Tribute To Mother Quotes

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God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a color.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
you were and always will be that first ever touch to have fertilized the ground beneath my life’s trees that first ever rose to have fragranced the rest of my memories.
Sanober Khan (A touch, a tear, a tempest)
There's such a big difference between being dead and alive, I told myself, the greatest gift that anyone can give anyone else is life. And the greatest sin a person can do to another is to take away that life. Next to that, all the rules and religions in the world are secondary; mere words and beliefs that people choose to believe and kill and hate by. My life won't be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children's.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
This is the underside of my world. Of course you don’t want me to be stupid, bless you! you only want to make sure you’re intelligent. You don’t want me to commit suicide; you only want me to be gratefully aware of my dependency. You don’t want me to despise myself; you only want the flattering deference to you that you consider a spontaneous tribute to your natural qualities. You don’t want me to lose my soul; you only want what everybody wants, things to go your way; you want a devoted helpmeet, a self-sacrificing mother, a hot chick, a darling daughter, women to look at, women to laugh at, women to come for comfort, women to wash your floors and buy your groceries and cook your food and keep your children out of your hair, to work when you need the money and stay home when you don’t, women to be enemies when you want a good fight, women who are sexy when you want a good lay, women who don’t complain, women who don’t nag or push, women who don’t hate you really, women who know their job and above all—women who lose. On top of it all, you sincerely require me to be happy; you are naively puzzled that I should be wretched and so full of venom in this the best of all possible worlds. Whatever can be the matter with me? But the mode is more than a little outworn. As my mother once said: the boys throw stones at the frogs in jest. But the frogs die in earnest.
Joanna Russ (The Female Man)
My parents were nonmaterialistic. They believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of poverty in America, and over the years they were proven right.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
See, a marriege needs love. And God. And a little money. That's all.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
I was so sorry, deep in my heart I was sorry, but all your "sorrys" are gone when a person dies. She was gone. Gone. That's why you have to say all your "sorrys" and "I love yous" while a person is living, because tomorrow isn't promised.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
The greatest gift that anyone can give anyone is LIFE. And the greatest sin a person can do is to take away that life. NEXT to that, all rules and religions in the worldare secondary, mere words and beliefs that people CHOOSE to believe and KILL and HATE by.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
I was ashamed of my mother, but see, love didn't come natural to me until I became a Christian.- Ruth McBride
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Sometimes without conscious realization, our thoughts, our faith, out interests are entered into the past. We talk about other times, other places, other persons, and lose our living hold on the present. Sometimes we think if we could just go back in time we would be happy. But anyone who attempts to reenter the past is sure to be disappointed. Anyone who has ever revisited the place of his birth after years of absence is shocked by the differences between the way the place actually is, and the way he has remembered it. He may walk along old familiar streets and roads, but he is a stranger in a strange land. He has thought of this place as home, but he finds he is no longer here even in spirit. He has gone onto a new and different life, and in thinking longingly of the past, he has been giving thought and interest to something that no longer really exists.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
The man was the finest preacher. He could make a frog stand up straight and get happy with Jesus.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
You could see him coming from a distance, appearing out of nowhere like an angel, his silhouette seeming to rise from the ground in the simmering heat . . .
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
...but all your 'sorrys' are gone when a person dies... That's why you have to say all your 'sorrys' and 'I love yous' while a person is living, because tomorrow isn't promised.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
She looked at me – I was crying, though she was not – and she took on a tone of gentle reprimand. ‘Don’t think you’re paying me some kind of tribute if you let my death become the great event of your life,’ she said to me. ‘The best tribute you can pay to me as a mother is to go on and have a good and fulfilling life. Enjoy what you have.
Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
...since I was a little boy, she had always wanted me to go. She was always sending me off on a bus someplace, to elementary school, to camp, to relatives in Kentucky, to college. She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
She never spoke about Jewish people as white. She spoke about them as Jews, which made them somehow different.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
But while she weebled and wobbled and leaned, she did not fall. She responded with speed and motion" (163).
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
A bird who flies is special. You would never trap a bird who flies" (218).
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
To the very end, Mommy is a flying compilation of competing interests and conflicts, a black woman in white skin, with black children and a white woman's physical problem.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Of course", I said. I was sure he'd even gone to Olshanka for the tribute first, just so he could pretend that was the truth for a little bit longer. But I couldn't really bring myself to pretend with him, not even long enough for him to get used to the idea; my mouth was already turning up at the corners without my willing it to. He flushed and looked away; but that wasn't any better for him, since everyone else was watching us with enormous interest, too drank on beer and dancing to be polite. He looked back at me instead, and scowled at my smile. "Come and meet my mother," I said. I reached out and took his hand.
