Relationships and Family

His mother, her eyes raised to heaven, hands arched before her, moving, made real for John that patience, that endurance, that long suffering, which he had read of in the Bible and found so hard to imagine.

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

I hope my tongue in prune juice smothers / If I belittle dogs and mothers.

When he is sick, every man wants his mother; if she’s not around, other women must do. Zuckerman was making do with four other women.

A woman wishes to mother a man simply because she sees into his helplessness, his need of an amiable environment, his touching self-delusion.

All the critics in the world may say it’s good but a man’s own mother will know.

Now, we’ve made the revolutionary discovery that children have two parents. A decade ago even the kindly Dr. Spock held mothers solely responsible for children.

Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.

The father who raises a son to have a profession he once dreamed of, and the mother who uses her daughter as the adult companion her husband is not; the parents who urge their children into accomplishments as status symbols—all these and many more are ways of subordinating a child’s authentic self to a parent’s needs.

If you and your child were going to be lulled tomorrow/would you not give him to eat today?

When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness.

When brothers agfee, no fortress is so strong as their common life.

Cruel is the strife of brothers.

The lover says how beautiful you are, now that you love me.

For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother tomorrow.

Faint heart never won true friend. O my friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my friend I may be yours.

I am grieved that it should be said he is my brother, and take these courses.

Do you know what friendship is... it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.

To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.

Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die.

I figure I'll be champ for about ten years and then I'll let my brother take over - like the Kennedys down in Washington.

The happiest time in any man's life is just after the first divorce.

I'm an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house.