¨Someday, I'm going to have to break some of your rules, Mom.¨¨I know,¨ she said. ¨Try to do it behind my back, will you?¨¨You can bet on that, Mom.¨We both sat there and laughed.

Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.

I know that in the end, God will forgive me. He will forgive your father, me, and you too. I hope you can do the same. Forgive your father if you can. Forgive me if you wish. But most important, forgive yourself.

Families will not be broken. Curse and expel them, send their children wandering, drown them in floods and fires, and old women will make songs of all these sorrows and sit on the porch and sing them on mild evenings.

In some ways, I am able to feel more like a part of my family while I am missing them. It's normal to feel lonely when you are away from your loved ones, but it's queer to feel lonely while surrounded by family.

Was that really all there was to love? Darkness undone, a hand on your forehead. In the meantime all you could do was wait--tired, alone, the minutes as long or short as a lifetime--for the face in your dream to appear.

None of us lives in isolation. We're in it together. And some conflict along the way is inevitable. But our highest priority, when all is said and done, has to be commitment to each other –- sticking together.

And how can you say I love you to someone you love?I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary. I love you,Grandma.

He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he’d close his eyes and walk through fire to see her safe.

We can best help our children not by sacrificing ourselves for them, but by trying to fulfill our own lives. When we are involved in an honest pursuit of our own goals, we serve as positive role models for our children.

Jill had three basic statements about life,1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary.2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.3. No one ever said that life was fair.

Make a wish," said Indigo.Rose made a wish and then asked, "Why?""That's what I always do. Wish on the moving ones.""Does it matter how fast they move?""I don't think so.""Can you wish on airplanes, too?""Oh, yes.

Because it is the lot of mothers to remember what no one else cares to, Mrs. Dutta thinks. To tell them over and over until they are lodged, perforce, in family lore. We are the keepers of the heart's dusty corners.

While you've been gadding about the countryside, we've held a meeting, and we've all of us decided that you must go.'In short, we've voted you out of the family,' Daffy said. 'It was unanimous.

...But that's just the thing, right? Family isn't something that's supposed to be static or set. People marry in, divorce out. They're born, they die. It's always evolving, turning into something else.