths of the living. But here in the Zone categories have been blurred badly. The status of the name you miss, love, and search for now has grown ambiguous and remote, but this is even more than the bureaucracy of mass absence- some still live, some have died, but many, many have forgotten which they are. Their likenesses will not serve. Down here are only wrappings left in the light, in the dark: images of the Uncertainty. . ." 3:2 ~ Thomas Pynchon

Faith and optimism are cousins. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. ~ William Ralph Inge

While his comrades got stuck in, Richie knelt beside Davey and turned him over. His cousin's cheeks had a blueish tinge to them, his eyes were closed. Richie pressed his ear against Davey's chest.
The heartbeat was strong enough. Alive, thank God. Unconsious, but alive. Richie took out his water bottle and upended it over Davey's face.
"Your debt is paid, cousin of mine," he said as a faint moan sounded in the other's throat. "Now let us be friends again. ~ David Pilling

It doesn't matter to me. We're still cousins in our own way. Blood's just something old people talk about to make you feel bad. ~ Rita Mae Brown

Words, do not have twins in every language. Sometimes they only have distant cousins, and sometimes they pretend that they are not even related. ~ Monique Truong

You want to know why I don't have many friends here? At least not ones that count, according to your fucking standards handed down from on high, princess? Because I figured it out. What the difference is between friends and casual acquaintances. Between lovers and fuck buddies. ~ Amy Jo Cousins

The American people today are involved in a warfare more deadly than the war in Vietnam, but few of them seem aware of it and even fewer of them are doing anything about it. This is a war that is being waged against the American environment, against our lands, air, and water, which are the basis of that environment. ~ Norman Cousins

~My father says there are more than twenty thousand turned out for the king. It seems that most men think that we will win, that York will be captured and killed, though the king in his tender heart has said he will forgive them all if they will surrender.
~Will there be another battle?
~Unless York decides he cannot face the king in person. It is one sort of sin to kill your friends and cousins, quite another to order your bowmen to fire at the king's banner and him beneath it. What if the king is killed in battle? What if York brings his broadsword down on the king's sanctified head? ~ Philippa Gregory

The need is to recognize that The patient is the healer, Not the doctor. ~ Norman Cousins

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me. ~ William Shakespeare

Check it out."
Jonah removed the bubble wrap and held up the picture for his three cousins.
Dan took a step backward. The shock was almost as powerful as it had been the day before at the Uffizi. "It's perfect! It's every bit as disgusting as the real one!"
Amy nodded. "And so fast. We only called you yesterday."
Jonah shrugged. "Even the Janus take a short cut every now and then. You can do a lot with digitization these days. You break the picture down to squares and reproduce them one at a time. The other two are just as fly."
"You mean, hog ugly," Hamilton amended.
"The serpents don't help," Dan put in critically. "Live fat spaghetti. Lady, if you're thinking of a modeling career, forget it!"
The rapper clucked sympathetically. "You guys just don't appreciate the power of the visual image. The Wiz used to be like that–until Gangsta Kronikles. When you're in film industry, you understand the whole picture's-worth-a-thousand-words deal."
Hamilton rolled his eyes. "Here we go again. ~ Gordon Korman

All my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Wild birds will kill exotic ones: the budgies and the lovebirds and the yellow canaries
escaped from their cages and hoping to get a taste of the sky
usually end up back on the ground, plucked raw by their more conformist cousins ~ Joanne Harris

Rowan's head was still angled as he asked, "Your mothers were cousins, Prince, but who sired
you?"
Aedion lounged in his chair. "Does it matter?"
"Do you know?" Rowan pressed.
Aedion shrugged. "She never told me - or anyone."
"I'm guessing you have some idea?" Aelin asked.
Rowan said, "He doesn't look familiar to you?"
"He looks like me."
"Yes, but - " He sighed. "You met his father. A few weeks ago. Gavriel ~ Sarah J. Maas

Someone needs to break that rotation saying "grandma did that" or "momma slept around" "auntie did the same" or "cousins did it too" just rotation after rotation. ~ Sarah Bodiford

For generations comedians have made jokes about Scots-Irish in the South inter-breeding. "I am my own grandpa" and all that stuff; you know, because they all were marrying their first cousins. ~ Ishmael Reed

