fathers Quotes

″[Father’s] letters were certainly warm enough, filled with his worries about us and his longing to be back home. But a man cannot be a father in a letter.”

“Every morning, no matter how late he had been up, my father rose at 5:30, went to his study, wrote for a couple of hours, made us all breakfast, read the paper with my mother, and then went back to work for the rest of the morning. Many years passed before I realized that he did this by choice, for a living, and that he was not unemployed or mentally ill.”

“No matter how bright your star became, I never cared about the music half as much as I cared about you as a daughter... I want you to know that.”

“My dad told me that when I was born my cheeks were so fat the doctors didn’t know which end to spank.”

“He was my father and yet he was a stranger to me. I had never seen him. I thought to myself, How can we ever speak to one another? He’s as strange to me as a demon.”

“Writing taught my father to pay attention; my father in turn taught other people to pay attention and then to write down their thoughts and observations.”

“I just can’t make myself understand that God and the angels needed my father more than I did.”

“The kindest words my father said to me Women like you drown oceans.”

’Later that night, Dad stopped the car out in the middle of the desert, and we slept under the stars. We had no pillows, but Dad said that was part of his plan. He was teaching us to have good posture. The Indians didn’t use pillows, either, he explained, and look how straight they stood. We did have our scratchy army-surplus blankets, so we spread them out and lay there, looking up at the field of stars. I told Lori how lucky we were to be sleeping out under the sky like Indians. ‘We could live like this forever,’ I said. ‘I think we’re going to,’ she said.”

“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. […] As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word ‘beautiful.‘”

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”

“I thought that if he was my own father, he ought to love me. I was a little girl then, and didn’t know any better.”

“About all he had left at this point was his tremendous dignity . . . Ten children and a lot of hard luck had worn him down, had worn away most of the arrogance he came to this country with. But he still had dignity, and he would not let those deputies push him out the door. He led them.”

“While a man’s father is alive, look at the bent of his will; when his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not alter from the way of his father, he may be called filial.”

″‘And it will soon grow again, Dad,’ said one of the Small Foxes. ‘It will never grow again,’ said Mr. Fox. ‘I shall be tail-less for the rest of my life.‘”

“Mr. Fox looked at the four Small Foxes and he smiled. What fine children I have, he thought. They are starving to death and haven’t had a drink for three days, but they are still undefeated. I must not let them down.”

“I took onto Raynell like she was all them babies I had wanted and never had. . . . Like I’d been blessed to relive a part of my life. And if the lord see fit to keep up my strength . . . I’m gonna do her just like your daddy did you . . . I’m gonna give her the best of what’s in me.”

“You can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child.”

“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t known my daddy. . . . But I’ll say this for him . . . he felt a responsibility toward us. Maybe he ain’t treated us the way I felt he should have . . . but without that responsibility he could have walked off and left us.”

“Now I thought he was mad cause I ain’t done my work. But I see where he was chasing me off so he could have the gal for himself. When I see what the matter of it was, I lost all fear of my daddy. Right there is where I became a man . . . at fourteen years of age.”

“It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house . . . sleep you behind on my bedclothes . . . fill you belly up with my food . . . cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not cause I like you! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you!”

“He was so pleased that he was not going to let anybody share a grain of his pleasure. His father had praised him. They must think that he was perfectly indifferent.”

“Then having lighted his pipe he took out his watch. He looked at it attentively; he made, perhaps, some mathematical calculation. At last he said, triumphantly: ‘Well done!’ James had steered them like a born sailor.”

“He would like to show his drawings to his dad, but he didn’t dare. When he was in first grade, he had told his dad that he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He’d thought his dad would be pleased. He wasn’t.”

“He wasn’t strong because he wasn’t afraid. No, he was strong because he kept doing it even though he was afraid.”

“Suddenly his mother let out a great shuddering sob. ‘O my God. O my God.’ She said it over and over, her head down on her arms. His father moved to put his arm around her awkwardly, but he didn’t take his eyes off Jess.”

“She sat down, wary, tired, astonished at the wealth of her own feeling for. She was full of need. But, she reminded herself, you’re a grown woman.”

“Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father’s expectations or make up for their father’s mistakes....”

“My father was the model of discipline and courage. Sure, he was stern, and sometimes judgmental, but I always felt like he meant well.”

“All I ask is my rights as a father; and you’re the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I can see you’re one of the straight sort, Governor. Well, what’s a five pound note to you? And what’s Eliza to me?”

“I became terrified of him when he was angry. His face . . . would grow red, and he would shout, shout so loudly and furiously that it would, literally, paralyze me. I would not be able to think.”

“He talked about how happy he was to be a father, and how much he looked forward to ending his operator career and raising his newborn son, Kai.”

“His father sat down on the dirt beside him...He was crying now, crying so hard he could barely breathe. His father pulled Jess over on his lap as if he were Joyce Ann. ‘There. There,” he said, patting his head. ‘Shhh. Shhh.‘”

“A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning...A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest”

“A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.”

“Reb Saunders sat back slowly in his chair. And from his lips came a soft, tremulous sigh. He was silent for a moment, his eyes wide, dark, brooding, gazing upon his son. He nodded his head once, as if in final acknowledgment of his tortured victory.”

“Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference.”

“At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man.”

“When he reenlisted anyway, I thought, Okay. Now I know. Being a SEAL is more important to him than being a father or a husband.”

“[My father] taught me with silence. . .to look into myself, to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with my soul. . . . One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain … by turning inside oneself. . . . It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the Universe.”

“Then he spoke his son’s name.”

“You have become a small giant since the day Danny’s ball struck your eye. You do not see it. But I see it. And it is a beautiful thing to see.”

″‘Pooh – I have as much of mother as father in me!’ she said. ‘All my prettiness comes from her, and she was only a dairymaid.‘”

“Just then his schoolboy son had crept softly in and gone up to the bedside. The dying man was still screaming desperately and waving his arms. His hand fell on the boy’s head, and the boy caught it, pressed it to his lips, and began to cry.”

“Boys look to their dad or key men in their lives to learn who they are as men.”

“Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know. Go ask your dad.”

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.”

“‘There’s nobody to guide them through the process of becoming a man... to explain to them the meaning of manhood. And that’s a recipe for disaster.’”

″‘Where are you planning to sleep, the Arctic Circle?’ she asked. I thought, There or maybe the Peruvian Andes, since that’s where Dad once camped. I started to keep a notebook called How to Survive in the Wild.”

″‘See,’ I said, ‘you don’t have any family and neither do I. I’ve got the preacher, of course. But I don’t have a mama. I mean I have one, but I don’t know where she is. She left when I was three years old. I can’t hardly remember her. And I bet you don’t remember your mama much either. So we’re almost like orphans.‘”

“My son is my most precious possession. I have nothing in the world compared to my son. I must know what he is reading.”

“Forgive me…for everything…I have done…A─ a wiser father…may have done differently. I am not…wise.”

“I have no choice,” he said again. “It’s like a dynasty. If the son doesn’t take the father’s place, the dynasty falls apart. The people expect me to be their rabbi. My family has been their rabbi for six generations now.”

“All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arms around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.”

“There are better ways to teach a child compassion.”

“I think the preacher thinks about my mama all the time, too. He’s still in love with her...But he doesn’t tell me that. He won’t talk to me about her at all.”

“Balt Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything.”

″ It was hard to turn my head, but I did it and looked away. ”

″‘She loved you very much.’ ‘But she left me,’ I told him. ‘She left us,’ said the preacher softly...‘She packed her bags and left us, and she didn’t leave one thing behind.‘”

“My daddy is a good preacher and a nice man, but sometimes it’s hard for me to think about him as my daddy, because he spends so much time preaching or thinking about preaching or getting ready to preach. And so, in my mind, I think of him as ‘the preacher.‘”

“I could see that Winn-Dixie was having a good effect on the preacher. He was making him poke his head out of his shell.”

