Sons Quotes

“I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.”
― Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

“I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“There is more to a boy than what his mother sees. There is more to a boy then what his father dreams. Inside every boy lies a heart that beats. And sometimes it screams, refusing to take defeat. And sometimes his father's dreams aren't big enough, and sometimes his mother's vision isn't long enough. And sometimes the boy has to dream his own dreams and break through the clouds with his own sunbeams.”
― Ben Behunin, Remembering Isaac: The Wise and Joyful Potter of Niederbipp

“To think but nobly of my grandmother: Good wombs have borne bad sons.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“She also understood there was a hole in her heart where her son should be, that she was a wicked, selfish woman for wishing him back.”
― Shannon Celebi, Driving Off Bridges

“DESTINY (Determined Effort So Tanacious It Negates Yuck)”
― Frank Chase Jr

“On this Mother's Day and every day before and after, I thank you God for the precious gift of my three children. I love them unconditionally.”
― Ana Monnar

“When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”
― Robert Hayden, Collected Poems

“I lost my father this past year, and the word feels right because I keep looking for him. As if he were misplaced. As if he could just turn up, like a sock or a set of keys.”
― Mark Slouka

“I should no longer define myself as the son of a father who couldn’t or hasn’t or wouldn’t or wasn’t.”
― Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet

“Dad had once said, Trust your mind, Rob. If it smells like shit but has writing across it that says Happy Birthday and a candle stuck down in it, what is it?

Is there icing on it? he'd said.

Dad had done that thing of squinting his eyes when an answer was not quite there yet.”
― George Saunders, Tenth of December

“... there had been the two little boys. Now they were gone, too. They loved her and called her and sent her e-mails and would still snuggle up to her to be petted when they were in the mood, but they were men, and though they would always be at the center of her life, she was no longer at the center of theirs.”
― Cathleen Schine, The Three Weissmanns of Westport

“Mothers see the angel in us because the angel is there. If it's shown to the mother, the son has got an angel to show, hasn't he? When a son cuts somebody's throat the mother only sees it's possible for a misguided angel to act like a devil - and she's entirely right about that!”
― Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

“Most young men are such bores. They haven't lived long enough to learn that they are not the wonders to the world they are to their mothers.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

“My daughter and two sons are the flowers in my heart and garden.”
― Ana Monnar

“Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of one's own end, and affords an unobstructed view of the undug but awaiting grave that says 'you're next.' Unfilial as this may seem, that was not at all so in my own case. It was only when I watched Alexander [my own son] being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly, but quite unmistakably, stepped onto the stage. I was surprised by how calmly I took this, but also by how reluctant I was to mention it to my male contemporaries.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Have a little faith in your sons. This journey will be the making of them.”
― C.J. Milbrandt, On Your Marks: The Adventure Begins

“Let your boys test their wings. They may not be eagles, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't soar free.”
― C.J. Milbrandt, On Your Marks: The Adventure Begins

“The dangerous plant did not flower in every generation, they said. ”
― Amanda Quick, The Perfect Poison

“She never called her son by any name but John; 'love' and 'dear', and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Let truth be told. The more we allow water to be controlled, bottled and sold — the more we sell the security of our sons, daughters and souls. He who controls the water, controls us all. Water is the true gold.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Mothers are inscrutable beings to their sons, always. ("The Higgler")”
― A.E. Coppard, Dusky Ruth and Other Stories

“Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“As he grew older, which was mostly in my absence, my firstborn son, Alexander, became ever more humorous and courageous. There came a time, as the confrontation with the enemies of our civilization became more acute, when he sent off various applications to enlist in the armed forces. I didn't want to be involved in this decision either way, especially since I was being regularly taunted for not having 'sent' any of my children to fight in the wars of resistance that I supported. (As if I could 'send' anybody, let alone a grown-up and tough and smart young man: what moral imbeciles the 'anti-war' people have become.)”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Mothers yielding Bibles, contemplating smearing the blood of lamb chops over her doorway. Anything to keep her son alive another day.”
― Antonia Perdu

“Son, we are all products of operant conditioning. By daring to think outside the box, you'll be judged. Stay the course. Heightened cognizance is meaningful only when freely sought out and discovered. Not when it is incrementally spoon-fed to you throughout your lifetime.”
― A.K. Kuykendall

“The most important thing is that you go to bed each night believing you raised a hero.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, Summer of '69