What I think was hardest for me to realize was that he had tried each time to stop himself. He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child

la culpa era de su ceguera de progenitor, la misma, (...) que nos impide ver que nuestros hijos, al fin y al cabo, son tan buenos o tan malos como los demás

The family is the basis of society. As the family is, so is the society, and it is human beings who make a family-not the quantity of them, but the quality of them.

Our parts now -- which perforce we must play -- are not father and daughter, but one old Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind this, there is always my love.

When Tito was born, I was writing my fifth novel. That was how I saw my future: living in Venice and jumping from novel to novel. Tito's birth changed all that.

There were many things they simply didn't talk about: between them, silence was not so much a form of evasion as a way for solitary people to exist in a family.

Usiifundishe familia yako anasa. Ifundishe upendo, unyenyekevu na hofu ya Mungu. Ukiifundisha anasa utahatarisha maisha ya mbinguni ya familia yako, na ya kwako pia.

The cycle of parental disapproval begins at dawn. That’s why I have to get up five minutes before sunrise, so I can berate my grandpa like he was my own child.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one famiy grow up under the same roof

Yes, I say. Three of these flying birds. I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight-toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left behind.

She texted me telling me her mom was dying, so I did the right thing and texted her back a picture of my erect penis and said, “Let’s start a new family.

Eighteen and stupid happens to everyone, I guess. If you survive it, it's probably half luck, and half having the right people in your life to watch out for you.

The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.

I was the first face you saw when you were born, you were bald as my hair ran black. Now yours the last face I saw before I died, your hair ran black, as I was bald.

Growing up, Joe had adored his brother, Then he'd come to hate him. Now, he mostly didn't think about him. When he did, he had to admit, he missed his laugh.