Family Dinner Quotes

You can't forget how important coming together is, whether it be a mom and a son, a dad and a daughter, whether the family be ten people, or twenty people, or a million people. Dinnertime is the perfect time for that. Dinnertime is the perfect time when you can sit down, you can offer thanks to your kids for making you laugh, or to your parents for supporting you, or to a god for looking out for you, or to whomever you want. You can just close your eyes and open them again and realize that you have the opportunity everyday to change your life, or change someone else's. Dinnertime is a great time to think about that.

~ Dillon, age 22
From Dinnertimes: Stories of American Life, 1912 to 2012 ~ Deborah L. Halliday

I'm not a big chicken or meat eater, but sometimes I'll eat it if it's locally raised. The family dinner will be stir-fry, or we'll roll our own sushi with brown rice, spinach, salmon, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and seaweed. The kids love it! ~ Alysia Reiner

I love to cook, and I love to have all my family around the dinner table. ~ Julia Roberts

I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner. ~ Ruth Reichl

I am a marathon worker and marathon mother. I'll spend three or four days completely swallowed up by work. And if I make it home in time to say good night, I may have one good hour with the girls, maybe a brief family dinner or a family walk with the dog, and then it is back on the computer to prepare for tomorrow's shows. ~ Mika Brzezinski

Courageous parenting does not always involve saying no. Parents also need courage to say yes to the counsel of modern-day prophets. Our Church leaders have counseled us to establish righteous patterns in our homes. Consider five fundamental practices that have the power to fortify our youth: family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, family dinner together, and regular one-on-one interviews with each child. ~ Larry R. Lawrence

I've always known what you were thinking. You're squeezing that
marble in your pocket and you're thinking your cattle wouldn't be at risk if it
weren't for Louise. And maybe you're right. But take a hard look, son. When
you see that woman working up a sweat pitching hay like a hired hand …
you're looking at character.
"And if we ever have another family dinner that goes like the last one did,
you pay attention. I have an idea that your Louise doesn't sit still for too
many insults, and I imagine she could cut someone down to size in about
three sentences if she wanted to. But she sat silent while Philadelphia
ridiculed and belittled her. Louise did this out of respect for you and this
family. That is also character.
"Maybe you really believe Wally is living your life. If so, then you haven't
been honest with yourself. And you haven't taken a good hard look at the
life you have. Mark my words, Max. Someday you're going to hold that
marble, and it won't be a symbol of all you lost. That marble will be the gold
you went to Piney Creek to find. It will be the most precious thing you own.
I say this because I didn't raise any stupid sons. ~ Maggie Osborne

Homework is the new family dinner. ~ Jennifer Senior

Frankie had used one (reverently) to wipe his eyes.This specimen was old and soft,monogrammed with a J in the corner. "Makes it interesting," he told me once, after finding a box monogrammed with M for fifty cents at a sidewalk sale. "Was it Max or Michael? Maybe Marco..."
"Here," he said now. "You have lipstick halfway down to your chin."
Humiliated, I scrubbed at my face.
Frankie held out his hand, palm up. "Okay,let's have it." I pulled the tube out of my pocket. "Not really my thing, madam, but since I've seen what happens when you don't use a mirror..." I'm sure it helped that he was holding my face, but he read it like a pro. "You had a mirror."
"I did.I'm hopeless."
"Maybe.Open." He squinted as he filled in my upper lip. "I don't like this."
"The color? I knew it was too pink-"
"Quiet.You'll smear it.The color is fine. Better for Sienna, I'm sure..." He surveyed his handiwork. "I don't like that you're doing this for him."
"Don't start. I told you how nice he was."
"In excruciating detail."
Given, the post-Bainbridge family dinner e-mail to Frankie and Sadie had been long. But excrutiating stung, especially from the boy who'd used every possible synonym for hot in describing his Friday-night bookstore acquisition. No name, just detailed hotness and the play-by-play of their flirtation over the fantasy section. ~ Melissa Jensen

Some of the most important conversations I've ever had occurred at my family's dinner table. ~ Bob Ehrlich

Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments and shops that constitute one's first universe. ~ Henry Anatole Grunwald

I didn't grow up in a traditional family, and I never had a family dinner around the table, so whenever I actually had a dinner 'plan,' it meant a lot to me; it made me feel excited and safe. ~ Drew Barrymore

'Perhaps what Finneas needs, King Rowan, is an occupation. I believe there to be a village nearby in sore need of an idiot. Finn seems well suited to the task.'
Rowan had just taken a hearty sip of wine when Gareth's words caused him to swallow the wrong way. Glenna gave him a healthy tap on the back.
'What's an idiot, Mama?' Stefan seemed excited by the prospect of Finn's employment. 'If Finn's to be an idiot, may I be an idiot, too?' ~ Sara Bell

