287 Quotes About Mothers-and-daughters

My mother overstated the dangers of the world – invented threats. And so I saw: Starbursts’ hoof-made gelatin never gave me mad cow. Mad cow was not a threat to me. And so I thought: most risks weren’t truly real.

She’d taken care of me in all the ways my body needed, but the devastation of my rape had made me feel the weight of the essential way she had neglected me: she hadn’t nurtured the potential of my strong and healthy independence.

Because I feared I couldn't walk to Newton Centre without her, I needed to hike through desert, snow and woods alone. Childhood is a wilderness.

She told me that women who wore makeup had bad values. Putting on makeup would have been a statement—a rebellion. I didn’t try it. I grew to feel guilty for wanting to feel attractive.

...She (her mother) noticed that I was prettier than I was at home. Thus do girls change color in the warmth of masculine desire, whether they are fifteen or thirty.

It's amazing the things that the heart and mind can endure. No one ever told me that growing up, so I often spent my childhood thinking something was wrong with me.

inside the drywall, i imagine years of collected stories & laughter burrowed like chestnuts from stowaway squirrels. my secrets are hidden among them, too—the ones you expertly ignored so you could still look at me & see the perfect daughter who never existed.

Chris ordered Greek Chicken, no butter no salt, and I decided to splurge on a hamburger. To which my mama took the opportunity to point out that I could eat whatever I wanted and not get fat. She never believed me when I said I watched what I ate and exercised on the regular. “Her daddy was the same way. Straight up and down. Course she got the tits that he ain’t have.

Even as individuals become families and families become communities, and communities become nations, so eventually must the nations draw together in peace.