Quotes About Dysfunctional Family

#1. 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

#2. There are two things you can run and not hide from- God and a dysfunctional family".

~R. Alan Woods [2012]

R. Alan Woods

#3. I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation.

Mary Oliver

#4. I come from a dysfunctional family, so my views of parents and parenting used to be highly mixed.

Tamora Pierce

#5. As a child marooned in a post-war South London backwater with no ready cash and a bafflingly dysfunctional family, I had to glean my amusement wherever I could.

Christopher Fowler

#6. The human race is one big dysfunctional family.

Robert Barron

#7. If you do not forgive, you are demanding something your offender does not choose to give, even if it is only confession of what he did. This "ties" him to you and ruins boundaries. Let the dysfunctional family you came from go. Cut it loose, and you will be free.

Henry Cloud

#8. It's as simple as you can explain all of 'Dallas.' We're a dysfunctional family forced to stay together.

Patrick Duffy

#9. 'The Glass Castle' by Jeannette Walls is the quintessential dysfunctional family.

Sara Shepard

#10. I love you, Essie. Before you came into my life, I had considered ending myself. Three hundred years is a long time to be alone. You've given me hope, a career as a drag queen and a dysfunctional family. I am supremely grateful. Bite me." And

Robyn Peterman

#11. A dysfunctional family makes for great writing -

Angela Rose

#12. On his contract negotiations with the Devils: It's beyond money at this point. They're not even treating him as a member of their family, unless it's a dysfunctional family.

Kurt Overhardt

#13. If I grew up with a dysfunctional family, I would eventually start a book club.

Martha MacIsaac

#14. You know the definition of a dysfunctional family, don't you? It's any family with more than one member in it.

Sarah Pekkanen

#15. A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.

Mary Karr

#16. The current relationship between companies and the workforce is like marrying into a dysfunctional family. Only you don't get to escape when the holiday meal is over.

Bill Jensen

#17. I practically lived in the woods when I was a kid, avoiding grown-ups and my dysfunctional family, pretending I was half-wolf, a feral child who napped in nests made out of ferns, ate wild blueberries, and wove sticks and feathers into her hair.

Jennifer McMahon

#18. Character is destiny. For the cronic do-gooder, the happy-go-lucky sociopath, the dysfunctional family, under the gun everyone diverts to who they are. We may hunger to map out a new course, but for most of us, the lines have been drawn since we were 5.

Mary McCormack

#19. If they had a pill that would fix every dysfunctional family in the world, don't you think they'd be selling it?"
"I don't think the world is ready for that kind of happiness.

Michael Thomas Ford

#20. It is a family; it's a slightly dysfunctional family, but it's also very close and warm and loving family.

Anna Wintour

#21. My dark comic edge is the end result of trying to use humor to maintain my sanity growing up in a dysfunctional family in Honolulu.

Kirby Wright

#22. My brother and I had always been very close, especially living in such a dysfunctional family environment. My earliest memories were of my parents screaming and fighting, especially during the holidays. So, we'd weathered the storms together. In

Kristen Middleton

#23. If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'You know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty.

Jeff Foxworthy

#24. So much of great American drama has been about a certain kind of dysfunctional family, and maybe my interests are in the kind of strange dysfunction that exists even among deeply functional families.

Stephen Karam

#25. So," said Patrick, "how is my favorite dysfunctional family? Righteously fucked or fucking righteously?

David Dalglish

#26. When I clicked into this idea of doing a band and examining a band as a dysfunctional family, I wanted to reverse that Rescue Me formula.

Denis Leary

#27. I came from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, full of abuse and alcoholism. And eventually everyone within the family had committed suicide.

Story Musgrave

#28. If this dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone.

Richard Dawkins

#29. See, I think there are roads that lead us to each other. But in my family, there were no roads - just underground tunnels. I think we all got lost in those underground tunnels. No, not lost. We just lived there.

Benjamin Alire Saenz

#30. Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don't see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that.

David W. Earle

#31. Seizing God's vision means deciding that you will not spend another day surviving your work environment, family dynamic, or dysfunctional situation.

Steven Furtick

#32. In general, the more dysfunctional the family the more inappropriate their response to disclosure. Never expect a sane response from an insane system.

