Wittgensteinian Grandmother Quotes

...that, to repeat what I heard for years and years and suspect you've been hearing over and over, yourself, something's meaning is nothing more or less than its function. Et cetera et cetera et cetera. Has she done the thing with the broom with you? No? What does she use now? No. What she did with me--I must have been eight, or twelve, who remembers--was to sit me down in the kitchen and take a straw broom and start furiously sweeping the floor, and she asked me which part of the broom was more elemental, more fundamental, in my opinion, the bristles or the handle. The bristles or the handle. And I hemmed and hawed, and she swept more and more violently, and I got nervous, and finally when I said I supposed the bristles, because you could after a fashion sweep without the handle, by just holding on to the bristles, but couldn't sweep with just the handle, she tackled me, and knocked me out of my chair, and yelled into my ear something like, 'Aha, that's because you want to sweep with the broom, isn't it? It's because of what you want the broom for, isn't it?' Et cetera. And that if what we wanted a broom for was to break windows, then the handle was clearly the fundamental essence of the broom, and she illustrated with the kitchen window, and a crowd of the domestics gathered; but that if we wanted the broom to sweep with, see for example the broken glass, sweep sweep, the bristles were the thing's essence. No? What now, then? With pencils? No matter. Meaning as fundamentaln ~ David Foster Wallace

My mother and my father were teachers. My grandmother and my grandfather were teachers. This is something I really know about. Even when I was a kid, it was a profession my father couldn't stay in, because he couldn't make enough money. ~ Warren Beatty

My grandmother is very liberal, but ... she still has her opinions. ~ Rutina Wesley

It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases. ~ Hilary Mantel

While Olivia takes care of business, I approach my brother, leaning against the wall beside him, arms crossed.

"Congratulations," he says, sulking. "Bastard."

"Thank you."

"Olive looks gorgeous. Prick."

"She does. I'll tell her you said so."

"I'm really happy for you. Wanker."

I laugh. "It's going to be all right, Henry."

He drinks from his flask, flinching as he swallows. "Easy for you to say. Prat."

I squeeze his shoulder. "Are you ever going to forgive me?"

He shrugs. "Probably. Eventually. Of course I will. When I'm sober."

"Any idea when that may be?"

"Henry, there you are!" our grandmother clucks from across the room. "We must speak about the memo I sent you…"

Henry lifts his flask and shakes his head. "Not today. ~ Emma Chase

No matter what you do, your grandmother thinks it's wonderful. ~ Judith Ellen Levy

The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

My grandmother gave birth to 13 children and I come from a long line of women who gave birth in their 40s. ~ Debra Winger

Every casualty in war is someone's grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, brother, sister, child, lover. ~ Thi Bui

There are no other runners in my family Dash or not that I know of – but my grandmother was a walker. She said that when she was a girl and in a rage with a friend, she used to write her friends name on the soles of her feet in shock, and walk until then he was gone. She said by the time the truck was one away, resentment what is seated, too. ~ Ruth Ware

In truth, I am a single mother. But I don't feel alone at all in parenting my daughter. Krishna has a whole other side of her family who loves her, too. And so Krishna is parented by me, but also by her grandmother and aunts and cousins and uncles and friends. ~ Padma Lakshmi

My mother gave me a pair of diamond earrings when I was 13. It symbolised becoming a teenager. I also remember getting a collection of costume jewellery from my grandmother when I was in high school. ~ Erin Wasson

There was a nook in the house that contained what they called the Turkish Room, which was for intimate conversation. And when my mother had her sixth birthday, her grandmother led her into the Turkish Room. They were both named Inez. And on that day Big Inez gave Little Inez a plantation all her own. Two thousand acres. Then her little sister came running in and said, "Grandmother, can I have a plantation too?" And Big Inez looked down and said, "Child, your name is Alice. You were named for your Yankee grandmother. Go ask your Yankee grandmother for a plantation. ~ Adam Gopnik

