A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977Quotes
The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.
—Robert Frost, 1939It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself… it seems unfair. You can’t assume the responsibility for everything you do—or don’t do.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1966A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!
—Philip Roth, 1969Family! Thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
—August Strindberg, 1886Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCMy mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1919Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.
—André Gide, 1897Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940