Naomi Novik (Uprooted)
Had I life to live over, I see now where I could do more; but neighbour, believe me, my highest aspiration is to be a clean, thrifty housekeeper, a bountiful cook, a faithful wife, a sympathetic mother. That is life work for any woman, and to be a good woman is the greatest thing on earth. Never mind about the ladies; if you can honestly say of me, she is a good woman, you have paid me the highest possible tribute..... To be a good wife and mother is the end toward which I aspire. To hold the respect and love of my husband is the greatest object of my life.
Gene Stratton-Porter
لم تعد لدي دموع لأذرفها فقد نفدت منذ زمن طويل، ولكن ألماً جديداً ووعياً جديداً ولدا في داخلي. بدأ الغموض المتوطن في داخلي يتبخر، وزال الألم الذي شعر به الولد الصغير الذي حدق في المرآة. لقد استيقظت إنسانيتي الخاصة، وصعدت لتحييني بمصافحة، فيما راقبت بزوغ نور الشمس الأول فوق الأفق. قلت لنفسي إن هناك فرقاً كبيراً بين الموت والحياة، وأن أعظم هدية يمكن أن يعطيها الإنسان لشخص آخر هي الحياة، وأن أعظم خطيئة يمكن أن يرتكبها الإنسان بحق شخص آخر هي سلب هذه الحياة، إلى جانب ذلك، فإن جميع القوانين والأديان تصبح شيئاً ثانوياً .. مجرد كلمات ومعتقدات يختار الناس الإيمان بها والكره والقتل باسمها. لن أعيش حياتي على هذا النحو، وآمل أن أولادي لن يعيشوا كذلك أيضاً
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment—with which your eyes are now almost overflowing—with which your heart is heaving—with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent—my arms wait to receive her.
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
Had I life to live over, I see now where I could do more; but neighbour, believe me, my highest aspiration is to be a clean, thrifty housekeeper, a bountiful cook, a faithful wife, a sympathetic mother. That is life work for any woman, and to be a good woman is the greatest thing on earth. Never mind about the ladies; if you can honestly say of me, she is a good woman, you have paid me the highest possible tribute.
Gene Stratton-Porter (Laddie: A True Blue Story)
As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from---where she was born, who her parents were. When I asked she'd say, "God made me." When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light-skinned," and change the subject. She raised twelve black children and sent us all to college and in most cases graduate school. Her children became doctors, professors, chemists, teachers---yet none of us even knew her maiden name until we were grown. It took me fourteen years to unearth her remarkable story---the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, she married a black man in 1942---and she revealed it more as a favor to me than out of any desire to revisit her past. Here is her life as she told it to me, and betwixt and between the pages of her life you will find mine as well.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Seven matched with seven, at each gate one, Their captains, when the day was done, Left for our Zeus who turned the scale, The brazen tribute in full tale: - All save the horror-burdened pair, Dire children of despair, Who from one sire, one mother, drawing breath, Each with conquering lance in rest Against a true born brother's breast, Found equal lots in death.
Sophocles (Antigone)
At her funeral, my siblings and I referred to her as the North Star, a tribute to her unerring gift for helping us to find our bearings in life even in the most turbulent of circumstances
Sue Klebold (A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy)
Sometimes without conscious realization, our thoughts, our faith, our interests are entered into the past. We talk about other times, other places, other persons, and lose our living hold on the present. Sometimes we think if we could just go back in time we would be happy. But anyone who attempts to reenter the past is sure to be disappointed. Anyone who has ever revisited the place of his birth after years of absence is shocked by the difference between the way the place actually is, and the way he has remembered it. He may walk along the old familiar streets and roads, but he is a stranger in a strange land. He has thought of this place as home, but he finds he is no longer here even in spirit. He has gone on to a new and different life, and in thinking longingly of the past, he has been giving thought and interest to something that no longer really exists. This being true of the physical self, how much more true it is of the spiritual self.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Yet being in the spotlight is also dangerous because a child's success may be construed by a narcissistic mother as competition. In self-defense, a son or daughter may insist that any achievement is a fluke, and any award is undeserved or is really a tribute to their mother. They suppress their own healthy narcissism to please a mother . . they believe any success is a mistake and at any moment they will be "found out" and identified as a fake or a fraud. The mind-set is, "I am succeeding because I can fake excellence, but inside I am not really worthy or not really able." Such self-effacement is common in people who are pressured to excel and also primed to assure others . . . that they are subservient and inferior.