″‘When I told you your mama took everything with her, I forgot one thing, one very important thing she left behind.’ ‘What?’ I asked. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Thank God your mama left me you.‘”

Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that’s why they have godfathers.

“It was too much to bear, to be loved that much. I’d be surrounded by scores of guards at the palace, but I couldn’t imagine a place safer than my father’s arms.”

“But he’d been with me the whole time. He’d always been proud of me. Circumstance had pulled us apart, but he was never not my father.”

“If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters.”

“Is it really such a big deal for a boy to look like his father? Which is typical butthead thinking, because of course it’s a big deal, if your father happens to be in prison.”

“All you got from him is your looks and your size. You’ve got your mother’s heart, and that’s what counts.”

“And then Mae found herself sobbing. Her father was a mess . . . And there was nothing she could do for him. No, there was too much to do for him. She could quit her job. She could quit and help make the phone calls, fight the many fights to keep him well. This is what a good daughter would do. What a good child, an only child, would do.”

“A girl’s relationship with her father is the most important male relationship of her life.”

“My daddy said, that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away.”

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.”

“Seeing my dad cry like that was just so terrible. What was going on between us, me being his son and him being my dad, is pushed down and something else is moving up in its place. It’s like a man looking down to see his son and seeing a monster instead.”

“I shed my guilt when I accepted my decision on its own terms, without endlessly prosecuting old grievances, without weighing his sins against mine. Without thinking of my father at all. I learned to accept my decision for my own sake, because of me, not because of him. Because I needed it, not because he deserved it.”

“I am not the child my father raised, but he is the father who raised her.”

“I believed then--and part of me will always believe--that my father’s words ought to be my own.”

Never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”

“Few sons are the equals of their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.”

“Papa, I got two wild yunguns locked in the kitchen.”

“Papa, I got two wild yunguns locked in the kitchen.”

“I knew medicine only by its absence—specifically, the absence of a father growing up, one who went to work before dawn and returned in the dark to a plate of reheated dinner.”

“Father, I am what you made me. I’ve become your daughter after all.”

“On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.”

“Why does a man want his children to be better than himself?”

“Don’t get upset? You’re telling me that my dad is a guy who’s basically an evil overlord, and you want me not to get upset?”

“He can be the husband and father Hoyt’s dirty work has never permitted him to be. He can be a whole new man. He can be free.”

“I wanted to tell you that the man who is your father, the man who gave you life, has found a woman who is in heaven when she’s in his arms.”

“I wanted to tell you that the man who is your father, the man who gave you life, has found a woman who is in heaven when she’s in his arms.”

“I realized that the childish impression I had always had of my father, as Just Lawgiver, was entirely wrong. We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way. What was more, I knew that my mother was incapable of standing up to him. It was like walking into the cockpit of an airplane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk in their seats.”

“Standing ten yards away is Connor’s father, still holding the cell phone he had just called from.”

“The boys departed, and the wind was favorable. They came to their father’s harbor, and then Geirroth, who stood foremost in the boat, sprang up on land and shoved the boar back out to sea and said: “Go wherever the trolls take you!”

“But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, ‘I forgive you, Pa.‘”

″‘He cannot, he simply cannot be my son,’ Lester said. He clutched his whiskers with his front paws and shook his head from side to side in despair.”

“Mamas and papas and uncles and aunts hug their little dears, then dust their pants.”

Funny, tough-minded and tender, this is the story of Matilda and her two sisters growing up in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1950s. Their father is mentally unstable and largely absent, their mother is possibly in the thrall of his brother, and a headline-making Russian spy defection is taking place next door.

“And suddenly all the puppies were her puppies; she was their mother—just as Pongo had felt he was their father.”

“Today Mathilda’s family went to the movies, the next day they went to the beach, then they had a picnic”. I kept wondering what the point of the story was - obviously had to do with the father but even that didn’t intrigue me in the slightest.”

