Caretakers Quotes

“If you're the one everyone relies on, if you take on people's burdens, sometimes there's just not that much left of you.”
― Mike Chen, We Could Be Heroes

“I can only imagine how hard it must be for you, the friends and caretakers, to be there for us when you know in your heart that there is nothing you can do to make it better. So I want to tell you right now that you CAN make it better. You do. Just by being there. Just by reaching out, and making time and space for us in your lives and in your hearts. Just by saying, 'I know I can never understand what you’re going through – but I believe you. And I love you. And I’m here.”
― Michael Bihovsky

“She remembered stories of horror from the war, stories whose moral always turned out to be: "One never knows what a person is made of until the moment of stress; then often the most timorous person turns out to be the bravest." She wondered if she were being brave, or just resigned. Or cowardly, she added to herself. That, too, was possible, and there was no way of knowing. Port could never tell her because he knew even less about it. If she nursed him and got him through whatever he had, he doubtless would tell her she had been brave, a martyr, and many other things, but that would be out of gratitude. And then she wondered why she wanted to know - it seemed rather a frivolous consideration at the moment.”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

“What he can't bear is when he has to act as nursemaid, for Ernesto mistrusts children instinctively. He thinks they're cunning, clever, wiser in many things than their scrubbed little faces reveal. Those eyes, so penetrating and so new, have an unerring way of exposing the more shameful secrets and stupid weaknesses of the grown-ups. Ernesto feels a strange uneasiness at being thus observed and subjected to scrutiny.”
― Rosario Castellanos, Balún Canán

“If your caring for others is deeply hurting you, it’s not actually caring for others but self hatred disguised as selflessness. When you’re caring for people, make sure to begin with yourself.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones