Kris

“Family," she announced. "They're the people in your life you don't get to pick. The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose."

"You're bound to them by blood," she continued, her voice flat. "Which, you know, gives you that much more in common. Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color. It's like they're part of your blueprint. If something's wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them."
I nodded and kept writing.
"But," she said, "even though you're stuck with them, at the same time, they're also stuck with you. So that's why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals. Because they're the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end. Like it or not.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.”
― Haniel Long

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian