But in a home where grief is fresh and patience has long worn thin, making it through another day is often heroic in itself.

How did so many women get to this unhappy place of not understanding how truly “simple” men are in their requirements and how much benevolent power their wives have over them? Why did notions like...

Fiction is the poor persons travel agent.

Is that what love is all about? Needing them to come back to you when they’re away? To come home and keep you safe?

Not really,” says Dum at the same time.

Contentment isn’t something that just happens to you, Regan Lee, it’s a choice. You have to want exactly what you have.

Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your...

What about Danny Thomas?” Uncle Hal asks. “What happened to him?”Dead,” Uncle Abdelhafiz says. “Nice Lebanese boy.””Never mind about Danny Thomas, look what happened to your whole family! Look at your cousin Farouq, Great Uncle...

Families that feel together, heal together.

You will never find your way, by keeping doors closed.

Every woman needs a man.

We all have a book in us. The first step is recognising this. Writing it is a whole new journey.

I’ve remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they’re actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that...

My grandfather was crying. The kind of quiet that is quiet and a secret. The kind of crying that only I noticed. I thought about him going into my mom’s room when she was little...

Because I miss them. Because I need them. Because I love them.

She wouldn’t climb out of the bed for her sister, but she had climbed into a crater. She wouldn’t cross a room, but she had crossed a continent.

Kat looked down at her lemonade. ‘Do you think he betrayed the love of his life…because of us?”She used the name Romani, Kat,’ was Gabrielle’s answer. ‘And besides…’ She let the words draw out. Her...

I think what a family is shouldn’t be so hard to see. It should be the one thing people know just by looking at you.

It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.

But marrying within one’s own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.

The world doesn’t owe you anything because you’re in it, but you owe yourself the world because it is in you.

So at family gatherings… I try to stick to the acceptable script. Indeed, I discover that the less I say, the happier everyone seems to be with me. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t have...

My Mom and Dad and brother have grown through the years into my closest friends, the people who tell me the most searing truth, who give me soft places to rest and present to me...

A successful marriage was a balancing act-that was a thing everyone knew. A successful marriage was also dependent on a high tolerance for irritation.

I think we should wean Grandma.

There’s only three things you need to do when you are finished editing your book – Sleep! Sleep! and Sleep!

Speaking generally, however, when you interact with someone else, you are doing outer work (physical time, play time, connecting time) … as many sociologists have pointed out, this area of life used to dominate everyday...

I was so done with looking at life through the eyes of beer-drinking cheese-heads. I wanted to go on that mission trip and look through the eyes of someone from a different culture and see...

I didn’t bring you up to speak as if your mouth were filled with sewage.

You must be committed to your children first. Otherwise, they will receive the leftovers.

Royal Young has accomplished a rare feat in his fresh and riveting debut: he manages to recount his fascinating youth and unconventional family with a mixture of humor, scathing honesty and tenderness. Much more than...

Day blame ornery youngins.

A question that always makes me hazy is it me or are the others crazy’Albert Einstein

If a man’s character is to be abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relative to do the business.

Next to God, Family is the best thing.

I believe in fate and I believe you were supposed to walk into my life, so Mason could walk into yours.

Ian, man, I didna tell ye because I didna wish to lose you too. My brother was gone, and my father. I didna mean to lose my own heart’s blood as well. For you are...

The more you love,the more love you have to give.It’s the only feeling we have which is infinite…

(ignorance + acceptance) * pride = arrogance

It is wonderful to live together as brothers and sisters.

The child is right,” she announced firmly.Arrietty’s eyes grew big. “Oh, no-” she began. It shocked her to be right. Parents were right, not children. Children could say anything, Arrietty knew, and enjoy saying it-knowing...

And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you,...

But in that moment when my brother took the field, all that washed away, and everyone was proud… I looked up at my dad, and he was smiling. I looked at my mom, and she...

Know what being a man’s pet means. And if you’re ever lucky enough to find yourself with the choice, choose the pasture.

Even after Sonja graduated secondary school at the top of her class and matriculated to the city university biology department, their parents found more to love in Natasha. Sonja’s gifts were too complex to be...

You can’t experience the Father’s embrace until you first embrace your earthly father’s experience.

When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, of a family line, connection. All around him, men were walking silently with their thoughts, reforming their lives,...

If I didn’t have a job, I might have stayed in bed until I rotted.

Everyone in this family belongs to everyone else – belongs with everyone else, rather. I’ve looked after him for a year now – ironed his shirts, made his school lunches, told him stories. I made...

It wasn’t every day that I got to see him, but when I did I knew I was on the right path and that life, while still shifting, was always improving for the better.