A Family Who Quotes

#1. My life had become a catastrophe. I had no idea how to turn it around. My band had broken up. I had almost lost my family. My whole life had devolved into a disaster. I believe that the police officer who stopped me at three a.m. that morning saved my life.

Trey Anastasio

#2. Where I come from, family's defined as those who don't screw you over a paycheck. Blood makes no difference. If you can trust them with your life and know that they'll be there come whatever hell rains down, then they're your family.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#3. No child should be raised in a system. A system isn't a parent. Even the system knows this, which is why the Children and Family Services Division puts so much effort into finding permanent homes for the kids who are never going to be reunited with their birth parents.

Rhea Perlman

#4. As a professional athlete and someone who has spent almost his entire life in boxing, not a day goes by when I don't think about coming back, but I am retired, and after speaking to my family and following a great deal of introspection, I have decided to stay retired.

Oscar De La Hoya

#5. The idea is to become an old wizard; to live a long and fruitful life and have family and be healthy and enjoy the ride. And speaking of the ride, why not let it rip, at least a little bit? Everyone I know who's really stoked about getting out of bed in the morning does that to some extent.

Laird Hamilton

#6. There's not many a man who would get shot and then come visit the family responsible.

Chris Hardwick

#7. I was born in Berlin on March 15, 1830, the second son of the royal university professor K. W. L. Heyse and his wife Julie, nee Saaling, who came from a Jewish family.

Paul Heyse

#8. The answer goes back to why God created us.He created us to be His loved ones,His family with whom He can share a relationship of mutual enjoyment. This shows the kind of God He is-a personal God who values loving relationships more than anything else in all the universe.

Ruth Myers

#9. My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.

Charlaine Harris

#10. When people see Barack Obama, they don't necessarily see an African-American president. They see someone who is a child of immigrants. They see someone whose family has worked hard and struggled. And they see many similarities between themselves and Barack Obama.

Grace Meng

#11. There are black men who are madly in love with white women. God bless them, if that's what works for them. I just hope that we can strike a balance that portrays black folks and the black family in a light that's not extreme. Those are the types of characters that I find myself attracted to.

Nia Long

#12. There were girls at school whose families grew to a robust five or six. There were girls with seven or eight-which was thought a little enthusiastic - and then there were the pathetic ones like me, who had parents that were just helpless to it, and bred as naturally as they might shit.

Anne Enright

#13. Anyone who's trying to be there for their family and trying to take care of their children is a hero to me.

J. August Richards

#14. I have lived with extraordinary women, whether it was my grandmother, my mother. My father passed away when I was 16 ... I was witness to a woman who single handedly brought up the entire family and managed to do everything ... She was an extraordinary role model for me.

Christine Lagarde

#15. We actually have a small family. It's just my father and I and my grandmother, who lives in Tokyo. I cherish my friendships.

Apolo Ohno

#16. How can I not believe that there is a God who exists and loves, when the people before me are infused with that love and pour it out daily?

Katherine Reay

#17. I'm probably the most loquacious author when it comes to my dedications. The reason is there is some symbolism there. I've been writing these books, bringing these stories to my readers who I love so much, and I have a greater love for my family.

Karen Kingsbury

#18. The ice cold fear I'd felt, not knowing if Wyatt was alive, pressed into the wall with other girls and surrounded by guys who were unspeakably brave, hit my body again in a wave. This was trauma - the gift that keeps on giving.

Laura Anderson Kurk

#19. A full relationship is what God offers to those who come to God by Jesus. Imagine this! An open invitation to become a member of the royal family and a joint-heir with the Son of God.

R.T. Kendall

#20. This was how to help a family who has just lost their child. Wash the clothes, make soup. Don't ask them what they need, bring them what they need. Keep them warm. Listen to them rant, and cry, and tell their story over and over.

Ann Hood

#21. For me, it's all about who you are. Some athletes may feel a responsibility. Some may not. One thing I've talked with my family and team about is doing more. Trying to make an impact.

Chris Paul

#22. I mean, I think having a great family like I do. You know, I tend to want to give it all I have when I'm at the golf course, and then when I leave I don't want to think about golf at all. And I just remind myself almost daily that golf's just my job, it's not who I am.

