Laura

“Your parents were far from saints, Alice. It would be generous to say they were ordinary people who made some very serious mistakes. Don't make them out to be perfect. That’s too thin a wire for anyone to be able to keep their balance.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“Our parents don't know us... They can't know us. We hide ourselves from them. Once they knew everything about us and in order to escape them we keep out secrets, our private selves.”
― Ellen Sussman, French Lessons

“What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set for you. The grades become too important, the competition too frantic, the fear of disappointing those who believe in you turns into an overwhelming nightmare. And it is desperately unfair to the boy. He cannot live his parents' life over again for them. He cannot make up for their own lacks, their own unfulfillments. He cannot carry their torch -- only his own.”
― Sydney J. Harris, The Best of Sydney J. Harris

“The married man and the mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that is as great as it is consoling: that of bringing into the world and forming young souls capable of happiness and love, souls capable of sanctification and transformation in Christ.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island