Do you come from a culture where women wear veils but your friends wear thongs?
Does at least one of your parents speak English with an incomprehensible accent?
Did your parents have an arranged marriage … are they cousins?
Well folks, you've come to the right place. You are literally holding in your hands
the coveted answers to every question you ever had about your insane existence –
herein lies all the information you need to understand about why you're crazy!
And trust me, you are crazy!
That's right. It's true. You can't deny it. "
-From Veils to Thongs ~ Dalel B. Khalil

anger and jeaously are first cousins! ~ Eric Jerome Dickey

Tom lifted his other hand and rested it lightly on Reese's slim hip, barely holding on. "I want to kiss you. ~ Amy Jo Cousins

She was Darcy Montgomery, Southern Sanctuary Special Liaison, she fixed things. When people irritated her, well, she fixed them… she fixed them good. Or should that be, for good? ~ Jane Cousins

As a genealogist, I have seen the Big Picture as very few have. Most people now living have no clue who they are or where they come from. We are all descended from the ancient kings of our various cultures. There is nothing unique about it. And let's be honest, most of those kings were pretty ruthless individuals. What's important for us today is that we wake up to the fact that we are all literally cousins. How would our world change if we honored that relationship and started treating one another as family? ~ Laurence Overmire

The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth. ~ Norman Cousins

Zane sighed. Jovan and Mother were just the same. "Maybe later" meant no. ~ C.J. Milbrandt

Stupid, infuriating, overgrown ass!" I hiss as I slam the back door behind me and stomp my foot for good measure. I'm home, I think to myself. I can finally throw a satisfying fit all by myself. Fuming, I stomp both of my feet on the kitchen floor again and again, picturing my cousin's face each time I bring my feet down. He is the most infuriating oaf on the face of the planet, and I want nothing more than to punch him. I'm still muttering to myself when I hear chuckling and jump in response.

Whirling around, I look up and find Flint standing by the coffee pot watching my display of temper and shaking his head. "I certainly hope you're not talking about me."

I scowl at him. "For once, no. You may be an infuriating ass, but I've never considered you stupid. Looks like sparking my temper isn't an exclusive ability of yours, after all. ~ Allana Kephart

My identity has always been confused. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish/Russian/Jewish mother and an English/Irish/Catholic father, there is no form of guilt to which I was not subjected in my childhood. Members of my immediate family live all over the world - a diaspora of cousins, aunts, uncles and more in a dizzying mix. ~ Sara Sheridan

It took eight generations of cousins marrying to produce you ~ Peter F. Hamilton

It was incredible to see how ordinary individuals act once they cross the porthole from the streets into Tiffany & Co. They instantly transform from giggling, loud-mouthed college girls, griping old biddies and tired middle-aged errand shoppers into genteel cousins to aristocracy. ~ Chiara Kelly

In reality, Kabila was no more than a petty tyrant propelled to prominence by accident. Secretive and paranoid, he had no political programme, no strategic vision and no experience of running a government. He refused to engage with established opposition groups or with civic organisations and banned political parties. Lacking a political organisation of his own, he surrounded himself with friends and family members and relied heavily for support and protection on Rwanda and Banyamulenge. Two key ministries were awarded to cousins; the new chief of staff of the army, James Kabarebe, was a Rwandan Tutsi who had grown up in Uganda; the deputy chief of staff and commander of land forces was his 26-year-old son, Joseph; the national police chief was a brother-in-law. Whereas Mobutu had packed his administration with supporters from his home province of Équateur, Kabila handed out key positions in government, the armed forces, security services and public companies to fellow Swahili-speaking Katangese, notably members of the Lubakat group of northern Katanga, his father's tribe. ~ Martin Meredith

Pessimism is a waste of time. ~ Norman Cousins

If it wasn't for werewolf cousins, there'd be far fewer fashion interns, It boys, graphic novelists, bespoke shoe boutiques, and sushi-haggis fusion restaurants in the world. ~ Alexis Hall

Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University education used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. The whole creation is but a dream; all phenomena are imaginary. You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist. These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with. They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. I warn my younger readers only to treat them as a game. The metaphysicians will have the last word and defy you to disprove their absurd propositions. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Really, Nan could be very odious when she liked. Yet somehow she [Gay] didn't hate her as before. She felt very indifferent to her. She found herself looking at her with cool, appraising eyes, seeing her as she had never seen her before. An empty, selfish little creature, who had always to be amused like a child. ...A girl who posed as a sophisticate before her country cousins but who was really more provincial than they were, knowing nothing of real life or real love or real emotion of any kind. Gay wondered, as she looked, how she could ever have hated this girl - ever been jealous of her. She was not worth hating. Gay spoke at last. She stood up and looked levelly at Nan. There was contempt in her quiet voice.