I cook and I really believe in the family dinner, I think that's a nice time to bring the family together. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow

I come from a very, very Catholic family. We used to pray the rosary every day after dinner. ~ Juanes

This is new to us, you know? Your mother's sorry. She's sorry that she hurt your feelings, and she wants you to invite your girlfriend over for dinner."
"So that she can make her feel bad and weird?"
"Well she is kind of weird, isn't she?"
Park didn't have the energy to be angry. He sighed and let his head fall back on the chair.
His dad kept talking. "Isn't that why you like her? ~ Rainbow Rowell

Everybody has heard that family dinner is great for kids. But unfortunately, it doesn't work in many of our lives. ~ Bruce Feiler

Taking time for each other is the key for harmony in the home [and in marriage]. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

And she rarely forgot that while her grammar and accent were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family dinner, and darned all the stockings. ~ George Eliot

Once you just tell yourself, 'OK, I'm going to have a breakdown right now, and I'm going to cry for an hour, put my phone away. I'm going to go swimming, and then I'm gonna make my family dinner and lay on the couch and watch 'Ru Paul's Drag Race,' once you accept that it's not the day and you can just have a breakdown, you're over it. ~ Gigi Hadid

When Catherine told me about this (tragedy nearby), I could only say, shocked, "Dear God, that family needs grace."
She replied firmly, "That family needs casseroles," and then proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. I do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this _is_ grace. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

We have dinner every single night, Monday through Friday, with our children. We sit down around 6 or 6:30 and it's a family dinner - it's time to check in, just to be around each other. ~ Mark Consuelos

My mom is a great cook, and family dinners were a must growing up, even if that meant eating at 10 p.m. when my dad got home from the hospital. It's where we did our family bonding. ~ Daphne Oz

Cathy smiled back 'Rules were meant to be broken.'

'Don't disagree,' Oversteegen replied immediately. 'Indeed they are. Providin', however, that the one breakin' the rules is willin' t' pay the price for it, and the price gets charged in full. Which you were, Lady Catharine. I saluted you for it then–at the family dinner table that night, in fact. My mother was infinitely more indisposed thereafter; tottered back t' her bed cursin' me for an ingrate. My father was none too pleased either. I salute you for it, again. Otherwise, breakin' rules becomes the province of brats instead of heroes. Fastest way I can think t' turn serious political affairs int' a playpen. A civilized society needs a conscience, and conscience can't be developed without martyrs - real ones - against which a nation can measure its crimes and sins. ~ David Weber

My kids say if there's any family dinner that doesn't result in somebody crying, it's not a good dinner. They cry because it helps relieve them of a guilt or some onerous emotional burden. It's like a family tradition. ~ William Shatner

A theatrical spectacle is inherent whenever family members congregate and reacquaint themselves with powerful universal themes educed from homecomings including hugs, food, drink, conversation, politics, games, music, conflict, terror, mercy, smiles, tears, prayers, misfortune, and self-discovery. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We don't really go in for big family dinners, but Scottish people are famously confrontational. It's a cultural thing, so maybe we don't need to have them to clear the air. Also, traditional family food isn't as nice here so there's no payoff for traveling hundreds of miles. ~ Denise Mina

On Sunday night, my husband makes a five-course family dinner. ~ Soledad O'Brien

Eating a huge home cooked Christmas dinner was his personal favorite. Evan would look around after each Christmas Day was done. There were empty dishes, and torn up wrapping paper on the ground. Monty was passed out on the couch stuffed with food. Evan would close his eyes and hear the day. He could feel the memories that were just made. ~ David Rangel

We would finish dinner, and then we'd all sit around as a family and watch 'Roseanne.' That was a big one. ~ Tyler Ritter

For the past several centuries the bonding power of the family dinner table has been one of the few constants, and now it's binding no more. The potency of the media is now stronger than that of the family. The wonder is that families still exist at all, since the forces of modern life mainly all pull people away from a family centered way of life. ~ Larry McMurtry

Family dinner. Seven-thirty sharp. Tie optional. Straight-jacker required. ~ Alyson Noel

Family dinner in the Norman Rockwell mode had taken hold by the 1950s: Mom cooked, Dad carved, son cleared, daughter did the dishes. ~ Nancy Gibbs

