Fathers And Sons Quotes

Boys do not long for fathers who will usher them through the gauntlet of psychological disconnect. They long for fathers who have themselves survived intact. Boys do not ache for their father's masculinity. They ache for their fathers' hearts.

T. Real

I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.

Why did you do it? Give up everything to raise another man's son?'His father did look up at that. 'I didn't raise another man's son,' he said sharply. 'I raised my own.

Basketball allowed me to revere my father without him knowing what I was up to. I took up basketball as a form of homage and mimicry.

If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me.

He spoke slowly, his voice deeper and louder, every word tacked nine-inches deep into the beams of our minds.

Chigozie Obioma

If one could speak two languages well and was raised on tea and baguettes for breakfast,in places where the most mundane daily business on the street is conducted in four languages, where horse carts park at cyber cafes, where would one go? Where could one go? Why,with a smile and a handshake, very far, indeed!

I bring this up because in writing some thoughts about a father, or not having a father, I feel as though I'm writing a book about a troll under a bridge or a dragon. For me, a father was nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. I know fathers are not like dragons because fathers actually exist. I have seen them on television and sliding their arms around their wives in grocery stores, and I have seen them in the malls and in the coffee shops, but these were characters in other people's stories. The sad thing is, as a kid, I wondered why I couldn't have a dragon, but I never wondered why I didn't have a father. (page 20)

Every child grows up thinking their father is a hero or villain until they are old enough to realize that he is just a man

My father greeted me with his usual air of mild regret.

…the most devastating thing Finney could have said. Not that Peter was hated by his father. But that he’d been loved all along. He’d interpreted kindness as cruelty, generosity as meanness, support as tethers. How horrible to have been offered love, and to have chosen hate instead. He’d turned heaven into hell.

He wanted to argue like this forever. This was better than nothing. There was no exhausting his anger at his father, and every word, however well intentioned or intentionally barbed, was a pull at a scab on his bloody heart. It was too late for any of this. There could ultimately be no healing. Marty had terminal cancer, and so did the two men have a cancer between them. They were terminal together, as father and son. They remained, momentarily exhausted, but it was really only that quiet between lightning and thunder as sound lags behind speed. The lightning had cracked the ground already, you just hadn't heard it yet.

We are born with our father's names. We are not responsible for their failures. We are responsible for what they made us believe in. That is our only obligation. And it is even then a choice which we may sometimes be wise to ignore.

There are many things for which I owe gratitude to my dad. Most of all, I am grateful to the only man who could love my mother more than me.

Ron Mayes

Minus: Papa, I'm scared. When I was hugging Karin in the boat, reality burst open. Do you understand?David: I do.Minus: Reality burst open, and I tumbled out. It's like a dream. Anything can happen. Anything.David: I know.Minus: I can't live in this new world.David: Yes, you can. But you must have something to hold on to.Minus: What would that be? A god? Give me proof of God. You can't.David: Yes, I can. But you have to listen carefully.Minus: Yes, I need to listen.David: I can only give you a hint of my own hope. It is to know that love exists as something real in the human world.Minus: A special kind of love, I suppose?David: All kinds, Minus. The highest and the lowest, the most absurd and the most sublime. All kinds of love.Minus: And the longing for love?David: Longing and denial. Trust and distrust.Minus: Then love is the proof?David: I don't know if love is proof of God's existence, or if love is God himself.Minus: To you, love and God are the same thing.David: That thought helps me in my emptiness and despair.Minus: Tell me more, Papa.David: Suddenly the emptiness turns into abundance, and despair into life. It's like a reprieve, Minus, from a death sentence.Minus: Papa... If it is as you say, then Karin is surrounded by God, since we love her.David: Yes.Minus: Can that help her?David: I believe so.Minus: ... Papa, would you mind if I go for a run?David: Off you go. I'll make dinner. See you in an hour.Minus: ... Papa spoke to me.

They both looked at me in a way that was fast becoming familiar: two parts bafflement to one part awe at my talent for making a bad situation worse.

When she asked what my father taught me, I told her I couldn't put it into words. But then I lay awake watching the snow fall outside and came up with this: how brave a thing it was for him to try to rediscover something, even if it was only himself, not a continent.

That had been the end of Communism. I had a feeling watching the tape that America would be next, but for once I kept my mouth shut. In my silence I felt our common ground: here we were, two men, neither young, neither with money, neither earning a penny or holding down a job or owning a house, both thoroughly confused by the way the world was turning.

Our era has produced many great men--- robber barons, masters of innovation, beast of business---whose staggering wealth, incomparable ruthlessness and personal legends would seem to prove they are dominant species but then one has a look at their son, and doubts the theory of evolution entirely. -DR. Bertrand Legmam Cooper, Problems of Science and Society, Posted by One Who Has Known Both, 1900

We have a dilemma, then,” Finnikin said fiercely. “Because I prayed that you would grow old and hold my children in your arms as you held me. My prayers have not been answered yet, Trevanion. So whose prayer is more worthy? Yours or mine?

Melina Marchetta