Terri Apter (Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power)
On the conversion of the European tribes to Christianity the ancient pagan worship was by no means incontinently abandoned. So wholesale had been the conversion of many peoples, whose chiefs or rulers had accepted the new faith on their behalf in a summary manner, that it would be absurd to suppose that any, general acquiescence in the new gospel immediately took place. Indeed, the old beliefs lurked in many neighbourhoods, and even a renaissance of some of them occurred in more than one area. Little by little, however, the Church succeeded in rooting out the public worship of the old pagan deities, but it found it quite impossible to effect an entire reversion of pagan ways, and in the end compromised by exalting the ancient deities to the position of saints in its calendar, either officially, or by usage. In the popular mind, however, these remained as the fairies of woodland and stream, whose worship in a broken-down form still flourished at wayside wells and forest shrines. The Matres, or Mother gods, particularly those of Celtic France and Ireland, the former of which had come to be Romanized, became the bonnes dames of folklore, while the dusii and pilosi, or hairy house-sprites, were so commonly paid tribute that the Church introduced a special question concerning them into its catechism of persons suspected of pagan practice. Nevertheless, the Roman Church, at a somewhat later era, reversed its older and more catholic policy, and sternly set its face against the cultus of paganism in Europe, stigmatizing the several kinds of spirits and derelict gods who were the objects of its worship as demons and devils, whom mankind must eschew with the most pious care if it were to avoid damnation.
Lewis Spence (British Fairy Origins)
It lifts my spirits to see the statues of mothers, working women, and female peasants. These respectful and well-maintained tributes to women make the day special for me; this art is a lasting reminder that women matter in these rural Spanish towns and that women's contributions are remembered.
Jane V. Blanchard (Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino)
My mother, Delle Hunter, was a physically small woman, yet she was the biggest person I’ve ever known. She had total focus, an attribute that deeply impressed me. She taught me by example that how we live impacts how we die. She lived a life of courage, beauty, and integrity; she died in the same manner.
Laurie Buchanan
Words I Should Have Told My Mother A tribute to my beloved Mother I love you for being Wonderful Colourful Powerful Prayerful Beautiful Cheerful Kind Wise Lovely Loving Noble Confident Excellent Perfect Patient Resilient Significant A warrior And for being great! These are the words I should have told my loving Mother!
Gift Gugu Mona (From My Mother's Classroom: A Badge of Honour for a Remarkable Woman)
Many would be surprised to find that there is a whole world of woemen and girls who dedicate a significant portion of theri energy and emotions into the concept of story found in countless genres. These woman are often left out when you limit your definition of fangirl to geek or musik culture. This book is a tribute to my fiction-loving tribe. It's for the law student who unearths strength from the strut of a TV attorney. For the mother who unwinds with a glass of wine and a little bit of zombie apocalypse. For the teenage rwho points to a novel's heroine and says, "Yes. I'll have more of that please." To the woman and girls who get that forming online friendships isn't a symptom of isolation from reality but an opportunity to from commmon bonds that will cheer us through our victories and comfort us when life gets rough.
Kathleen Smith (The Fangirl Life: A Guide to All the Feels and Learning How to Deal)
Now the birth of Gorbonian was as follows. His father the King, having defended his counties against the Flemish invaders, brought upon the land a time of feasting and plenty; and tribute did issue from the land all round, in gratitude to King Morvidus, who, though his mother had come from some far country, none knew which, did now guard his kingdom from marauders. And the people did say, that there was none so worthy as King
John Darnielle (Devil House)
On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.” My mother gives a faint shriek and Prim buries her face in her hands, but I feel more like the people I see in the crowd on television. Slightly baffled. What does it mean? Existing pool of victors? Then I get it, what it means. At least, for me. District 12 only has three existing victors to choose from. Two male. One female . . . I am going back into the arena.
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
A Little Note to My Late Mother Today is Sunday the 13th March 2016, it is a Mother's Day here in the UK and I'm missing you desperately ntombi kaMdyogolo, mamtipha, bhayeni, manzimade, yiwa. There is no day, no moment that goes by without thinking of you precious mother. Your priceless love carries me day in day out. Your voice of love whispers in my ears morning, noon and night. Your teachings are giving me the reason to live and I'm so proud and blessed to be the seed of your blessed womb. I wish you were here to see your grandchildren who make me proud to be a mother too and a proud grandmother. Your great grandchildren are beautiful and graceful. Happy Mothersday mama and your precious soul may rest in peace my beautiful mother. I love you forever.
