Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby – awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.
To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing – I'm sorry, I would rather not go on.
As we age, we become our parents; live long enough and we see faces repeat in time.
There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good.
Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse ... and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.
Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.
Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. Madness is the most shining way.
All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.
Whether anybody was home meant everything to a house. It was more than a major fact: it was the only fact... The family was the house's soul.
She’s my daughter, Rose. My own flesh and blood. I can’t deny her no more than I can deny them boys... You and them boys is my family. You and them and this child is all I got in the world. So I guess what I’m saying is ... I’d appreciate it if you’d help me take care of her.
After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.
‘You don’t frighten me,’ said Coraline, although they did frighten her, very much. ‘I want my parents back.‘