Mother quotes
11.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they had, and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father, basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective."
"My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwhich, I am God' sort of way."
"Each time my mother went psychotic, I hoped it would be the last time. Afterward she would tell me, 'I think that was the final episode. I think I had a breakthrough.' And I would believe-for a few months-that it was true. That she was back to stay. Maybe it was like having a rock star mother who was always on the road. Were there Benatar children? Did they sit around and wonder if their mom's Hell is for Children tour was going to be her last tour?"
"Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl."
"There's innate competition, I think, between mothers and daughters - mine no more so than anyone else."
"The lust that drives others to enslave an empire, had become, in her limits, a passion for power over him. She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who had made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were greater than the mother who had given it birth."
"The first and most important step is to realize that, as my mother used to say, fearlessness isn't the absence of fear, but the mastery of fear. It's not that you never have fear, but that you don't let your fears stop you."
"Being a mother is the role I'm most proud of."
"The most effective means for restoring the integrity of our electoral process, and repairing the public's tattered faith in its elected representatives, is through the full public financing of political campigns. It's the mother of all reforms: the one reform that makes all other reforms possible. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If someone's going to own the politicians, it might as well be the American people."
"I was lucky in that I had a mother that was full of this colloquial wisdom and she used to say to me 'You know, failure is not the opposite of success, it's the stepping stone to success. There is nobody who has not failed along the way.' So I think its very important for young women, especially as they are starting in life, to recognize that because otherwise, they only see people's success. So, when I speak, I speak of my failures."
"Often, you'll fail. But, as my mother also taught me, failure isn't the opposite of success - it's a stepping stone to success."
"When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence."
"I'm sure there were plenty of loving, attentive mothers in the 'me generation,' but none of them lived at my house."
"My parents were civil rights activists, and my mother was active in the feminist movement. Issues concerning marginalized people and especially women of color were what they cared about most in the world."
"Like every mother, my wish - every birthday - is for my children to stay healthy (and) for my family to remain healthy."
"I think as a human being, as a mother, as someone who works internationally, I needed desperately to know a man like Louis Zamperini in my life, to know that there is hope."
"To be in any way a positive contribution, that's all anybody wants to be. It's all I've ever wanted to be. I wanted to be an artist, be a mother. You want to feel that in your life you've been of use, in whatever way that comes out."
"I cry secretly. I don't really cry in front of anybody. I hate crying. I feel like it's not accomplishing anything. But when I lost my mother, I cried, and I cried big."
"But we survived, and we're a good family. I just don't want to dedicate one more tear, or watch my mother cry one more time."
"Not many people know this about me, but I'm a natural blonde. My hair went from light blonde naturally to a darker kind of blonde. My mother dyed my hair dark when I was a child, as I loved the look then. So I'm basically a natural blonde."