"I suppose you came here to hurt me, Nan. You haven't - you can never hurt me again. You've lost the power. I think I even feel a little sorry for you. You've always been a taker, Nan. All through your life you've taken whatever you wanted. But you've never been a giver - you couldn't be because you've nothing to give. Neither love nor truth nor understanding nor kindness nor loyalty. Just taking all the time and giving nothing - oh, it has made you very poor. So poor that nobody need envy you. ~ L.M. Montgomery

We were born in the '70s, back when twins were rare, a bit magical: cousins of the unicorn, siblings of the elves. ~ Gillian Flynn

Death is not the greatest tragedy in life. The greatest tragedy is what dies inside us while we live. We need not fear death. We need fear only that we may exist without having sensed something of the possibilities that lie within human existence. ~ Norman Cousins

South Central is just who I am. Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out. ~ Ice Cube

The main trouble with despair is that it is self-fulfilling. People who fear the worst tend to invite it. Heads that are down can't scan the horizon for new openings. Bursts of energy do not spring from a spirit of defeat. Ultimately, helplessness leads to hopelessness. ~ Norman Cousins

Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions ~ Norman Cousins

I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother. ~ Charles Farrar Browne

Today's children are taught by our culture that we are a cosmic accident. Something slithered out of the primal slime and over billions of years evolved into a human being. We are cousins, ten times removed, to the ape at the zoo eating his own excrement. ~ Gary Bauer

We went to a movie, Marlboro Man and me, longing for the quiet time in the dark. We couldn't find it anywhere else--my parents' house was bustling with people and plans and presents, and Marlboro Man had some visiting cousins staying with him on the ranch. A dim movie theater was our only haven, and we took full advantage of being only one of two couples in the entire place. We reverted back to adolescence, unashamed, cuddling closer and closer as the movie picked up steam. I took it even further, draping my leg over his and resting my hand on his tan bicep. Marlboro Man's arm reached across my waist as the temperature rose between us. Two days before our wedding, we were making out in a dark, hazy movie theater. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life. ~ Ree Drummond

Psychedelic experiences and dreams are chemical cousins; they are only different in degree. ~ Terence McKenna

Microphones and speakers are cousins like hoovers and hairdryers. ~ Alain Bremond-Torrent

It is the way of our species that when one mate dies the other follows," Fane told her.
"Oh, my gosh!" Sally exclaimed. "That is so freaking romantic! Or depressing it's all in how you look at it. Do you have any cousins?" she asked him hopefully.
Loftis, Quinn (2011-06-29). Prince of Wolves (The Grey Wolves Series Book 1) (Kindle Locations 2150-2152). Kindle Edition. ~ Quinn Loftis

When we were younger, my cousins used to jump in front of cars with masks on and start dancing really funny or making funny moves and the people in the cars would start laughing. ~ Leo Santa Cruz

Were on a journey to visit our relatives, our nephews and nieces, and first, second, and third cousins, and the other descendants of our grandfathers, who live on the East side of these truly hospitable mountains, said Thorin, not quite knowing what to say all at once in a moment, when obviously the exact truth would not do at all. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

He'd seen this babe before
her many counterparts, that is. He knew her kin, distant and near. All her mamas, sisters, aunts, cousins and what have you. And he knew the name was Lowdown with a capital L. He wasn't at all surprised to find her in a setup like this. Not after encountering her as a warden's sister-in-law, the assistant treasurer of a country bank, and a supervisor of paroles. This babe got around. She was the original square-plug-in-a-round-hole kid. But she never changed any. She had that good old Lowdown blood in her, and the right guy could bring it out. ~ Jim Thompson

