Family

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts.  -Author Unknown

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

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.  -Joyce Brothers

You don't choose your family.  They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.  -Desmond Tutu

Family faces are magic mirrors.  Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.  -Gail Lumet Buckley

Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.  -Anthony Brandt

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.  -George Eliot

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works is the family.  -Lee Iacocca

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.  -Dodie Smith

And thank you for a house full of people I love.  Amen.  -Terri Guillemets

Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie - not perfect but who's complaining?  -Robert Brault

The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.  -Kendall Hailey

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.  -Thomas Jefferson

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.  -Barbara Bush

An ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship.  -Spanish Proverb

Fathers

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  -Clarence Budington Kelland

A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.  -Author Unknown

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!  -Lydia M. Child

A father is always making his baby into a little woman.  And when she is a woman he turns her back again.  -Enid Bagnold

A father carries pictures where his money used to be.  -Author Unknown

It is much easier to become a father than to be one.  -Kent Nerburn

Any man can be a father.  It takes someone special to be a dad.  -Author Unknown

The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad! -Author Unknown

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.  -Author Unknown

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.  -Gloria Naylor

There are three stages of a man's life:  He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn't believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus.  -Author Unknown

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.  -Bill Cosby

Mothers

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  -Tenneva Jordan

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs in my field, since the payment is pure love.  -Mildred B. Vermont

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life.  -Abraham Lincoln

Sweater, n.:  garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.  -Ambrose Bierce

She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along.  -Margaret Culkin Banning

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.  -Sophia Loren

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.  -Aristotle

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven. -William Goldsmith Brown

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being.  I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune.  -Graycie Harmon

I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine - she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights.  -Terri Guillemets

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.  -Washington Irving

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.  -T. DeWitt Talmage

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.  -William Makepeace Thackeray

I cannot forget my mother.  She is my bridge.  When I needed to get across, she steadied herself long enough for me to run across safely.  -Renita Weems

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, "where mother is."  -Keith L. Brooks

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.  -Abraham Lincoln

A man's work is from sun to sun, but a mother's work is never done.  -Author Unknown

Sons

Son, you outgrew my lap, but never my heart.  -Author Unknown

You don't raise heroes, you raise sons.  And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes.  -Walter M. Schirra, Sr.

Don't wait to make your son a great man - make him a great boy.  -Author Unknown

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.  -Charles Wadsworth

Giving your son a skill is better than giving him one thousand pieces of gold.  -Chinese Proverb

He who can be a good son will be a good father.  -Author Unknown

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.  -Epictetus

Daughters

A daughter is a gift of love.  -Author Unknown

A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life.  -Irish Saying

To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter. -Euripides

Chance made you my daughter; love made you my friend. -Author Unknown

A mother's treasure is her daughter. -Catherine Pulsifer

A daughter is a miracle that never ceases to be miraculous...full of beauty and forever beautiful...loving and caring and truly amazing. -Deanna Beisser

What I wanted most for my daughter was that she be able to soar confidently in her own sky, whatever that may be. -Helen Claes

Daughters are angles sent from above to fill our heart with unending love. -J. Lee

Siblings

To the outside world we all grow old.  But not to brothers and sisters.  We know each other as we always were.  We know each other's hearts.  We share private family jokes.  We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys.  We live outside the touch of time.  ~Clara Ortega

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring - quite often the hard way.  -Pamela Dugdale

A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self.  ~Marian Sandmaier

Having a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of.  You know whatever you do, they'll still be there.  -Amy Li

You can kid the world.  But not your sister.  -Charlotte Gray

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.  -Marion C. Garretty

You keep your past by having sisters.  As you get older, they're the only ones who don't get bored if you talk about your memories.  -Deborah Moggach

We may look old and wise to the outside world.  But to each other, we are still in junior school.  -Charlotte Gray

Sisters are blossoms in the garden of life.  -Author Unknown

Sisters don't need words.  They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles and frowns and winks - expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and disbelief.  Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs - that can undermine any tale you're telling.  -Pam Brown

Sisters annoy, interfere, criticize.  Indulge in monumental sulks, in huffs, in snide remarks.  Borrow.  Break.  Monopolize the bathroom.  Are always underfoot.  But if catastrophe should strike, sisters are there.  Defending you against all comers.  -Pam Brown

Sisters share the scent and smells - the feel of a common childhood.  -Pam Brown

There is no better friend than a sister.  And there is no better sister than you.  -Author Unknown

Our roots say we're sisters, our hearts say we're friends.  -Author Unknown

An older sister is a friend and defender - a listener, conspirator, a counsellor and a sharer of delights.  And sorrows too.  -Pam Brown

The best thing about having a sister was that I always had a friend.  -Cali Rae Turner

A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life.  -Isadora James

When mom and dad don't understand, a sister always will.  -Author Unknown

When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us?  -Pam Brown

In the cookies of life, sisters are the chocolate chips.  -Author Unknown

If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she's wearing your best sweater.  -Pam Brown

Sisters are different flowers from the same garden.  -Author Unknown

A sister smiles when one tells one's stories - for she knows where the decoration has been added.  -Chris Montaigne

More than Santa Claus, your sister knows when you've been bad and good.  -Linda Sunshine

No one knows better than a sister how we grew up, and who our friends, teachers and favorite toys were. No one knows better than she. -Dale V. Atkins

Sisters are different. They heard the sobbing in the darkness. They lived through all your triumphs, all your favorites, all your loves and losses. They have no delusions. They lived with you too long. And so, when you achieve some victory, friends are delighted - but sisters hold your hands in silence and shine with happiness. For they know the cost. -Pam Brown

A younger sister is someone to use as a guinea-pig in trying sledges and experimental go-carts. Someone to send on messages to Mum. But someone who needs you - who comes to you with bumped heads, grazed knees, tales of persecution. Someone who trusts you to defend her. Someone who thinks you know the answers to almost everything. -Pam Brown

A loyal sister is worth a thousand friends. -Marian Eigerman

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.  -Marc Brown

There's no other love like the love for a brother.  There's no other love like the love from a brother.  -Astrid Alauda

A brother shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams.  -Author Unknown

It was nice growing up with someone like you - someone to lean on, someone to count on... someone to tell on!  -Author Unknown

When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.  -Antisthenes

The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out his nose.  -Garrison Keillor