The other half, Lost Tokyo-1, has not been located yet, although presumably it exists out there somewhere in the universe, a mega-demi-city of eighty-five million people, a city fractured, cracker in half, torn, ripped not cleanly, but shredded, ragged, ripped along living rome, plans, meetings, dates, conjugal beds in prisons, family dinner tables, secrets being whispered into ears, couples holding hands, separated in an instant without warning or explanation, leaving two halves, bewildered, speaking Japanese to instant neighbours from the other side of the world, unable to understand what has happened, or if things will ever go back to the way they were, hoping its other half might someday find its way back. ~ Charles Yu

It is not necessarily ominous that the formal family dinner is declining in many households or becoming limited to special occasions. We might be better off if we could separate food as nourishment and pleasure from food as the currency of care that leaves so many woman laboring long hours to prove affection in that semantic muddle called nurturance. ~ Mary Catherine Bateson

Finding pleasure at home-whether in a family dinner or a book club or a backyard barbecue-can give us the strength to go out into the world and do incredible things. ~ Reese Witherspoon

She ate--so, so good--cocooned in the harmonic dissonance of a large family, where every sound was distinct yet blended. ~ Rachel Hauck

The dinner was a huge production, with kids stashed in the den to eat off card tables like a collection of understudies who dreamed of one day breaking into the dining room. ~ Ann Patchett

The family dinner table is the cornerstone of civilization and those who 'graze' from refrigerators or in front of the television sets are doomed to remain in a state of savagery. ~ Judith Martin

As Native Americans, we believe the Rainbow is a sign from the Spirit in all things. It is a sign of the union of all people, like one big family. The unity of all humanity, many tribes and peoples, is essential. ~ Thomas Banyacya

I feel very fortunate that I was raised in a multicultural family, and it came through food. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

Lee Iacocca, who said to Dolly Parton, Why do you need an airbag? Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

Funny you mention my dinner parties when I have just suggested that inviting close friends over to share a meal with candlelight and wine at your table could be a form of religious experience for some people. To me it's a form of sacrament. ~ Sally Quinn

I've gone through that with my mother and father and here I was in a similar situation. I've wronged her and I've wronged the family. Because when these things happen, it doesn't just happen to you, it happens to the people around you and the family. ~ John Prescott

In all his years as a cop he had never felt this helpless, as though he had one hand tied behind his back. He had always been able to sort everything out. People came to him the same way they went to Father Andrew.
Now he was watching this family, his family, die a little every day and there was nothing he could do to save them.
The worst thoughts of all came in the middle of the night. He would wake from a sound sleep with his heart racing and just knew that wherever Lockie was he was suffering. He was suffering and he was probably just waiting for Pete to come and save him the way the teacher told all the kids every year. ~ Nicole Trope

I live life day by day without seeking the approval of others. I do not care what they think about me. My life is about making me happy. If I am not happy then, who will make me happy? Nobody, because happiness starts within me first. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

i have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers that I, a black African Muslim lesbian, am not included in this vision; that my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent, amoral Western society that has corrupted who I really am. But who am I, really? Am I allowed to speak for myself or must my desires form the battleground for causes I do not care about? My answer to that is simple: 'no one allows anyone anything.' By rejecting that notion you discover that only you can give yourself permission on how to lead your life, naysayers be damned. In the end something gives way. The earth doesn't move but something shifts. That shift is change and change is the layman's lingo for that elusive state that lovers, dreamers, prophets and politicians call 'freedom'. ~ Diriye Osman

It is the end of a family- when they begin to sell their land. Out of the land we came and into we must go - and if you will hold your land you can live- no one can rob you of land. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I like dressing up for dates and dissecting a dinner conversation with a new guy to determine if he might be The One. ~ J. Courtney Sullivan

A few years ago, I was trying to buy a piece of land next to a house I had in Newfoundland. I discovered that the plot had been owned by a family, and the son had gone off to World War I and been killed. It began to interest me: What would have happened on that land if the son had lived, had brought up his own family there? ~ Michael Winter

I loved teaching. It was my world. I only left because I was overwhelmed with three careers - teaching, writing, and my family. ~ Patricia Reilly Giff

At some point, the family you create is more important than the one you were born into. ~ Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Which just goes to show, I guess, that dinner parties are like everything else - not as fragile as we think they are. ~ Julie Powell

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, right?" I said. "How about Tristan and I make you and Jax a romantic dinner? And you bake him a cake for dessert. We'll warm him up with a gourmet meal, but once he tastes your cake, he'll be putty in your hands. ~ Kristie Cook

I came from Nebraska, a very middle class family with a progressive father. ~ Theodore C. Sorensen

We can think a healed thought and speak a healed word, speak of and to the two who are One, our MotherGoddessFatherGod. The hopeful but misty thought that "I've a Mother there" will give way to the experience that "I've a Mother here." We will know Him, Her, Them, Us, the Divine Family unbroken, bringing part to whole and whole to part, singing the indispensable She who had been forgotten but it now found, singing the wholeness, singing the holiness. ~ Carol Lynn Pearson