Renee Fredrickson

#33. It's good to learn early that every show is a family
complete with dysfunctional relationships, tough love, and plenty of occasion for forgiveness ...

Kristin Chenoweth

#34. When I was your age, I would go to plays all the time, just sit in the darkness and try to take it all in inside me. Contain everything in some corner of my heart so that when I had my shot, it could all come pouring out - all the lights and moments and colour.

Brenna Ehrlich

#35. The entrance into the family of an outside professional with legal authority is always a crisis-ridden event, but it may be the best insurance that the incest will not continue.

Janis Tyler Johnson

#36. Consuelo: Away from them, I realised that they formed a circle, or rather a net in which they were enmeshed together. I was the only one out of it. Being near them only made me feel more alone.

Oscar Lewis

#37. You know, my dad wasn't a photographer or filmmaker by profession, but on Sundays, he would take pictures of me and my family or his pals horseback riding, and it was a means of communication and affection, a means of not being so dysfunctional with each other.

Bruce Weber

#38. My family may be dysfunctional, but I think it's pretty functional in its dysfunction.

Amanda Torrey

#39. He is the Truth, and He wants us to deal in truth with ourselves and our loved ones. We want the truth about you and your family to flood into and overrun the secrets that keep you in bondage to dysfunctional behavior and relationships

Henry Cloud

#40. In my family, as in all dysfunctional families, instead of parents who act as strong and nurturing role models for their children, you get these needy people who use their children. I was the kid who tried to take on the marriage.

John Bradshaw

#41. I know we're all psychotic, single and completely dysfunctional and it's all done over the phone,' Tom slurred sentimentally, 'but it's a bit like a family, isn't it?

Helen Fielding

#42. Every family is dysfunctional.

Andy Garcia

#43. What scientists want next is a thorough comparison of what we and exosolar planets and vagabonds look like. Only in this way will we know whether our home life is normal or whether we live in a dysfunctional solar family.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#44. Rod Cockshutt, Professor Emeritus at N.C. State University called my book, Evidence of Insanity, "an extraordinary achievement" and told me to not change the last 10-15 pages no matter what.

Carol Piner

#45. I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit.

John Le Carre

#46. Abusive parents have inappropriate expectations of their children, with a reversal of dependence needs. Parents treat an abused child as if the child were older than the parents. A parent often turns to the child for reassurance, nurturing, comfort, and protection and expects a loving response.

Benjamin James Sadock

#47. I believe that the dysfunctional Muslim family constitutes a real threat to the very fabric of western life. It is in the family that children are groomed to practise, promote and pass on the norms of their parents' culture.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#48. Controlling others is the cornerstone of dysfunctional families.

David W. Earle

#49. In a family, no matter how dysfunctional she is, when one member loses, when one becomes smaller, all lose, all end up becoming smaller.

Angelos Michalopoulos

#50. Humor has always been the redemptive angel in the Conroys's sad history. With this family, I shall never grow hungry from lack of material.

Pat Conroy

#51. They're the perfect loving fam'ly, so adoring ...
And I love them ev'ry day of ev'ry week.
So my son's a little shit, my husband's boring,
And my daughter, though a genius, is a freak.

Brian Yorkey

#52. You think you have a handle on God, the Universe, and the Great White Light until you go home for Thanksgiving. In an hour, you realize how far you've got to go and who is the real turkey.

Shirley Maclaine

#53. In Limerick, a family that was dysfunctional was one who could afford to drink but didn't.

Malachy McCourt

#54. i can't tell if my mother is
terrified or in love with
my father it all
looks the same

i flinch when you touch me
i fear it is him

Rupi Kaur

#55. What is most important to understand about dysfunctional families is that in keeping the family "secrets," we are harming ourselves and diminishing our ability to be honest and open-hearted with ourselves and others we care about

Katherine Mayfield

#56. You were tossed away like a pair of beautiful, brand new shoes that did not quite fit.

Donna K. Childree

#57. Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence.

David W. Earle

#58. We've become something of a family.
A dysfunctional, fucked up family.

Krista Ritchie

#59. Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living.

David W. Earle

#60. Every family is dysfunctional, whether you want to admit it or not.

Shailene Woodley

#61. It is hundreds of tiny threads of memories, which sew people together through the years. Despite, their mental separation they stay woven into that tapestry out of habit, emotion, obsession or fear.

