motherhood Quotes

″‘No, I declare, the largest egg lies there still. I wonder how long this is to last, I am quite tired of it;’ and she seated herself again on the nest.”

A terrible, painful sadness clutched at Ellen. More than ever before, she felt that her life—the best part of it, at least, the part that was fresh and fun—was behind her. Recognizing the sensation made her feel guilty, for she read it as proof that she was an unsatisfactory mother, an unsatisfied wife. She hated her life, and hated herself for hating it. She thought of a line from a song Billy played on the stereo: “I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.”

“The process of shaping the child, shapes also the mother herself. Reverence for her sacred burden calls her to all that is pure and good, that she may teach primarily by her own humble, daily example.”

“Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence.”

“I longed for the birth, for the sensation of the baby’s head pressing down through me, for that unmistakable, pure, painful sensation of bringing a child into the world, albeit with pain, with tears. I wanted those tears, I wanted that pain. I did not want the pain of emptiness, the tears of a barren, scarred womb.”

“Kill a plant, buy a puppy. Well, of course it made perfect sense.”

“Excuse me. I am a sacred vessel, alright? All you’ve got in your stomach is Taco Bell.”

“Life is strange now. Before even when she lay in bed looking frail and weak she still managed to make me feel safe. Mothers do that don’t they? Their very presence can help. And even if I ended up mothering her in the final days, she still was taking care of me. I miss her.”

“In her month and a half of turbulent motherhood, Bebe did not once seek help from a psychologist or a doctor... she had no idea where to turn... She did not know how to find the social workers who might have helped her... she did not know how to file for welfare.”

“God alone knows how much I have suffered; and He, I trust, will forgive me. If I am permitted to have my children, I intend to be a good mother, and to live in such a manner that people cannot treat me with contempt.”

“Inside her, there was a speck of Brian, a spark of him turning over and over within her... something she was going to have anyway, so why not now?”

“What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?”

“My mother used to hope that I would rise up from my humble roots. Become someone sucessful, or even famous. I’m famous all right, but I don’t think it’s what she had in mind.”

“Maybe growing up means disappointing the people we love.”

“The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost; for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went. My second joy And first-fruits of my body, from his presence I am barr’d, like one infectious.”

“The angel shook her head slowly and said. ‘Six pairs of hands.... no way.’ ‘It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,’ God remarked, ‘it’s the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have.’ ”

″ One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, ‘What are you kids doing in there?’ when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn’t but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. ‘I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.”

“And God said, ‘Have you read the specs on this order? She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands.’ ”

“Frightened eyes and a fountain looked back at Ammu. ‘D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.’ ”

″... having children-creating a family, so to speak- had taken on entirely new significance for her in the wake of her family’s losses.”

“And you told me you wanted children. That more than anything, you wanted to be a mother.”

“Would you ask a mother to sell one of her children?” “Whyever not? They can always make more. Mothers sell their children every day.” “Not the Mother of Dragons.” “Not even for twenty ships?” “Not for a hundred.”

″ Be present in all things and thankful for all things.”

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

″ I do my best because I am counting on you counting on me.”

″ Do the best you can, until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

“And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn’t have written even one poem if she’d had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for.”

“Now run along, and don’t get into mischief.”

“My baby will be here! He will want to eat.”

Each story speaks wholeness and healing and wonder to the soul. I needed several tissues in each story to wipe away the tears: whether it was over Griffin’s misunderstanding that his baby sister had gone away because he didn’t love her enough or Perry’s mute solitude as he strives to understand why his mother would leave him in a suitcase stolen from a thrift shop and go to heaven without him.

“My mother used to threaten to tear me into eight piece if I knocked over the water bucket, or pretended not to hear her calling me to come home as the dusk thickened and the cicadas’s shrilling increased. I would hear her voice, brought and fierce, echoing through the lonely valley. “Where is that wretched boy? I will tear him apart when he gets back.”

She was strong from endless hard work, and not old: She’d given birth to me before she was seventeen, and when she held me I could see we had the same skin, although in other ways we were not much alike she having broad, placid features, while mine, I’d been told (for we had no mirrors in the remote mountain village of Mino), were finer, like a hawk’s.

“The mother was grateful. She took the oil from Anancy. She thanked him. She said ‘You took one of my children. Too many. Too many to feed. Too many to clothe. But first, promise promise you’ll look after him.”

“Anancy walked, carrying the half bottle of palm oil. He came to a woman with ten children around her in their open yard. She was oiling her children bodies with her spittle.”

She was sure she would win. To begin with she had all the weight of social opinion on her side: she was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour, and he had simply abused her hospitality.

“Think of my feelings as a mother.”

“Girls are so foolish, Mr. Gillingham,” she was saying. “It is fortunate that they have mothers to guide them.”

Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind lady who has taken me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but it is very discouraging work.

“I just couldn’t help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways.

Her Pearl!—For so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison.

“Nevertheless,” said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale, “this badge hath taught me— it daily teaches me— it is teaching me at this moment— lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself.”

They always looked back before turning the corner, for their mother was always at the window to nod and smile, and wave her hand to them. Somehow it seemed as if they couldn’t have got through the day without that, for whatever their mood might be, the last glimpse of that motherly face was sure to affect them like sunshine.

“My Jo, you may say anything to your mother, for it is my greatest happiness and pride to feel that my girls confide in me and know how much I love them.”

“A kiss for a blow is always best, though it’s not very easy to give it sometimes,” said her mother, with the air of one who had learned the difference between preaching and practicing.

Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?

“Is that a man’s cub?” said Mother Wolf. “I have never seen one. Bring it here.”

“If you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and then goodness knows what will happen!

Peaceful with six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be. One would fall ill, another might easily become so, a third would be without something necessary, a fourth would show symptoms of a bad disposition, and so on. Rare indeed were the brief periods of peace. But these cares and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the sole happiness possible. Had it not been for them, she would have been left alone to brood over her husband who did not love her. And besides, hard though it was for the mother to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in her children—the children themselves were even now repaying her in small joys for her sufferings. Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold.

“Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever you are told about me, will you always love me as you do now?”