Thoughts on Family

I just finished reading the novel Caucasia for one of my classes, and the biggest thing that struck me was how it dealt with family. And while I wont go into much detail, I'll just say that it never ceases to simultaneously amaze and petrify me how much power parents have to inspire, shape, and completely f*ck up their kids.

It's absolutely terrifying, really.

Anyway, I wont get into that. But since family has been on my mind quite a bit lately, here are a few quotes... some pretty good ones, I'd say.


"The family.  We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."  ~Erma Bombeck


"Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family.  Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted."  ~Paul Pearshall


"If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct."  ~Letty Cottin Pogrebin