Webb Simpson

#23. If we are truly fortunate, we have employers who did not abandon us, family who stood by us, and perhaps someone who helped us find our way back, who never forget that beneath all the appalling behavior there was a human being.

Elizabeth Vargas

#24. No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of the night.

Theodore Roosevelt

#25. I loved them too and while you might lay a greater claim to them, I defy you to miss your wife any more than I'll miss my best friend or your child, who was every inch a son to me.

Fiona McIntosh

#26. There is an instinct in a woman to love most her own child - and an instinct to make any child who needs her love, her own.

Robert Breault

#27. My family was made of good people who did good things with what they were given. What fairness does life show in a time like this? But life is not fair and that is nothing new, so I bottled the pain and loss, and released them through a single tear rolling down my cheek.

B.M. Tolbert

#28. My principal motivation is supporting my family, which is not a bad reason for getting up in the morning. That's always been my motivation - to take care of the people who rely on me.

Tony Parsons

#29. If we come from good families where we have been supported well, there is a disillusionment we have to undergo in terms of the culture's values. We have to get beyond our cultural mythology to find out who we are.

Sam Keen

#30. During breakfast there is something I cannot resist, apart from my boyfriend - it's actually the phone. I have a phone breakfast. Always. I call friends, boyfriend, family. Checking who is where. 'Is everything fine?' This is breakfast.

Christian Louboutin

#31. We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are.

Sufjan Stevens

#32. My brother's researched our early family history. He found a letter from a fella who said he used to be in love with my mum.

Paul McCartney

#33. My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.

Jodi Picoult

#34. I play a guy who believes he's a king. He's the most common man in the world; in fact his family, like his suits, are just make-up. It's about dysfunctional people and dysfunctional relationships.

James Caan

#35. Why not celebrate those who want to marry and bring up a family?

Ian McKellen

#36. My mom and dad are second-generation Greek-Americans who instilled in our middle-class family the values of hard work, self-reliance, and service, exemplified by my father's tenure as a U.S. Marine who was stationed at Camp David under President Truman.

James Costos

#37. I never dreamed I'd be a spokesman for anything. But Pac Bell just asked me. The money was OK; the scripts were fun because I had to do in 30 seconds what it takes a whole feature to do and because the dysfunctional family of agents, managers and lawyers who represent me said it was cool.

Chris Eigeman

#38. Speaking as somebody with three sisters and a very largely female Muslim family, there is not a single woman I know in my family or in their friends who would have accepted the wearing of a veil.

Salman Rushdie

#39. I always knew what was most important to me. When I was growing up, nothing was more important than golf, but that's the attitude of a young person who hasn't a care in the world. Later on I figured it out. Family was first. Always. Then golf and business come after.

Arnold Palmer

#40. I have many friends and family members who have served (or are currently serving) in our nation's Armed Forces. I have such a profound respect for what they do day in and day out.

Karl Malone

#41. The idea that there is a family somewhere who functions is an odd concept.

Susan Minot

#42. No papers, no money; no family, no friends, no sense of who you are. The obscurest of the obscure, so obscure as to be a prodigy.

J.M. Coetzee

#43. A man who rightly governs self, may also govern family without the crippling cowardice, crutch of control.

T.F. Hodge

#44. Not everybody who marries in the church and has a family the old-fashioned way is unhappy." "No, but some are. And even if it's just hit-and-miss . . . even if anybody can fall through the cracks, it's still not what I thought I was buying into at all. It still all feels like it makes no sense.

Catherine Ryan Hyde

#45. Our life is all about the choices we make, and when I was looking for a mate for life, I really was looking for someone who was a family man, somebody who would embrace my girls as much as they were going to embrace me. I guess I just wasn't finished having children yet.

Joan Lunden

#46. I would vote for the man who's lived life, who's done different occupations, who's been out in the real world and struggled to make a living, struggled to raise a family, struggled with life as it exists. So I'd vote for experience, honest experience.

Oliver Stone

#47. I came from a family in Texas who simply never spoke about money.

Jim Parsons

#48. People in my family and camp who grew up listening to rap music love 'We Are Young.' I've heard it play at weddings. I've heard it in graduation parties. It's a big idea and big song.

