" Some fathers cannot love their children. They find them annoying. Or uninteresting. Or unsettling. They’re irritated by their children because they’ve turned out differently than they had expected. They’re irritated because the children were the wife’s wish to patch up the marriage when there was nothing left to patch up, her means of forcing a loving marriage where there was no love. And such fathers take it out on the children. Whatever they do, their fathers will be nasty and mean to them.” “Please stop.” “And the children, the delicate, little, yearning children,” Perdu continued more softly, because he was terribly moved by Max’s inner turmoil, “do everything they can to be loved. Everything. They think that it must somehow be their fault that their father cannot love them. But Max,” and here Perdu lifted Jordan’s chin, “it has nothing to do with them. "

― Nina George , The Little Paris Bookshop