I wanted to be Gene Kelly. Well really, I just wanted to dance with Cyd Charisse. ~ Robin Cousins

And then I remember this morning and I wonder if it really happened or if I dreamed it. It was nice. And weird. And tender. I'm not used to tender. It's a fossil, that word. Conditions changed and it died out. Like the woolly mammoth. It just couldn't live in the same world as dick box. Ho dog. Or wiener cousins. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

I was not the equal of my cousins in athletic ability or good looks, but I'd like to think God evened the score by granting me a modicum of common sense, which sometimes seems to be sadly missing in most descendants of Walter Kaminski, who have shown a tendency to live for the moment and think with their peckers. ~ Robin Yocum

Jase and I asked Mia what she wanted to do before her surgery. "How about a family party?" she suggested. So the invitation went out. It's interesting when you mention to family members that they are going to be on TV--schwoom, they are there. As Willie said, "I didn't know we had this much family."
Mia had always heard the funny stories about Jase wrestling with his brothers and cousins growing up, particularly how cousin Amy beat up Willie, so that's what she requested for the special entertainment. As Jase said, "It's the ultimate redneck dinner theater." A wrestling ring was delivered, and the warmup act was the Robertson boys clowning around, performing their best wrestling moves. Willie surprised everyone with guest professional wrestlers, including Jase's favorite, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.
I felt kind of bad for them, wearing only their little wrestling pants, while the rest of us were bundled up in winter coats. Yes, it was January, but it was unusually cold in Louisiana--about twenty degrees. The wrestlers had to keep moving fast; otherwise, they would have frozen to death!
At the end of the party, Mia took the stage between Jase and Willie, thanking everyone for coming and then sharing from her heart: "My favorite verse is Psalm 46:10: 'Be still, and know that I am God!' God is bigger than all of us, and He is bigger than any of your struggles, too." I think I can say that there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Going into her surgery, Mia was being bra ~ Missy Robertson

Hey!" He snapped out of his musings as Destiny's hand trailed down his body to cup his less than interested cock through his trousers. "Claws to self, Vampira, I assume you brush your teeth twice a day but I have no idea where those hands of yours have been. ~ Jane Cousins

Indolence and stupidity are first cousins. ~ Antoine Rivarol

Tonight, for the first time in eight very long years, she let me hold her. She didn't yell at me. She didn't push me away. My cousin's best friend got married tonight, and instead of my cousin standing up there as his best man, I had to take his place. But even with that reminder hovering over the night, she let me hold her. ~ Abbi Glines

The great challenge of the '90s ... is to salvage and improve the UN and to develop it into an agency capable of meeting the wide range of serious problems that are inherent in a world that has become a single geographic unit. ~ Norman Cousins

Somehow this literary genre, which most people condemned, acted as a sort of counterbalance to Charles's soul; it was the ballast that prevented him from lurching into the serious or melancholy, unlike Andrew, who had been unable to adopt his cousin's casual attitude to life, and to whom everything seemed so achingly profound, imbed with that absurd solemnity that the transience of of existence conferred upon even the smallest act. ~ Felix J. Palma

So Anna did not blame the women of her time for what they had created; it was different only in kind from what she had made herself. And if the old soldiers wanted only to forgive, Anna understood that, too, though in her own memory she could no longer find anything that needed forgiving. In the sunlight by her cousin's grave, she would touch the black ostrich plume in her hat - the plume that, like herself, grew a little older and little more frayed every year - and think about what all of it meant to her. Down the hill slept the soldiers, and she would visit certain of them in a little while, and the thought of them - their faces, their voices, their particular ways - always made her smile. General Nathan Bedford Forrest himself told her once that she had seen the last of a great army, but he was wrong in that, for they still moved out there in the sunlight, all of them. He was right about one thing though: there was no shame in it, not ever. ~ Howard Bahr

Hey." Erik was now eye level with Cara's breasts and thoroughly enjoying the view. Maybe he should try and strike up a conversation. "Come here often?"
"Are you talking to my breasts again?" Cara huffed in exasperation.
"Oh… do that again, the huffing thing."
Cara grabbed a fistful of the hair on his clearly undamaged head and yanked so Erik was forced to sit up and make actual eye contact with her. "I can't tell if you're brain damaged or if you've always been like this. ~ Jane Cousins