The story is told through the alternating point of view of three sisters: Matilda (6), Frances (11) and Elizabeth (15). The events of a mysterious neighbor “who looks like a spy” (according to Matilda) are recounted alongside flashbacks and hardships dealing with their father, a veteran of World War II, who suffers from post-traumatic stress and often leaves his family for lengths of time.

“My father is a Cannibal King; there aren’t many children with so fine a father!”

‘In a house far away, right at the end of a long dusty road deep in the bush at the back of Palm Beach, lived three sisters with their mother, their father, and sometimes their Uncle Paul. The three sisters were called Elizabeth, Frances and Matilda.’

“My father took one look at me when I was born and must have thought I had the face of someone dignified and sad like an old-fashioned queen or a dead person, but what I turned out like in plain, not much there to notice.

“Artemis was the closest thing Butler had to a friend, and Butler was the closest Artemis had to a father, albeit one who obeyed orders”

“I’ll make you my papa’s special seaweed sandwich. He was a captain, too.”

“But my favorite was How Papa Got His Glass EYe. He’s always tell it different-- sometimes scary, sometimes sad, and once I laughed so hard I fell off his lap.”

“If this is the stone age and mum says the ice age is coming any minute now...how long is an age?”

“Time...why is it time? What is time, dad?”

“Trousers! Out of a baby mammoth? That’d be all soft and floppy. Disgusting!”

“It’s trousers I want, Dad.”

Alem is on holiday with his father for a few days in London. He has never been out of Ethiopia before and is very excited. They have a great few days togther until one morning when Alem wakes up in the bed and breakfast they are staying at to find the unthinkable.

“To the rest of the world the name of Henry VIII brought a shiver, and suggested an ogre whose nostrils breathed destruction and whose hand dealt scourgings and death; but to this boy the name brought only sensations of pleasure, the figure it invoked wore a countenance that was all gentleness and affection. He called to mind a long succession of loving passages between his father and himself, and dwelt fondly upon them, his unstinted tears attesting how deep and real was the grief that possessed his heart.”

His father has left him. It is only when the owner of the bed and breakfast hands him a letter that Alem is given an explanation. Alem’s father admits that because of the political problems in Ethiopia both he and Alem’s mother felt Alem would be safer in London - even though it is breaking their hearts to do this.

″‘It seems my father grew weary of me,’ Bear continued. ‘Said I caused too much trouble and ate too much. In truth,’ he added with sudden bitterness, ‘I suspect he offered me to God to fulfill a pledge he’d made in exchange for some profitable trade. Though, I ask you, what kind of man would exchange a boy for a sack of wool?‘”

“In the beginning, Bartholomew Cubbins, didn’t have five hundred hats. He had only one hat. It was an old one that had belonged to his father and his father’s father before him.”

A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo’s life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can’t talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.

“She just knows that he is an artist in a circus. One day she finds a stone at the beach. ”

“However the lion he chooses is King. Patricia’s father shoots King in order to protect Ouriounga from certain death.”

“Somehow, after my friendship with the Winstanleys I realized that in some subtle way the bond between my father and myself grew and strengthened.”

“Though her father seeks to protect her from all unpleasant things, a young princess is intrigued by the voice of the wind that tells her of worlds beyond the palace walls.”

“They also had a Father who was just perfect—never cross, never unjust, and always ready for a game—at least, if at any time he was NOT ready, he always had an excellent reason for it, and explained the reason to the children so interestingly and funnily that they felt sure he couldn’t help himself.”

“That night the De Sotos lay awake worrying. ‘Should we let him in tomorrow?’ Mrs. De Soto wondered. ‘Once I start a job,’ said the dentist firmly, ‘I finish it. My father was the same way.’ “

“Hal & Roger Hunt are lucky to have a father who goes to far places to bring animals, reptiles and birds back alive for the zoos. He takes them with him on an exciting trip down the Amazon.”

“You will learn as you get older, just as I learned that autumn, that no father is perfect.”

