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101 " I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands. In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn. Baby, drink milk. Baby, play ball. And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief. "
102 " The child's heart beat: but she was growing in the wrong place inside her extraordinary mother, south of safe...she and her mother were rushed to the hospital, where her mother was operated on by a brisk cheerful diminutive surgeon who told me after the surgery that my wife had been perhaps an hour from death from the pressure of the child growing outside the womb, the mother from the child growing, and the child from growing awry; and so my wife did not die, but our mysterious child did...Not uncommon, an ectopic pregnancy, said the surgeon...Sometimes, continued the surgeon, sometimes people who lose children before they are born continue to imagine the child who has died, and talk about her or him, it's such an utterly human thing to do, it helps deal with the pain, it's healthy within reason, and yes, people say to their other children that they actually do, in a sense, have a sister or brother, or did have a sister or brother, and she or he is elsewhere, has gone ahead, whatever the language of your belief or faith tradition. You could do that. People do that, yes. I have patients who do that, yes...One summer morning, as I wandered by a river, I remembered an Irish word I learned long ago, and now whenever I think of the daughter I have to wait to meet, I find that word in my mouth: dunnog, little dark one, the shyest and quietest and tiniest of sparrows, the one you never see but sometimes you sense, a flash in the corner of your eye, a sweet sharp note already fading by the time it catches your ear. "
― Brian Doyle , The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of Heart
103 " I am the mother of three children whose birth mother died of cancer when they were young. When I met them, they were ages twelve, ten, and eight, all grieving in very different ways. I have seen first hand the pain and confusion that accompanies childhood loss. But I have also seen the healing that can take place when children begin to understand who Jesus is and how much He loves them. By using our family's personal experience as a foundation, I hope this book will be a refuge for grieving children to express their sorrow, to feel understood in all their pain, and to come to know that God is their ultimate source of comfort, healing, hope, and joy here on earth, as well as in heaven. "
― Kathleen Fucci
104 " The man raised the violin under his chin, placed the bow across the strings, and closed his eyes. For a moment his lips moved, silently, as if in prayer. Then, with sure, steady movements, he began to play. The song was like nothing Abbey had heard anywhere else. The notes were clear, sweet and perfect, with a purity of tone that not one violin in ten thousand could produce. But the song was more than that. The song was pain, and loss, and sorrow, an anthem of unrelenting grief for which no words could be sufficient. In its strains Abbey heard the cry of the mother clutching her lifeless child; of the young woman whose husband never returned from war; of the father watching his son die of cancer; of the old man weeping at his wife's grave. It was the wordless cry of every man, woman and child who had ever shaken a fist at the uncaring universe, every stricken heart that had demanded an answer to the question, “Why?”, and was left unsatisfied.When the song finally, mercifully ended, not a dry eye remained in the darkened hall. The shades had moved in among the mortals, unseen by all but Abbey herself, and crowded close to the stage, heedless of all but the thing that called to them. Many of the mortals in the audience were sobbing openly. Those newcomers who still retained any sense of their surroundings were staring up at the man, their eyes wide with awe and a silent plea for understa "
105 " Im gonna be a pretender the rest of my life. Pretending i dont wish every girl i kiss isnt you. Pretending i dont wish every girl i sleep with isnt you. Im gonna have to pretend i dont wish my next relationship wont be with you. Pretend that i dont wish the girl i get engaged to isnt you. Pretend i dont wish the girl i marry isnt you. Pretend i dont wish the mother of my kids to be you. Pretend its not you i want to spend the rest of my life with. Everything will be a lie the rest of my life. Thats so hard to accept. "
106 " It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth? "
― Arthur Conan Doyle , The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes, #7)
107 " Memory is the mother of the muses, prototype Artist. As a rule picks and highlights what is important, omitting what is accidental or trivial. Occasionally, however, is mistaken as all the other artists. Nevertheless it is what I take as a guide page. "
― Frank Harris , My Life and Loves
108 " Reunion with the mother is a siren call haunting our imagination. Once there was bliss, and now there is struggle. Dim memories of life before the traumatic separation of birth may be the source of Arcadian fantasies of a lost golden age. "
― Camille Paglia , Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