I come from a huge family and out of all 34 of my immediate family members, my heavier influences were women. Between my grandmothers, aunts, older female cousins, and of course my mother, I was pretty much predominantly raised by women, as they make up most of my family anyway. ~ Aeriel Miranda

You know, all my songs are relatives, brothers, sisters, cousins. ~ David Coverdale

Remember, cousins are forever! ~ Lydia Howe

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this.
I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do.
I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first.
Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, w ~ Anna Banks

The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin. ~ Ann Patchett

When Khrushchev asked whether his brass hats would guarantee that keeping the missiles in Cuba would not bring about nuclear war, they looked at him, he later told Norman Cousins of the Saturday Review, an informal emissary between Kennedy and Khrushchev, "as though I were out of my mind or, what was worse, a traitor. So I said to myself, 'To hell with these maniacs.'"6 ~ Robert F. Kennedy

The emotion of disgust evolved initially to optimize responses to the omnivore's dilemma. Individuals who had a properly calibrated sense of disgust were able to consume more calories than their overly disgustable cousins while consuming fewer dangerous microbes than their insufficiently disgustable cousins. ~ Jonathan Haidt

Would all go tell their friends and neighbors and cousins and strangers in the supermarket that we went up for our baptism and sneezed in the holy water. ~ Brad Meltzer

After his initial homecoming week, after he'd been taken to a bunch of sights by his cousins, after he'd gotten somewhat used to the scorching weather and the surprise of waking up to the roosters and being called Huascar by everybody (that was his Dominican name, something else he'd forgotten), after he refused to succumb to that whisper that all long-term immigrants carry inside themselves, the whisper that says You do not belong, after he'd gone to about fifty clubs and because he couldn't dance salsa, merengue, or bachata had sat and drunk Presidentes while Lola and his cousins burned holes in the floor, after he'd explained to people a hundred times that he'd been separated from his sister at birth, after he spent a couple of quiet mornings on his own, writing, after he'd given out all his taxi money to beggars and had to call his cousin Pedro Pablo to pick him up, after he'd watched shirtless shoeless seven-year-olds fighting each other for the scraps he'd left on his plate at an outdoor cafe, after his mother took them all to dinner in the Zona Colonial and the waiters kept looking at their party askance (Watch out, Mom, Lola said, they probably think you're Haitian - La unica haitiana aqui eres tu, mi amor, she retorted), after a skeletal vieja grabbed both his hands and begged him for a penny, after his sister had said, You think that's bad, you should see the bateys, after he'd spent a day in Bani (the camp where La Inca had been raised) and he'd taken a dump in a l ~ Junot Diaz

My two Jamaican cousins ... were studying engineering. 'That's where the money is,' Mom advised ... I was to be an engineering major, despite my allergy to science and math ... Those who preceded me at CCNY include the polio vaccine discoverer, Dr. Jonas Salk ... and eight Nobel Prize winners ... In class, I stumbled through math, fumbled through physics, and did reasonably well in, and even enjoyed, geology. All I ever looked forward to was ROTC.
Autobiographical comments on his original reason for going to the City College of New York, where he shortly turned to his military career. ~ Colin Powell

When Graciela was finally ready for bed, Jenny waited while the kid knelt and basically offered up the same prayer as she did every night. Jenny made a face during the blessing of the cousins, and she spoke the last words in unison with Graciela. "And strike Jenny dead, amen." We don't need to suggest ways and means, all right? We can leave the details of my demise to God. Now, go to sleep."
She sighed when Graciela lifted her cheek for a kiss. She didn't think she would ever get accustomed to death wishes being followed by a good-night kiss. ~ Maggie Osborne

And then I got it. Dan didn't need me to bake cakes, or entertain his uncle, or dress up, or field his mother's expectations, or make his sisters feel important, or chit-chat nicely to his relations. He just needed me to be there. Because when I was with him, it made it easier for him to be with his family. To be able to point across a room and say, "She's with me," to his Uncle Patrick, his mother, his cousins, but most important, to himself. ~ Kate Kerrigan