Shannon L. Alder

#62. Under this aura of perfection he knows how flawed he really is but his intact denial system keeps this awareness suppressed in the far recesses of his mind.

David W. Earle

#63. All I can tell you is that every family on the planet is dysfunctional and we celebrate occasions as generously as we know how to do. We are all doing our best to appear grateful to have one another. Weren't appearances worth something?

Dorothea Benton Frank

#64. You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem.

Henry Cloud

#65. If we want to improve, first we have to recognize our own maladaptive coping skills, called codependency, then change.

David W. Earle

#66. It's the great surprise of my life that I ended up loving [my father] so much.

Pat Conroy

#67. Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners.

David W. Earle

#68. What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional.

Elin Hilderbrand

#69. Of course, everybody's family is dysfunctional - we've accepted that. What are we supposed to do? Hate our parents for the rest of our lives?

Sandra Bernhard

#70. If you are looking for love under rocks or bringing home water moccasins, you might be confusing love and pain.

David W. Earle

#71. I've learned that a family can have little glitches without being labeled dysfunctional.

Kathy Najimy

#72. The more severe the dysfunction you experienced growing up, the more difficult boundaries are for you.

David W. Earle

#73. It is one thing to know about your dysfunctional habits but quite another to change them.

David W. Earle

#74. You don't want to threaten me sis.

Evelyn Smith

#75. I think every family is dysfunctional, and some manage to control it better than others.

Viggo Mortensen

#76. I can't love him. I don't. This feeling is not the selfish, grasping need that I've seen tear apart my family, writhing through heir hearts like worms through rotten apples.

Rosamund Hodge

#77. If you should choose to look at those files, you will have to live with the consequences of your choices while, at the same time, being mindful that these choices will not only effect you, but will also infect, sorry, I intended to say effect, our entire family.

Donna K. Childree

#78. Though all the daughters eventually succeeded in escaping from their families, they felt, even at this time of the interview (while in their 20s and 30s) that they would never be safe with their fathers, and that they would have to defend themselves as long as their fathers lived.

Judith Lewis Herman

#79. 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

#80. I grew up very poor in a fractured family that was dysfunctional on both sides, but I sort of put up these reflectors to most of the negative things that have occurred in my life. I don't carry around much baggage.

Keith Stanfield

#81. Being real is being true to you.

David W. Earle

#82. With the world as it now presents itself, there is something perverse, and probably dysfunctional, about a person who stays in the same house for 40 years. What about the expanding family syndrome, the school-lottery migration, the property portfolio neurosis? Have you no imagination?

Iain Sinclair

#83. The more dysfunctional, the more some family members seek to control the behavior of others.

David W. Earle

#84. A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.

Keri Hulme

#85. Bleeding ulcers run in my family, we give them to each other.

Lois McMaster Bujold

#86. Maybe every family is dysfunctional, and that's the only thing in common throughout the world.

Julie Delpy

#87. Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm.

Charles De Lint

#88. We all come from dysfunctional families and these days I guess that's pretty normal.

Carnie Wilson

#89. Working in a restaurant means being part of a family, albeit usually a slightly dysfunctional one. Nothing is accomplished independently.

Joe Bastianich

#90. People talk about dysfunctional families; I've never seen any other kind.

Sue Grafton

#91. Here's an idea, how about you stop drinking? How about you go to rehab? Or you could just do us all a favor and die.

Evelyn Smith

#92. Change is hard, difficult, painful, and often messy

David W. Earle

#93. Putting labels on others creates a black hole of disregard where judgment thrives and schisms deepen.

David W. Earle

#94. Families living in dysfunction seldom have healthy boundaries. Dysfunctional families have trouble knowing where they stop and others begin.

David W. Earle

#95. We fight a lot, you know, but that's family. We may be dysfunctional but we're still family.

Star Jones

#96. When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.

David W. Earle

#97. My mom called Grandma today and told her we would no longer be attending family parties. My mom told her we have had enough of being blamed for something Brian did and everyone brushing it off like it was no big deal.

Erin Merryn

#98. I quickly learned that you don't have to be incarcerated by suffering, and that, in spite of the dysfunctional nature of your family, you are an individual in full possession of your life.

Sufjan Stevens

#99. As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.

David W. Earle