mothers

All mothers are slightly insane.

_these mothers at their midnight council were more like one great mind probing itself, divided at times as great minds may be, but one entity

The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter.

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.

Hideo," said my mother, in the terrifying way women have of passing without interval from one subject to another because they have them all present in their mind at once, "you haven't found any kind of relationship?

[Judith Warner:] Our neurotic quest to perfect the mechanics of mothering can be interpreted as an effort to do on an individual level what we__e stopped trying to do on a society-wide one.

Dead mothers are rather fashionable these days. They lend such an attractive air of tragedy.

Her husband and her children did not consider her beyond criticism. She belonged to them; whatever she did affected them; their pride, their good name in the world lay in her hands. They would give her love, protection, even a sort of homage, but in return for that she must be what they wanted and needed her to be.

My mother was either telepathic or she had secret cameras in my apartment, and I hoped for the latter.

...do you have someone you can stay with? Hell, stay with your mother. The Pentagon doesn__ have the security system she__ g

He was looking forward eagerly to seeing her again. He had coped perfectly well on his own, of course, but it was very reassuring to have someone in your life who was always ready to fight for you, and he had missed that comforting feeling,

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

Some delightful inscriptions are found in second-hand books. One, the most famous of all, may be found in every bookshop in the nation, repeated in a thousand and one volumes with only a single change of phrase in each. It is this: '______, with love from Momma.

that old Mrs. Bishop was lacking in the qualities that make a good mother. And saying it that way makes her sound a good deal better than she really was.

No one worries about you like your mother, and when she is gone, the world seems unsafe, things that happen unwieldy. You cannot turn to her anymore, and it changes your life forever. There is no one on earth who knew you from the day you were born; who knew why you cried, or when you'd had enough food; who knew exactly what to say when you were hurting; and who encouraged you to grow a good heart. When that layer goes, whatever is left of your childhood goes with her.

Even her pink bunny slippers seem to prick up their ears.Diary of a Penguin-napper (p. 15)

As time passed from solstice to mild solstice in those occluded zones of my early childhood, I played beneath the distracted majesty of my mother's blue-eyed gaze. With her eyes on me I felt as if I were being studied by flowers.

I'll tend to her as no mother ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children. I never had to give it to nobody else--and the one time I did it was took from me--they held me down and took it. Milk that belonged to my baby.... I know what it is to be without the milk that belongs to you; to have to fight and holler for it, and to have so little left.