The first time someone I loved left me behind...I didn't know how my family would balance. We had been such a sturdy little end table, four solid legs. I was sure we would now be off-kilter, always...

My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.

A man should never neglect his family for business.

When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, of a family line, connection. All around him, men were walking silently with their thoughts,...

...Food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable-the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet, but makes us think...

A few days after we came home from the hospital, I sent a letter to a friend, including a photo of my son and some first impressions of fatherhood. He responded, simply, 'Everything is possible...

{You do not have to be shamed in my closeness. Family are the people who must never make you feel ashamed.}{You are wrong. Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving...

She has always been a bystander in family destruction, never realizing she herself possessed the capacity to inflict it.

The worst moments are when my entire family is in the same room. With the people I should love the most surrounding me, I feel the most alone.

Jacob smiled from ear to ear when he shook the man's hand on stage. The man then handed him a trophy.

I came to this house for safety. They came because the foster care system ran out of homes. We stayed because we were stray pieces of other puzzles, tired of never fitting.

It's all a game. And if you don't want to play, maybe you shouldn't come to Hollywood.

When Nico had woken up at Barrachina and found the Hunters' note about kidnapping Reyna, he'd torn apart the courtyard in rage. He didn't want the Hunters stealing another important person from him....

Nico didn't like to be touched, but somehow this brief contact with his father felt reassuring – the same way the Chapel of Bones was reassuring. Like death, his father's presence was cold and often...

Then we still have time! I gasp. It's not too late. We know what he's going to do. We'll return to the cave and fight. ? Kernel says sarcastically.Yes! I'll fight to save Dervish and Bill-E. I don't...

It is easy to say that you can adopt the whole human race as your children, but it is not the same as living in a home with a child and shaping all you do to help him learn to be happy and whole and...

Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.

It was the very image of innocence. I wanted to remember this moment always, to look at it when I needed something good to hold on to.

A mother was only as happy as her most unhappy child.

I thought of my mother and her wise advice. She'd always been there for me. Even when I was at my worst. She made me want to be a better son.

{Mom} said she didn't want her youngest daughter dressed in the thrift-store clothes the rest of us wore. Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting. Isn't that a sin? I asked Mom. Not exactly, Mom...

Chivalry wasn't dead, it's just that men didn't own all the horses anymore, and women of Helene's ilk didn't need that kind of rescue.

To belong did not mean ownership. You were not someone's property. The be syllable was about existence: to be yourself and to be in a special place that no one else could occupy within your family...

There are some things in life that shouldn't be given so much importance, if they don't change what is essential.

Sometimes, kids want you to hurt the way they hurt.

The problem is that we don't believe that we are much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholic and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in...