Having Aelin help him the first time had been awkward enough that he couldn't even go until she started singing a bawdy tune at the top of her lungs and turned on the sink faucet, all the while helping him stand over the toilet. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Aedion - every breath she took seemed to echo his name. Aedion, Aedion, Aedion. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Progress is possible only when people believe in the possibilities of growth and change. Races or tribes die out not just when they are conquered and suppressed but when they accept their defeated condition, become despairing, and lose their excitement about the future. Norman Cousins Americans ~ Howard Bloom

They were natural storytellers and beautiful singers; innately charming people who treated us like long-lost cousins. ~ Ransom Riggs

[Author's Note:] When I was sixteen, two of my cousins were brutally raped by four strangers and thrown off a bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. My brother was beaten and also forced off the bridge. I wrote about that horrible crime in my first book, my memoir, A Rip in Heaven. Because that crime and the subsequent writing of the book were both formative experience in my life, I became a person who is always, automatically, more interested in stories about victims than perpetrators. I'm interested in characters who suffer inconceivable hardship, in people who manage to triumph over extraordinary trauma. Characters like Lydia and Soledad. I'm less interested in the violent, macho stories of gangsters and law enforcement. Or in any case, I think the world has enough stories like those. Some fiction set in the world of the cartels and narcotraficantes is compelling and important - I read much of it during my early research. Those novels provide readers with an understanding of the origins of the some of the violence to our south. But the depiction of that violence can feed into some of the worst stereotypes about Mexico. So I saw an opening for a novel that would press a little more intimately into those stories, to imagine people on the flip side of that prevailing narrative. Regular people like me. How would I manage if I lived in a place that began to collapse around me? If my children were in danger, how far would I go to save them? I wanted to write about women, whose stories a ~ Jeanine Cummins

Do not pay attention to my cousins. Every family needs a couple idiots and we keep them around for entertainment. ~ Michelle M. Pillow

Anything else, Your Majesty?"
"I didn't say my prayers."
"I'll say them for you. Our father who art in et cetera, bless all the rotten cousins and kill Jenny. Amen. ~ Maggie Osborne

You do not know your danger, Theoden. These hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and remoter cousins to the ninth degree, if you encourage them with undue patience. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

analogue tape is notoriously forgiving on transient peaks, applying small amounts of tape saturation (or distortion) on the occasional stray hit, and thereby keeping the transient levels in some degree of order. Of course, in an entirely digital production chain, it's highly likely that these transient peaks have passed through the majority of recording and mixing without any of these pleasant 'non-linearities' slipping in, and therefore the average level is several decibels quieter than a comparable analogue recording. ~ Mark Cousins

Brantford was the fixed point of my universe, growing up. Both sets of grandparents lived there, with various cousins and uncles and aunts, and no matter how far we'd moved off, we came back there for regular visits. In a way no other houses have ever been, my grandparents' houses were 'home,' and the sale of the last of those houses was hard. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Cousins are forever and forever are cousins they stand by your side for you no matter what. ~ Brandi Carlile

As soon as we stopped sleeping with our cousins and build walls, temples and a few decent nightclubs, society became too complex for any one person to grasp all at once, and thus bureaucracy was born. A bureaucracy breaks the complexity down into a series of interlocking systems. You don't need to know how the systems fit together, or even what function your bit of the system has, you just perform your bit and the whole machine creaks on. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world? ~ Norman Cousins

There is a difficult discussion that rarely happens among American funeral directors: viewing the embalmed body is often an unpleasant experience for the family. THere are exceptions to this rule, but the immediate family is given almost no meaningful time with the body. Before the family has time to be with their dead person and process the loss, coworkers and distant cousins arrive, and everyone is forced into a public performance of grief and humility.