Janelle Monae

#49. Once in New York, you are sure to be a great success. I know lots of people there who would give a hundred thousand dollars to have a grandfather, and much more than that to have a family ghost.

Oscar Wilde

#50. How could a mother who boils water for pasta leave two little girls behind?

Jandy Nelson

#51. A community, a family, is a group of people who share common stories. The health of any community depends directly on the health of the stories the community embraces.

Daniel Taylor

#52. Why would Acheron care about any of this? (M'Adoc)
Not him, his mother. Remember her? Tall angry blond bitch who seriously spanked her whole family into oblivion over a hangnail? (Deimos)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#53. I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.

Oliver Goldsmith

#54. I got signed with the songwriting deal when I was sixteen and they were really great - my publishers, who to this day are still my publishers and are like my musical family, my second family - they took me in and taught me what a good song is.

Lights

#55. As a homeschooling parent, I have often wondered who learns more in our family, the parent or the child. The topic I seem to be learning the most about is the nature of learning itself.

Jan Hunt

#56. If you have a student who graduates from college and they don't have a job, they are now able to stay on their family health plan.

Jacob Lew

#57. Our family were outsiders, and I've always had a sense of the outsider, the underdog, and a strong sense of justice towards people who are excluded.

Andy Serkis

#58. I have a really good family. I'm lucky to have people who support me and love me in my life.

Kenny Wormald

#59. By no stretch of the imagination can you describe me as a Wall Street lawyer. If you're going to do that, you'd have to say that 7,500 people who work here in Southwestern Pennsylvania for the Bank of New York Mellon with good family jobs are Wall Streeters.

Keith Rothfus

#60. Ms. McMartin had no close family. Her nearest relative was a distant cousin who had recently died in Shanghai, after a severe allergic reaction to a bowl of turtle and arsenic soup.

Jacqueline West

#61. He's not the only one who's got people to worry about," Rachel said. "I have a family. We
all do."
"Not me," Tobias said softly. He smiled his sad, crooked smile. "It's true. No one gives a rat's
rear about me."
"I do," Rachel said.

K.A. Applegate

#62. This girl who's slept a hundred years has something after all. It's called Centuryitis, and it has turned me into a man. Oh, what will mamma think when she sees me?!
-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz

Karen Quan

#63. The dark-haired clothes horse, who generally meant well, was a dufus, but he was family

Tina Folsom

#64. The only reason I got married in 2003 was for my children. I had a therapist who said marriage is really a container for a family, and that made sense to me.

Julianne Moore

#65. I don't understand people whose gratification is a BMW. You don't know what joy is until you see a kid who was tortured get adopted by a family.

Andrew Vachss

#66. Every single day, no matter who you meet in the day - friends, family, work colleagues, strangers - give joy to them. Give a smile or a compliment or kind words or kind actions, but give joy! Do your best to make sure that every single person you meet has a better day because they saw you.

Rhonda Byrne

#67. I try to use the attention that I get to help and to serve, and that's really what I'd see as my work - to serve my community, serve the planet, serve my family. And I think a celebrity is someone who draws the attention on themselves, and then it kind of stops there.

Michael Franti

#68. Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?

Carrie Fisher

#69. Friends in the Midwest often ask me what it's like to raise a family in Los Angeles. I say it's just like where they are, but warmer and with more traffic. I also tell them people here seem a bit more tolerant of those who are different.

Steven Levitan

#70. With the world in a chaos of questions, family should be the answer.

Anthony Liccione

#71. I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer.

Max Weinberg

#72. Apollymi keeps a tight rein on them. (Kat)
Death to the bitch-goddess! May she die in a flaming pit of Charonte spit! (Xirena)
Damn, Kat, you can't win for losing. Is there anyone, other than you, who actually likes your family? (Sin)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#73. I was a Yankee fan in Brooklyn because my father was a Yankee fan. And my father was required to live in Brooklyn with my mother's family, who were all Dodger fans. So he was surrounded by Dodger fans. He was a Yankee fan. So his revenge was to make me a Yankee fan.

Rudy Giuliani

#74. I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.

Marlee Matlin

#75. They were handsome, proper and normal family fathers who built the concentration camps and whipped the prisoners to death. And who was Nietzsche? A narcotized syphilitic.

