CURATED COLLECTION

The Bond of Family

Family is the first world we know — and often the most complicated one we'll ever navigate.

50 quotes found

“
A family is a strange beast. It loves you and destroys you simultaneously.

—Vikram SethNovelist & Poet

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

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Family—it was a knot, a tangle, a net from which one could not escape.

—Anita DesaiNovelist & Writer

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

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Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—Leo TolstoyNovelist & Philosopher

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

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We believe the one we love cannot be truly lost to us.

—Yaa GyasiNovelist

Digital Age ERA • West Africa

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A tear dried in the eye is more painful than one that falls.

—PremchandWriter

Early Modern ERA • South Asia

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Sisters are a shelter and a storm, both at once.

—Anita DesaiNovelist & Writer

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

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And it is not a separation, but a terrible closeness.

—Anna AkhmatovaPoet

Early Modern ERA • Eastern Europe

“
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—Leo TolstoyNovelist & Philosopher

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

“
My mother tongue is the house I carry on my back.

—Meena AlexanderPoet & Memoirist

Contemporary ERA • South Asia

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The earth is my mother; she does not ask what I have done.

—Namdeo Dhondo MahanorPoet

Post-War ERA • South Asia

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At a certain point I lost track of you. You needed me to live somewhere else.

—Agha Shahid AliPoet

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

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I came to Comala because I was told my father lived there. My mother told me.

—Juan RulfoNovelist, Writer & Author

Post-War ERA • Latin America

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It's a wise girl who knows her own father. It's a wiser one who finds him in her dreams.

—Marilyn MonroeActress

Post-War ERA • North America

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Home is where the heart breaks, again and again, and still we return.

—R. Zamora LinmarkNovelist & Poet

Late Modern ERA • Southeast Asia

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A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground.

—Gabriel García MárquezNovelist

Post-War ERA • Latin America

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It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting creature.

—Roald DahlNovelist

Late Modern ERA • Western Europe

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El hogar es donde el corazón se quiebra y se reconstruye una y otra vez.

—Rosario FerréNovelist, Writer & Essayist

Late Modern ERA • Caribbean

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My mother was a child of the water. My father a child of the fire.

—Grace NicholsPoet

Late Modern ERA • Caribbean

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We are all haunted by something we did not choose.

—Fatima BhuttoAuthor & Journalist

Digital Age ERA • South Asia

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Love can be found in the kitchen, in the preparation of food.

—Laura EsquivelNovelist

Late Modern ERA • Latin America

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