For while they'd stayed close during the absurd years of his sharp rise, having children had knocked it all into a different arrangement. The minute you had children you closed ranks. You didn't plan this in advance, but it happened. Families were like individual, discrete, moated island nations. The little group of citizens on the slab of rock gathered together instinctively, almost defensively, and everyone who was outside the walls--even if you'd once been best friends--was now just that, outsiders. Families had their ways. You took note of how other people raised their kids, even other people you loved, and it seemed all wrong. The culture and practices of one's own family were the only way, for better or worse. Who could say why a family decided to have a certain style, to tell the jokes it did, to put up its particular refrigerator magnets? . Meg Wolitzer
Some Similar Quotes
  1. A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children - Markus Zusak
  2. When God Created Mothers"When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?"... - Erma Bombeck
  3. The soul is healed by being with children. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  4. The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children. - Karl Lagerfeld
  5. I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child. - Anne Lamott
More Quotes By Meg Wolitzer
  1. I think having the knowledge, plus the experiences you've lived through, make you definitely not fragile. They make you brave.
  2. No one had told her this would happen, that her girlishness would give way to the solid force of wifehood, motherhood. The choices available were all imperfect. If you chose to be with someone, you often wanted to be alone. If you chose to be...
  3. People like to warn you that by the time you reach the middle of your life, passion will begin to feel like a meal eaten long ago, which you remember with great tenderness.
  4. But, she knew, you didn’t have to marry your soulmate, and you didn’t even have to marry an Interesting. You didn’t always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or made everyone want to sleep with you, or be...
  5. But this post-college world felt different from everything that had come before it; art was still central, but now everyone had to think about making a living too, and they did so with a kind of scorn for money except as it allowed them to...
Related Topics