mothers

I tried desperately not to think about her eyes, about the way they lit up when she saw me. Or her hands, the way she waved them in the air as she talked, as if she thought she could pull words out of the sky with her fingers. And her arms, wrapping around me like my own house, because she was the place where I was from.

Mom lied. The crust is the shittiest part.

My mother is a wonderful, eccentric lady who has no concept whatever of interior monologue. We'll be driving along in the car and she'll suddenly say, 'Ants don't like cucumbers, you know. And roaches don't like cinnamon. Do you want some cheese, Michael? Rembrandt was the Lord of the day.' -Mike Myers

It's like she thinks my job is to please her, and that should be my dearest wish, and when I don't please her - I get shut out.

Of course she__ right. How bad are things when your clinically insane mother is more rational than you are?

At the end of the day, can you look back and say to yourself, "Today, my mother would be proud of me because I gave it all I had"? If you can, you will have had a very good day. And if you can do this every day, you will have a very good life.

They are not kidding when they say that mothers are strong women. We need to be strong in more ways than our children will ever know.

Have I been conditioned to believe that if I am not solicitous, if I am not forthcoming, if I am not a never-ending cornicopia of entertaining delights, they will take their collections of milk-bottle tops and their mangy one-eared teddy bears and go away into the woods by themselves to play snipers? Probably. What my mother thinks was merely cute may have been lethal.

My mother was widely loved, and rightly so _ and widely regarded as too sweet for words. Well, she had them buffaloed. Any woman who could out-stubborn a dachshund deserved to be accorded the wary and respectful affection the dachshund gave her.

I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.

Mama stared at me not with sadness, but with pleading. She was thinner than I'd ever allowed myself to notice, looking more like a child than a woman. I wanted to believe she knew what was best for me. I wanted to believe she was like every other mother and that she loved me more than I loved her. I hoped, if I followed her wishes, I would finally make her happy.

She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red.

Never underestimate the fury of an angry mother, Caspar. They're the most vicious creatures in the world.

(...)no one can take the place of a perfect mother who gives you the world as you know it and makes you believe that it is yours to take.

Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our mothers. We cannot afford any guilt that pulls us back to the past. We have to grow up, whether we want to or not. We have to stop blaming men and mothers and seize every second of our lives with passion. We can no longer afford to waste our creativity. We cannot afford spiritual laziness.

There is a distinct difference between the ability to create life and the innate need to protect it; to cherish it. The life you've created is the one being you love most in the universe, and that intense love evolves into something that goes far beyond a sense of duty. It is instinct; pure and undeniable. As a direct result, one must neglect all else to preserve it. Even those we have claimed to love before.

Mothers possess a power beyond that of a king on his throne.

There she was, the mother of me, like a lit plinth,Heavenly, though I was reared to find this kind Of visitation impractical; she was an unbearable detailOf the supreme celestial map,Of which I had been taught that there wasNo such thing.