Anyway, thanks to Bob, that Christmas, my mother bought my grandmother and myself both vibrators. Now, as unusual as a gift like this sounds, you have to admit that they are the ideal stocking stuffers. I mean, you can fit the vibrator into the long top part of the stocking and still be able to get another cute little gift in the toe.
Well, I have to admit, I enjoyed mine but my grandmother refused to use hers. She was concerned that it would short-circuit her pacemaker. She said she'd gone this long without an orgasm, she might as well go the whole way.
And that pacemaker, by the way, was later recalled. ~ Carrie Fisher

You'll marry the earl and carry on with the nephew on the side."
"Grandmother! ~ Julia Quinn

Ah, one doesn't give up one's country any more than one gives UP one's grandmother. They're both antecedent to choice - elements of one's composition that are not to be eliminated. ~ Henry James

I'm already scared out of my mind, mumbled Caitlyn as Meredith closed the bathroom door. She sat back down on the bed and pulled her legs into her chest, wondering if her crazy grandmother was going to come walking through that door naked, or worse, crawling around and pretending to howl at the moon. The thought sent a chill down her spine and tears to her eyes. ~ Kristen Middleton

It's right around this time that her Grandmother Hall dies. And Eleanor Roosevelt is responsible for making all the funeral arrangements. And there are a couple of things that she really understands, as she contemplates her grandmother's life and makes the funeral arrangements. One, she's really talented, an organizational woman. She knows how to do things. She begins to compare her life to her grandmother's life. And it's very clear to her that being a devoted wife and a devoted mother is not enough. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man. ~ G.K. Chesterton

But he didn't seem surprised to see her. 'Hey.'
'Hey, yourself.' Okay, that was stupid. Her grandmother used to say Hey, yourself. Great, she was turning into her grandmother at the most inopportune time. She didn't want to sound like a well-adjusted sixty-year-old. ~ Suzanne Brockmann

Why the long face? Something happen?"
"Nothing except my grandmother is still dead and my aunt moved to Sacramento and my sister just got out of a mental hospital."
"Oh," Huey says.
I spread my sack out, ready to load. Huey folds his handkerchief in half then in half again. I need him to check my count before I can go.
"Which part of Sacramento," he says, and I shrug. ~ Bob Thurber

One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed - as those who take to the water change - and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders - destined for him as well - he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too - I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

I was born odd. I was a strange child. My grandmother was always praying over me. She was always rubbing me and praying over me. ~ Lorraine Toussaint

I studied piano from the age of three. My grandmother taught piano. I stayed at her house during the day while my parents worked. I obviously wanted to learn to play. And so she asked if she could teach me, and my mother said don't you think she's too young. My grandmother apparently said no. So I could read music before I could read, and I really don't remember learning to read music. So for me it's like a native language. When I look at a sheet of music, it just makes sense. ~ Condoleezza Rice

I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models ... It's not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn't like it, they said, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out." Parents have to take better control. ~ Charles Barkley

On the seventh day God rested. His grandchildren must have been out of town. ~ Gene Perret

Two things I dislike about my granddaughter - when she won't take her afternoon nap, and when she won't let me take mine. ~ Gene Perret

There wasn't a lot of music in the home when I was growing up. We didn't have a piano or anything like that but my grandmother, had been a well-known piano teacher. ~ George Brandis

My grandmother used to tell us a story of a mountain of loadstone. When any vessels came near it, they were instantly deprived of their ironwork: the nails flew to the mountain, and the unhappy crew perished amidst the disjointed planks. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I asked my grandmother if the light was God," Pam recalled. Rie laughed at the suggestion. "Oh no, Baby," said Rie. "God is not the light. The light is what happens when God breathes." She knew then, Pam would say later, that she was standing in the breath of God. ~ Judy Bachrach

Demetrie came to wait on my grandmother in 1955 and stayed for 32 years. It was common, in Mississippi, to have a black domestic cleaning the kitchen, cooking the meals, looking after the white children. ~ Kathryn Stockett