“What I have been trying so hard to tell you all along is simply that my father, without the slightest doubt, was the most marvelous and exciting father any boy ever had.”

“But when onlookers criticize his father for riding while Nasreddine walks, the boy is ashamed.”

“When he hugged her to him she couldn’t respond for a storm of tears was inside her and her mother seemed so close now. He smelled exactly as she’d imagined -of the bush, of fire and wood and sweat and also faintly of tobacco. She wished she could hug him back but she drew away when Mrs Robinson pushed open the wire screen door and greeted him.”

“But where did he come from? Has he been sent to her for a reason? Who will explain his mystery to her? ”

“He really could have been any other eighth-grade kid at Eastman Middle School. Except he had a daughter. And he wouldn’t look at you when he talked- if he talked.”

“The Second World War is raging. Times are very hard in Poland, especially for Jews, and Alex is one of them. His mother has disappeared and his father is “selected” by the German army for an unknown destination. Alone, Alex is forced to take refuge in an abandoned building at 78 Bird Street. Here he hopes to wait out the harsh winter and the promised return of his father.”

“Anastasia’s father, Dr. Myron Krupnik, was a professor de literature and had read just about every book in the world, which may have been why he knew so much about warts. He had a bear the color of Hubbard squash, though not much hair in his head, and he wore glasses for astigmatism, as Anastasia did, although his were not quite as owly.”

″ On the other hand, she didn’t like animals, had never liked animals, and never would like animals. It was bad luck that the three children had not taken after her in this. There were like their father, who had died soon after Amy was born. No doubt, if he had lived, the house would have swarmed with cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, hamsters, budgerigars, and canaries in yellow clouds.”

“I shall go mad through lack of sleep! My father has banned the dog from the house so it barked outside my window all night. Just my luck! My father shouted a swear-word at it. If he’s not careful he will get done by the police for obscene language.”

“He didn’t want to be a mirror of his father. The thought made him cringe. I want to do something. Be somebody. But what? But what?”

“My father got the dog drunk on cherry brand at the party last night. If the RSPCA hear about it he could get done. Eight days have gone by since Christmas Day but my mother still hasn’t worn the green lurex apron I bought her for Christmas! She will get bath-cubes next year. ”

“Calvin is my father. To myself I use his first name, as a sign of disrespect.”

“Mufaro proclaimed to all who would hear him that he was the happiest father in all the land, for he was blessed with two beautiful and worthy daughters- Nyasha, the queen; and Manyara, a servant in the queen’s household.”

“She wanted to tell people about him. That he was a teacher, that he had lost his leg when his school was bombed. That he had loved her and told her stories, and now she was all alone in this big, sad land.”

“Parvana doesn’t know where they are, but sets out alone to find them — masquerading as a boy. Her journey only becomes more perilous as the bombs begin to fall.”

“If a man should fall so much in love with you that you were dearer to him than his mother and father… and he let a priest take his right hand and put it in yours, while he promised to be eternally true to you, then his soul would flow into your body and you would be able to partake of human happiness. He can give you a soul and yet keep his own”

“This children’s book about a boy named Pedro who lives with his mother and father in an unnamed country under a dictatorship.”

″ ‘Ah!’ says he, falling again to smiling, ‘I got my wastefulness from the same man I got the buttons from; and that was my poor father, Duncan Stewart, grace be to him! He was the prettiest man of his kindred; and the best swordsman in the Hielands, David, and that is the same as to say, in all the world, I should ken, for it was him that taught me. He was in the Black Watch, when first it was mustered; and, like other gentlemen privates, had a gillie at his back to carry his firelock for him on the march. Well, the King, it appears, was wishful to see Hieland swordsmanship; and my father and three more were chosen out and sent to London town, to let him see it at the best.’ ”

“My favorite, as I recall, was Flossie. Her father often referred fondly to her as “my fat fairy.”

“Draw a pail of water; For my lady’s daughter; My father’s a king, and my mother’s a queen, My two little sisters are dressed in green, Stamping grass and parsley; Marigold leaves and daisies.”