109 " I find it appalling that the Church claims Mary consented at the age of thirteen to become the mother of God.”“But she did,” James said. “There is ample evidence to show she consented.”“Isn’t that the classic defense of the pedophile?” Helena asked. “In Christ’s time and even today in some countries in the Middle East and India, child marriages are customary. But that doesn’t make it right. In Europe and the U.S. we prosecute adults for preying on children. God would be arrested for impregnating a girl below the age of consent.”“People didn’t live as long then,” James said.Helena would not back down. “But human biology hasn’t changed. My point is she was too young to consent. The brain of a young teenager isn’t fully developed.”“The mysteries of the faith require us to have faith.” “Don’t hide behind that nonsense. What kind of message is the Church sending to women? Only virgin children are pure? Experienced mothers are impure and unfit to raise Christ? It’s creepy and insulting when you think about it, but you would have me suspend rational judgment and just accept something I would tear your eyes out for thinking about my underage sister? "
― Janet M. Tavakoli , Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits
110 " One day, an unusually exciting event interrupted the rhythm of our regular middle-class teenage lives. A Russian woman, the mother of a girl in our class, was run over by a New York City bound train right in the center of town. Our classmate left school in the middle of the semester. The gossip was that the woman must have thrown herself under the train. The adults whispered about reasons, usual ones, but my friends and I were too busy planning what to wear to the prom to wonder about the savagery of adult passion. "
― Inna Swinton , The Many Loves of Mila
111 " He was rather a low sort of pony. The fact is, he had been originally jobbed out by the day, and he never quite got over his old habits. He was clever in melodrama too, but too broad--too broad. When the mother died, he took the port-wine business.''The port-wine business!' cried Nicholas.'Drinking port-wine with the clown,' said the manager; 'but he was greedy, and one night bit off the bowl of the glass, and choked himself, so his vulgarity was the death of him at last. "
― Charles Dickens
112 " But this house felt strange. Dave asked what was going on, and John explained that the name on the eviction order belonged to the mother of several of the children. She had died two months earlier, and the children had simply gone on living in the house, by themselves. As the movers swept through the rooms, Gray Eyes took charge, giving orders to the other children; the youngest was a boy of about eight or nine. Upstairs, the movers found ratty mattresses on the floor and empty liquor bottles displayed like trophies. In the damp basement, clothes were flung everywhere. The house and the yard were littered with trash. “Disgusting,” Tim said to the roaches scaling the kitchen wall. As the landlord changed the locks with a power drill and the movers pushed the contents of the house onto the wet curb, the children began to run around and laugh. When the move was done, the crew gathered by the trucks, instinctively stomping the ground to shake loose any stowaway roaches. Those who smoked reached for their packs. They didn’t know where the children would go, and they didn’t ask. "
― Matthew Desmond , Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
113 " If poverty is the mother of all crimes, lack of intelligence is their father. "
― Jean de La Bruyère
114 " It won't do to be afraid of failure. Failure is the mother of success "
115 " She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who had made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were greater than the mother who had given it birth. "
― Ayn Rand , Atlas Shrugged
116 " Nothingness is the basis of everything that exists today. It's the mother of creation & consciousness! "
117 " William sees it all happen again. The pain is not in the event. The subjection to it and his powerless state each time is where his anguish lies. He is unable to influence the situation, despite his desire. He sees the nest outside his house. He sees the baby bird that fell. The mother bird cries frantically for her lost chick. William knows as he approaches the chick that if he touches it his scent will linger, and the mother will reject it. Circling around the fallen creature William hopes it will flee from him, back toward the tree from which it had fallen. His presence only intensifies the creature’s fear. It speeds to his left, heading for the street. Again William tries to flank the bird, but it is too frightened to return to the nest. The chick’s mother wails vainly. William walks into the street trying to herd the bird to safety. The stop light a block away has just turned green. The driver accelerates. William moves from the car’s path and it runs over the bird. The momentum from its wake lifts the bird to the underside of the car, breaking its neck, but not killing it. William watches the bird roll helplessly. It is silent for a second, before it begins to whimper. Its contorted head dangles limply from its body. The noise is tragic. The bird’s mother hears the chick’s pain, but nothing can be done. She laments. A second speeder crushes the chick, leaving only a wet feathered spot in the street. As the cars continue to pass, only one bird is heard. A mother’s grief falls deafly on an unconcerned world. "
118 " Silence is the mother of all tongues "
119 " Every kind of language is... specialized form of bodily gesture, and in this sense it may be said that the dance is the mother of all languages... an original language of total bodily gesture.This " original" language of total bodily gesture is thus the one and only real language, which everybody who is in any way expressing himself is using all the time. What we call speech and the other kinds of language are only parts of it which have undergone specialized development. "
120 " If necessity is the mother of invention, then surely greed must be the father. Children of this odd couple are named: Laziness, Envy, Greed, Jr., Gluttony, Lust, Anger and Pride. "
― John R. Dallas Jr.