Euginia Herlihy
There is a musical instrument, one that is in fact little more than a toy, that we in Viron used to call Molpe’s dulcimer. Strings are arranged in a certain way and drawn tight above a chamber of thin wood that swells the sound when they are strummed by the wind. Horn made several for his young siblings before we went into the tunnels; when I made them, I dreamed of making a better one someday, one constructed with all the knowledge and care that a great craftsman would bring to the task, a fitting tribute to Molpe. I have never built it, as you will have guessed already. I have the craft now, perhaps; but I have never had the musical knowledge the task would require, and I never will. If I had built it, it might have sounded something like that, because I would have made it sound as much like a human voice as I could; and if I were the great craftsman I once dreamed of becoming, I would have come very near—and yet not near enough. That is how it was with the Mother’s voice. It was lovely and uncanny, like Molpe’s dulcimer; and although it was not in truth very remote as well as I could judge, there was that in it that sounded very far away indeed. I have since thought that the distance was perhaps of time, that we heard a song on that warm, calm evening that was not merely hundreds but thousands of years old, sung as it had been sung when the Short Sun of Blue was yet young, and floating to us across that lonely sea with a pain of loss and longing that my poor words cannot express. No, not even if I could whisper them aloud to you of the future, and certainly not as I am constrained to speak to you now with Oreb’s laboring black wingfeather. Nor with a quill from any other bird that ever flew. *
Gene Wolfe (On Blue's Waters (The Book of the Short Sun, #1))
Time out of mind, Minos had been High King of all the islands; they had traded by his laws and paid him his tribute. From Dia it had been very great, because the land was rich. This year it had been due again; now they would keep for themselves their olives and corn and sheep and honey, and their wine, than which there is none better; and all their boys and girls would dance at home. There was a feast tomorrow, of Dionysos, who himself planted the vine there, when he came sailing from the east as bridegroom of the Mother; and they would keep the day as it had never been kept before. But it surpassed all the rest for them, when they heard who Ariadne was. The people are mixed in Dia, but Naxos and its royal house are Cretan, the ancient stock without Hellene blood. They have the old religion, and a reigning Queen. So when they saw the Goddess-on-Earth among them, it was a greater thing than if Minos himself had come.
Mary Renault (The King Must Die (Theseus, #1))
Tito looked eagerly toward the dark crest of the mountain, behind which the sky pulsed in the morning light. Now a fragment of the rocky ridge flashed violently like a glowing metal beginning to melt. The crest blurred and seemed suddenly lower, as if it were melting down, and from the fiery gap the dazzling sun appeared. Simultaneously, the ground, the house, and their shore of the lake were illuminated, and the two, standing in the strong radiance, instantly felt the delightful warmth of this light. The boy, filled with the solemn beauty of the moment and the glorious sensation of his youth and strength, stretched his limbs with rhythmic arm movements, which his whole body soon took up, celebrating the break of day in an enthusiastic dance and expressing his deep oneness with the surging, radiant elements. His steps flew in joyous homage toward the victorious sun and reverently retreated from it; his outspread arms embraced mountain, lake, and sky; kneeling, he seemed to pay tribute to the earth mother, and extending his hands, to the waters of the lake; he offered himself, his youth, his freedom, his burning sense of is own life, like a festive sacrifice to the powers. The sunlight gleamed on his tanned shoulders; his eyes were half-closed to the dazzle; his young face stared masklike with an expression of inspired, almost fanatical gravity.
Hermann Hesse (The Glass Bead Game)
The Jewel in Her Crown, which showed the old Queen (whose image the children now no doubt confused with the person of Miss Crane) surrounded by representative figures of her Indian Empire: princes, landowners, merchants, moneylenders, sepoys, farmers, servants, children, mothers, and remarkably clean and tidy beggars. The Queen was sitting on a golden throne, under a crimson canopy, attended by her temporal and spiritual aides: soldiers, statesmen and clergy. The canopied throne was apparently in the open air because there were palm trees and a sky showing a radiant sun bursting out of bulgy clouds such as, in India, heralded the wet monsoon. Above the clouds flew the prayerful figures of the angels who were the benevolent spectators of the scene below. Among the statesmen who stood behind the throne one was painted in the likeness of Mr. Disraeli holding up a parchment map of India to which he pointed with obvious pride but tactful humility. An Indian prince, attended by native servants, was approaching the throne bearing a velvet cushion on which he offered a large and sparkling gem. The children in the school thought that this gem was the jewel referred to in the title. Miss Crane had been bound to explain that the gem was simply representative of tribute, and that the jewel of the title was India herself, which had been transferred from the rule of the British East India Company to the rule of the British Crown in 1858, the year after the Mutiny when the sepoys in the service of the Company (that first set foot in India in the seventeenth century) had risen in rebellion, and attempts had been made to declare an old Moghul prince king in Delhi, and that the picture had been painted after 1877, the year in which Victoria was persuaded by Mr. Disraeli to adopt the title Empress of India.
