#parents

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat. ↗

— John le Carre

#become #cheat #childhood #detachment #ever

Because the truth was, and we both knew it, he'd gone long, long ago. I'd just made him stick around when he really wanted to be somewhere else. In his own weird way, he was another victim of the shooting, One of the ones who couldn't get away. "Are you mad?" he asked, which I thought was a really strange question. "Yes," I said. And I was. It's just that I wasn't so sure I was mad at him. But I don't think he needed to hear that part. I don't think he wanted to hear that part. I think it was important to him to hear that I cared enough to be angry. "Will you ever forgive me?" he asked. "Will you ever forgive me?" I shot back, leveling my gaze directly into his eyes. He stared into them for a few moments then got up silently and headed for the door. He didn't turn around when he reached it. Just grabbed the doorknob and held it. "No," he said without facing me. "Maybe that makes me a bad parent, but I don't know if I can. No matter what the police found, you were involved in that shooting, Valerie. You wrote those names on that list. You wrote my name on that list. You had a good life here. You might not have pulled the trigger, but you helped cause the tragedy." He opened the door."I'm sorry. I really am." He stepped out into the hallway. "I'll leave my new address and phone number with your mother," he said before walking slowly out of my sight. ↗

— Jennifer Brown

#divorce #father #forgiveness #parents #school-shooting

I think the way I feel when I look at Evan comes from her. In pictures taken the day she married my dad, she was reckless, laughing, spinning around in circles. She looked like her whole world was him. She looked a kind of happy I can't even imagine. I don't want that. I don't want to be like that. I don' want to feel the way she did because I know what happens when you do. You love with your whole heart, with everything, and you wake up one morning and kiss someone good-bye the way you always do except you mean it as good-bye forever. ↗

— Elizabeth Scott

#lauren #lauren-s-parents #imagination

We don't always do the things our parents want us to do, but it is their mistake if they can't find a way to love us anyway. ↗

— J. Courtney Sullivan

#love

He turned one of his death rays into an ice cream maker, except he said I shouldn’t eat too much of it at once.” I nodded slowly. “Right,” I said. “That’s…sweet, I think. ↗

— Acacia Ackles

#odd-childhood #scott #strange-parents #villains #death

Nós, pais erramos muito e frequentemente porque os manuais são genéricos e nosso produto específico. ↗

— Carlos Messa

#education #educação #family #filhos #pais

I never, even for a moment, doubted what they’d told me. This is why it is that adults and even parents can, unwittingly, be cruel: they cannot imagine doubt’s complete absence. They have forgotten. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#doubt #innocence #parents #imagination

Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early. ↗

— Aimee Bender

#life

There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears. ↗

— Sophie Kinsella

#motherhood #mothers #parents #parents-and-children #sympathy

There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat. ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#always #choose #into #keep #life