Emma and her family are abruptly torn from their home and everything they know when their father is placed on the Witness Protection Scheme.

“He was my father, and I wanted to believe him, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. It was January 1941. The Germans ruled Kraków. I was twelve years old. And for the first time in my life, I had begun to doubt my father.”

“My life got thrown into a blender and I’m left with something I don’t recognize. On top of that, I’m suddenly somebody’s pops and I wish I had my pops.”

″‘I decided I was gon’ be the kind of father she deserved,’ he says. ‘I had to man up. That’s what you gotta do, Mav. Man up.‘”

″‘You gotta live for you and Dre now, you feel me? You can do everything he didn’t get a chance to do.’ I never thought of that. ‘Raise your son. Be the best father you can be,’ Shawn says. ‘That’s how you honor Dre. A’ight?‘”

“Your gardeners do not understand their business: but what can you expect of men whose fathers were cobblers and carpenters? How should they have learned to cultivate your garden?”

The children bounce to and from their volatile mother, Miranda, and their out-of-work actor father, Daniel.

“Their father saw him hiding in the ferns and ran out in his thick, pine-cone suit with his birch-bark shield to fight the snake. Tom, Harriet, Sam and Daisy watched as the battle went first this way, and then that; but at last their father was so quick with his needle-sharp spear that he pinned the viper to the ground.”

“Few fathers in the world treasured their daughters as much as Hoonie, who seemed to live to make his child smile.”

“But, as I got older and started getting game, the name took on a new meaning. And even though I wasn’t into all that jazz, every time I’d score, rebound, or steal a ball, Dad would jump up smiling and screamin’, ‘That’s my boy out there.‘”

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s true, Amaryllis. Your father was killed. It happened in a timber accident, in New Guinea. It’s dangerous work, timber milling. I want you to know you have my deepest sympathy. I’ll be happy to do all I can for you. As a friend, you know, my dear, not just as a solicitor.”

“Except for you I have never heard anyone who could sing as your father did in the morning. In order to make his voice stronger, he would close both his eyes. And he would stand on his tiptoes and stretch forth his long slender neck.”

Before the nuclear bomb that destroyed their northern England town (and many others), Danny Lodge, his little brother Ben and his father kept a little convenience shop.

“A very long time ago, when I was a little girl, I didn’t have a naughty little sister at all. I was a child all on my own. I had a father and a mother of course, but I hadn’t any other little brothers or sisters - I was quite alone.”

“Killing frost came that night. Came early, for his father announced, “Eighteen already!′ looking through the window at the outside thermometer where the light fell in it. Benjy listened with the others.

″‘So this is how Olympians spend their days. Thinking of ways to make men miserable.’ ‘There’s no cause for righteousness,’ he said. ‘Your father is better at it than anyone.‘”

″‘He’s not coming, Mam. He doesn’t care about us. He’s just drunk over there in England.’ ‘Don’t talk about your father like that.‘”

“All his life Dick Ullathorne had expected to follow his father and brother into the mine. Mining seemed the only natural employment for boys in the pit village where he lived”

“Peter looked at his shoes. He never looked at his father any more, nor at his mother.”

“It is the photograph more than anything that draws Gogol back to the house again and again, and one day, stepping out of the bathroom on his way to bed and glancing at his father’s smiling face, he realizes that this is the closest thing his father has to a grave.”

“She had slept and dreamed about her father again so she knew she was not at Tanforan.”

“I used to believe my father about everything but then I had children myself & now I see how much stuff you make up just to keep yourself from going crazy.”

“Being told to do something from an older sister is one thing; but being asked, and so sweetly, by her father is quite another.

“Yes, my darling. I am perfect. I have my girls with me- what more could a father ask for?”

“Marko’s father had been a true Soviet hero—and Marko was deeply ashamed to be his son.”

″‘When you told me the first time that Valentine was your father, I didn’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Not just because I didn’t want it to be true, but because you weren’t anything like him. But you are. You are.‘”