Jens Bjorneboe

#76. I would love a family. I'm at the age where the wish for a child gets stronger. But who knows.

Cameron Diaz

#77. I put my friends and family first. I'm really just a normal thirteen-year-old girl who has a different hobby than most girls my age. Acting is kind of an extracurricular activity.

Natasha Calis

#78. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has been described as founder of the Bull Moose Party, the man who led his troops up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, a big game hunter, family man, civic servant and a host of other things.

Zig Ziglar

#79. We too can be saints in our family, in our neighborhood, wherever we live and work. Be a person who listens to what people need, communicating not only to grieve or tell others about your own problems. Listen in order to intercede and help out.

Pope Francis

#80. The desire to be and have a sister is a primitive and profound one that may have everything or nothing to do with the family a woman is born to. It is a desire to know and be known by someone who shares blood and body, history and dreams.

Elizabeth Fishel

#81. I was the youngest of four kids, and Dad, who had a garden centre before he retired, came from a large Lancashire family. Every one of my uncles had their own business, including a post office, two fish and chip shops and a painting and decorating business.

Rick Astley

#82. Kindness is a source of relief to the soul of the giver, creating a sense of fortitude that is incomprehensible to those who do not know what kindness is all about.

Janvier Chouteu-Chando

#83. That is one fireball of a girlfriend you got there. The OR team was drawing straws to see who would go out and update her and your family. I think she actually had them scared.

Jay Crownover

#84. Family members have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead and objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that, by intruding upon their own grief, tends to degrade the rites and respect they seek to accord to the deceased person who was once their own.

Anthony Kennedy

#85. Hey everyone. This is Elizabeth Stone, the one who wrote a A BOY I ONCE KNEW and BLACK SHEEP AND KISSING COUSINS. To those of you who read either one, thanks! But another Elizabeth Stone, not me, wrote WOMEN AND THE CUBAN REVOLUTION and VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. Just setting the record straight!

Elizabeth Stone

#86. I think 'Tattoo's a song that can go so many different ways. Some people think of it as a break-up song, but, for me, it's about somebody who comes into your life and really touches you - be they a friend, a family member or someone you're in a relationship with.

Jordin Sparks

#87. My family took a vacation to Universal Studios when I was really young. Me and my brother Richard - who's also an actor - were both really intrigued by seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff of how films are made. We kind of begged our parents to get into acting.

Jonathan Jackson

#88. Those who analogize the federal budget to a family's budget must know nothing about either.

Robert Reich

#89. She'd said "died" as a courtesy to him - nobody in her family could stand people who said "passed away" - but

Jennifer DuBois

#90. I still feel like the same girl who grew up in Albion Park. I'm such a family girl. I haven't changed.

Casey Eastham

#91. My brother, who's a violinist now, was the real ham, the real performer of the family. His passion for the violin is the only thing that kept him from being an actor.

Peter Dinklage

#92. My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. [Burnside, p. 27]

John Burnside

#93. I wanted only a familiar voice, someone who knew me. Not some earlier, larval version of myself ...

Jennifer Haigh

#94. The relatives didn't feel slighted - they had a limited interest in people like Roy who had just married into the family, and not even contributed any children to it, and who were not like themselves. They were large, expansive, talkative. He was short, compact, quiet.

Alice Munro

#95. To rein a kingdom efficiently it is necessary, before all, to put into good order the family. It's impossible for a man who doesn't know how to lead his own family to know how to lead a country.

Confucius

#96. My whole family has been such a great support, and they're the ones who have kept me grounded and allowed me to be who I am today.

David Archuleta

#97. I think that the American people are curious about who a candidate is, what their background is, who their family is, what their faith experience has been, their education, their work experience. All of those are factors that voters look at because they want to take a measure of the individual.

Michele Bachmann

#98. Unity must be of the mind and heart, a sense of belonging together and of facing together those who attack it.

Jawaharlal Nehru

#99. I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.

Ronaldinho

#100. The man who bears my name, and who claims to be me, was born on July 15, 1865, the sixth in a family of seven. He was an ugly child, and remained ugly till his eighteenth year, when his looks gradually improved.

Laurence Housman