Parents are never as bad as kids think they are.
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
Wait," I said as Noah slipped a book from a shelf and headed toward the door. "Where are you going?" "To read?" But I don't want you to. "But I need to go home," I said, my eyes meeting his. "My parents are going to kill me." "Taken care of. You're at Sophie's house." I loved Sophie. "So I'm...staying here?" "Daniel's covering for you." I loved Daniel. "Where's Katie?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "Eliza's house." I loved Eliza. "And your parents?" I asked. "Some charity thing." I loved charity. "So why are you going to read when I'm right here?
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding. If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
We rich nations, for that is what we are, have an obligation not only to the poor nations, but to all the grandchildren of the world, rich and poor. We have not inherited this earth from our parents to do with it what we will. We have borrowed it from our children and we must be careful to use it in their interests as well as our own. Anyone who fails to recognise the basic validity of the proposition put in different ways by increasing numbers of writers, from Malthus to The Club of Rome, is either ignorant, a fool, or evil.
I understood what he was doing, that he had spent four years fulfilling the absurd and tedious duty of graduating from college and now he was emancipated from that world of abstraction, false security, parents, and material excess.
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.
The parent who gets down on the floor to play with a child on Christmas Day is usually doing a most remarkable thing -- something seldom repeated during the rest of the year. These are, after all, busy parents committed to their work or their success in the larger society, and they do not have much left-over time in which to play with their children.
When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.
Siblings: children of the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together.