The family of God is the choir, and God is their audience. ~ Keith Getty

She was one of the freest people in the world. A middle-class white woman in America, she was the benefactor of a lifetime of advantage and opportunity. She was more free than a woman in Tehran or Bangladesh. She had the means to feed herself and her family, she could dress and speak as she pleased. She could work and travel without any reasonable fear of attack. She was so free, that she indebted and enslaved herself to clothes, cars, fashion, and Facebook. Youth may be wasted on the young, but freedom is squandered on the privileged. ~ M.K. Williams

My father was champion of North Africa and he beat the European champ. He was very good, a professional for 12 years. We're from a big family of boxers. My father has seven brothers. ~ Olivier Martinez

L'Avventura,' Dad said, 'has the sort of ellipsis ending most American audiences would rather undergo a root canal than be left with, not only because they loathe anything left to the imagination-we're talking about the country that invented spandex-but also because they are a confident, self-assured nation. They know Family. They know Right from Wrong. They know God-many of them attest to daily chats with the man. And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all-not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves-is a thought they'd rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head-on. Personally, I think there's something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man's feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say, "Who knows?" you can get on with the sheer gift of being alive. ~ Marisha Pessl

Family always gonna be there. ~ Lil' Romeo

Poverty is not natural; it is man-made ~ Nelson Mandela

Honestly, I love television. I love the idea of going to work every day and getting to know your crew and having a rapport with your directors and having a family of cast. ~ Britt Robertson

When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process. ~ Anita Desai

Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it. ~ Kathryn Stockett

Every extra year you spend in a better environment makes you more likely to go to college, less likely to have a teenage pregnancy, makes you earn more as an adult, makes you more likely to have a stable family situation, be married, for instance, when you're an adult. ~ Raj Chetty

Working with family is probably one of the hardest things in business, but it can also be one of the most rewarding. You have to be very, very careful that you don't overstep the boundaries that you wouldn't with anyone else. Sometimes, we think that the unconditional love they have for us makes overstepping boundaries alright. It's really not. You have to work harder to not damage the family dynamic. That lasts forever. ~ Paula Deen

It seems to me, that you people spend a great deal of time talking about honour, but strip away the high sounding words and you are no different from any other race. Family? Has Priam not killed wayward sons? When a king dies do his sons not go to war with one another to succeed him? Men speak of how you reacted to your father's death. They say it was amazing, for you did not order your little brother's execution. Your race thrives on blood and death, Helikaon. Your ships raid the coasts of other nations, stealing slaves, burning and plundering. Warriors brag of how many men they have killed, and women they have raped. Almost all of your kings either seized their thrones with swords and murder, or are children of men who seized power with swords and murder. So put all this talk of honour to one side. ~ David Gemmell

When I hit 16, I got a scooter to ride to school. It was bright pink, and I saw on the ownership papers that Jonathan Ross once owned it. My friends slated me for it because of the colour, but it was cool. My father used to ride, and my mother's boyfriend has a bike, so we're a bit of a biker family. ~ Thomas Sangster

The first CD said exactly what it was. I was just in the streets hustling. I come from a family of hustlers. ~ Yo Gotti

For what it's worth, I'll share my intentions. You and me, we aren't practice for the real thing. It isn't that too much is at stake with family and friends, it's because I love you. You're funny, beautiful and you care about people. I like the way you look at me, especially when you think I don't notice it. I like that we have history and our kids will have a big family and share that history because there was never a time when their Mom and Dad weren't together. If you were a terrible lay, I might have second thoughts but you and I are dynamite together. I intend to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. If that freaks you out, tough, because now we've started this, there's no goin' back. ~ Kristen Ashley

I LOVE IT when gods offer to pay for a dinner that's already free. Almost as much as I love assault squads that show up after the assault. ~ Rick Riordan

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman's normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors. ~ Alice Walker

Class, like race and all the other ways we divide ourselves up to make life miserable, is what I'd later learn is a "social construct." That's what my family calls bullshit, and there are places in a person that bullshit can't touch. ~ Sarah Smarsh

To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations. ~ Oscar Wilde

The fact that I am able to live a life and act and to do all of those things and support myself and my family is a gift. ~ Michael Cudlitz

I would be surprised if they gave Meryl Streep her third Oscar for a film as light as 'Julie and Julia,' although, of course, Katharine Hepburn's third Oscar came with a very light performance from her in 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.' ~ Robert Osborne

In England especially, I've found that if you bring up King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at a dinner party or a social gathering, it's like throwing a Molotov cocktail into the room. ~ Madonna Ciccone