I wondered what it would be like if there were places like Lastel in every major city. Spaces outside the stiff, ceremonial norm, where the family can just be with the body, free from the performance required at a formal viewing. Spaces that are safe, comfortable, like home. ~ Caitlin Doughty

You can't just repurpose old material created for one platform, throw it up on another one, and then be surprised when everyone yawns in your face. No one would ever think it was a good idea to use a print ad for a television commercial, or confuse a banner ad for a radio spot. Like their traditional media platform cousins, every social media platform has its own language. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk

It was what Aunty Ifeoma did to my cousins, I realized then, setting higher and higher jumps for them in the way she talked to them, in what she expected of them. She did it all the time believing they would scale the rod. And they did. It was different for Jaja and me. We did not scale the rod because we believed we could, we scaled it because we were terrified that we couldn't. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Jack Sturtzer, one of my cousins, had gone to art school and suggested that I might be interested in a private school called the Art Institute of Buffalo, and in fact that is what happened. So upon graduation in 1948, I then went to stay with my cousins on Seventeenth Street and enrolled in the program at the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue. ~ Paul Smith

I don't do passion, and I sure don't do love. I f*ck. And that doesn't require a whole lot of demonstrative hoo-hah. Just technique. Which I have plenty of.

-Roman Masterson of Cousins ~ Lisa Lang Blakeney

I have 52 first cousins. My mom and dad were the only two to move to North America, so I've got deep family there, but I'm a California kid. ~ Donal Logue

Will all you children come and visit and tell me more about the house?"
"If you'd like," Jessie said. "Someday maybe Grandfather will bring you to your old home so you can see it again."
"That would be my pleasure," Grandfather said.
Mrs. Collins stood and walked to the door with the Aldens. "Someday I will call you, and my housekeeper can drive me to the old house. I would like to see it again and to meet your cousins."
She kissed each of the children and shook Grandfather's hand. "I can't thank you enough for giving me back my father."
The Aldens got into Grandfather's car and rode in silence for a while. Then Jessie said, "I'm so glad we found Celia."

The Mystery of the Singing Ghost ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner

My mother has a very big family in Shanghai, so I have, like, almost 40 cousins, so we stayed together all the time. So by the time I get to Hong Kong, I become the only child and the only one surrounded by adults, you know. ~ Wong Kar-Wai

Mice and any rodentia. Guinea pigs. Even rabbits, I can't stand. Rabbits are cousins to rats. It's a class thing. If you had to grow up with rats scampering in your backyard, because the city services were cut in half and the population in your neighborhood doubled, then that also is going to mean that the flora and fauna are going to grow as well. So that's a part of it. That's why I can't go to Hindu countries where they respect rats and mice, and I can't go camping. ~ Sandra Cisneros

But you're worried I'll get in trouble?" I try not to show how much this pleases me. I've managed to ignore him for days now and here I sit. Lapping up his attention like a neglected puppy. My voice takes on an edge. "Why do you care? I've ignored you for days."
His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. "Yeah. You got to stop that."
I swallow back a laugh. "I can't."
"Why?" There's no humor in his eyes now, no mockery. "You like me. You want to be with me."
"I never said-"
"You didn't have to."
I inhale sharply. "Don't do this."
He looks at me so fiercely, so intently. Angry again. "I don't have friends. Do you see my hang with anyone besides my jerk cousins? That's for a reason. I keep people away on purpose," he growls. "But then you came along..."
I frown and shake my head.
His expression softens then, pulls at some part of me. His gaze travels my face, warming the core of me. "Whoever you are, Jacinda, you're someone I have to let in."
He doesn't say anything for a while, just studies me in that intense way. His nostrils flare, and again it's like he's taking in my scent or something. He continues, "Somehow, I think I know you. From the first moment I saw you, I felt that I knew you."
The words run through me, reminding me of when he let me escape in the mountains. He's good. Protective. I have nothing to fear from him, but everything to fear from his family.
I scoot closer, the draw of him too great. My w ~ Sophie Jordan

One of my cousins is named Lucifer. I once asked my aunt why and she said, Because I wanted him to be beautiful and to think for himself. ~ Ilona Andrews

I can sit underneath the shed with all my family, my cousins, and everything, and just be like, "Yeah, this is what it's about - just sitting with people you love and hanging out." ~ Channing Tatum

The secret of my success is my mother, who was from Dublin. All my relations are in Dublin or in the west, or as I found out, we went to Rostrevor in Northern Ireland to film and I got out, while they changed cars around, and this man said to me: "You know you have cousins in this town? And they're coming down to see you ... " And so they did. I'm sorry we didn't go to a lot more places, so that I could find a lot more cousins. So, that was good. It's entirely because my father was also brought up in Dublin. So, that's my link. ~ Judi Dench