Mother Quotes

"If both parents must work, I think it is more important that the mother has proximity to the child to therefore establish a childcare situation at the big corporations not once a day, but many times a day"

Eric Braeden, Actor

"Beware of monotony; it's the mother of all the deadly sins"

Edith Wharton, Author

"It was pretty awful for us children because we never really knew the local children. Mother was keen for us to learn languages, so our travels took us to France and Italy, as well as the West Country"

Mary Wesley, Novelist

"The mother must socialize her daughter to become subordinate to men, and if her daughter challenges patriarchal norms, the mother is likely to defend the patriarchal structures against her own daughters"

Carol P. Christ, Educator

"I was encouraged by my mother and, to a lesser extent, by my father"

Carlisle Floyd, Composer

"Born Berlin 1931, Germany, father a British diplomat, mother an American artist. Educated at various schools all over the world. 1958 Settled down to live in London. 1966 Became interested in photography through photographing my young children. No formal training"

Fay Godwin, Photographer

"I was going to shave it. It went in two parts. I got a bob first but it kept falling all over my face. Then it was off, short. The main reason it was long was because my mother cut it short when I was little and I was trying to make up for that"

Cathy Freeman, Athlete

"Mother beat the hell out of us. She'd have wild outbursts"

Burt Lancaster, Actor

"You can make children believe whatever you want, and the children of today are the soldiers and mothers of tomorrow"

Dudley Nichols, Screenwriter

"My mother and father were fantastic, very active. I find it difficult to say this, but I'm quite a loving person and I've always been loving to my friends. In the long run, that pays off. I'm very interested in other people, and if you are, they're interested in you"

Boy George, Musician

"What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all"

Benjamin Spock, Scientist

"I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese"

Amy Tan, Novelist

"People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she's happy"

Amy Tan, Novelist

"My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didn't always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have"

Amy Tan, Novelist

"My father knew the charming side of my mother, and my mother thought that he was attentive and pleasant and was an architect, which was a respectable profession, but I don't think that they actually got to know one another deeply"

Christopher Durang, Playwright

"My mother wanted very much to play tennis; she wanted, most of all, to be a singer and play the piano"

John C. Hawkes, Novelist

"I don't run democracy. I train troops to defend democracy and I happen to be their surrogate father and mother as well as their commanding general"

Alfred M. Gray, Soldier

"I had a very strong-willed mother, who I totally adored. She was always in control of her life"

Jan de Bont, Director

"You do stand alone sometimes. But my mother stood by me through all this"

Morris Dees, Lawyer

"I was angry about the fact that my father would beat my mother on a daily basis, that my mother would take it in turn and beat on me. I was an abused child. I was mad about all those things, very bitter and very angry"

Rick James, Musician

"Of the thousands of people, celebrated and unknown, who have sat before my camera, I am often asked who was the most difficult subject, or the easiest, or which picture is my favorite. This last question is like asking a mother which child she likes the most"

Philippe Halsman, Photographer

"What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman, a peasant woman, struggled all her life, worked in the garment center"

Al Lewis, Actor

"Within a few hours I had them off, was about ready to play the shows. That night I opened, and during the week Harris was over to the house to talk my mother into letting me leave home"

Mary Lou Williams, Musician

"Like all my family and class, I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection; to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace, and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster"

Agnes Smedley, Journalist

"My mother's father drank and her mother was an unhappy, neurotic woman, and I think she has lived all her life afraid of anyone who drinks for fear something like that might happen to her"

John Hurt, Actor

"I remember my mother finding mud somehow and putting it on the sting"

John C. Hawkes, Novelist

"For support, I fall back on my heart. Has a man any fault a woman cannot weave with and try to change into something better, if the god her man prays to is a mother holding a baby?"

Haniel Long, Author

"You've got a movie where the pro-choice family gives their daughter no choice. The pro-life family murders. What seems to be the good mother, the kind of hippie painter, sweet and cute mother has no love for her daughter really"

Ellen Barkin, Actress

"When I played Leonardo DiCaprio's mother, they liked that Leo had very hooded eyes and a rounded nose with a ball. They said, They look like they could be mother and son"

Ellen Barkin, Actress

"I was dictating to my mother when I was 5"

Judith Rossner, Novelist

"My mother, she had a very good attitude toward money. I'm very grateful for the fact that we had to learn to save. I used to get like 50 pence a week, and I'd save it for like five months. And then I'd spend it on Christmas presents. I'd save up like eight pounds. It's nothing, but we did that"

Gemma Arterton, Actress

"My father was an immigrant from Russia and my mother was first generation"

Arthur Rock, Businessman

"There are things coming from me that I felt I wanted to talk about. My search for my own blend of spirituality, my acknowledgement of my sexuality, my being the single mother of a young man"

Ana Castillo, Novelist

"This familiarity with a respected physician and my appreciation of his work, or the tragedy I experienced with the long, tormented agony and death of my mother might have influenced me in wanting to study medicine. It was not the case"

Albert Claude, Scientist

"Well I'm a third-generation musician. My Grandfather's a musician and my father and mother were both musicians and so I'm a musician. It was just natural that I should be a musician 'cause I was born into the family"

Sam Rivers, Musician

"My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood"

Paula Danziger, Author

"Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still"

Nancy Friday, Author

"I probably spend more time with my kids than the average stay-at-home mother"

Kirstie Alley, Actress

"I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time"

Wynton Marsalis, Musician

"When you're a woman in your 40s, it's not the best time to do films, because there really aren't that many roles. Then you reach 50 and there are more roles again. Mother parts"

Shirley Knight, Actress

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