Paul Scott (The Jewel in the Crown (The Raj Quartet, #1))
The birds had multiplied. She'd installed rows upon rows of floating melamine shelves above shoulder height to accommodate the expression of her once humble collection. Though she'd had bird figurines all over the apartment, the bulk of her prized collection was confined to her bedroom because it had given her joy to wake up to them every morning. Before I'd left, I had a tradition of gifting her with bird figurines. It began with a storm petrel, a Wakamba carving of ebony wood from Kenya I had picked up at the museum gift shop from a sixth-grade school field trip. She'd adored the unexpected birthday present, and I had hunted for them since. Clusters of ceramic birds were perched on every shelf. Her obsession had brought her happiness, so I'd fed it. The tiki bird from French Polynesia nested beside a delft bluebird from the Netherlands. One of my favorites was a glass rainbow macaw from an Argentinian artist that mimicked the vibrant barrios of Buenos Aires. Since the sixth grade, I'd given her one every year until I'd left: eight birds in total. As I lifted each member of her extensive bird collection, I imagined Ma-ma was with me, telling a story about each one. There were no signs of dust anywhere; cleanliness had been her religion. I counted eighty-eight birds in total. Ma-ma had been busy collecting while I was gone. I couldn't deny that every time I saw a beautiful feathered creature in figurine form, I thought of my mother. If only I'd sent her one, even a single bird, from my travels, it could have been the precursor to establishing communication once more. Ma-ma had spoken to her birds often, especially when she cleaned them every Saturday morning. I had imagined she was some fairy-tale princess in the Black Forest holding court over an avian kingdom. I was tempted to speak to them now, but I didn't want to be the one to convey the loss of their queen. Suddenly, however, Ma-ma's collection stirred. It began as a single chirp, a mournful cry swelling into a chorus. The figurines burst into song, tiny beaks opening, chests puffed, to release a somber tribute to their departed beloved. The tune was unfamiliar, yet its melancholy was palpable, rising, surging until the final trill when every bird bowed their heads toward the empty bed, frozen as if they hadn't sung seconds before. I thanked them for the happiness they'd bestowed on Ma-ma.
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune)
Blessed Man” is a tribute to Updike’s tenacious maternal grandmother, Katherine Hoyer, who died in 1955. Inspired by an heirloom, a silver thimble engraved with her initials, a keepsake Katherine gave to John and Mary as a wedding present (their best present, he told his mother), the story is an explicit attempt to bring her back to life (“O Lord, bless these poor paragraphs, that would do in their vile ignorance Your work of resurrection”), and a meditation on the extent to which it’s possible to recapture experience and preserve it through writing. The death of his grandparents diminished his family by two fifths and deprived him of a treasured part of his past, the sheltered years of his youth and childhood. Could he make his grandmother live again on the page? It’s certainly one of his finest prose portraits, tender, clear-eyed, wonderfully vivid. At one point the narrator remembers how, as a high-spirited teenager, he would scoop up his tiny grandmother, “lift her like a child, crooking one arm under her knees and cupping the other behind her back. Exultant in my height, my strength, I would lift that frail brittle body weighing perhaps a hundred pounds and twirl with it in my arms while the rest of the family watched with startled smiles of alarm.” When he adds, “I was giving my past a dance,” we hear the voice of John Updike exulting in his strength. Katherine takes center stage only after an account of the dramatic day of her husband’s death. John Hoyer died a few months after John and Mary were married, on the day both the newlyweds and Mary’s parents were due to arrive in Plowville. From this unfortunate coincidence, the Updike family managed to spin a pair of short stories. Six months before he wrote “Blessed Man,” Updike’s mother had her first story accepted by The New Yorker. For years her son had been doing his filial best to help get her work published—with no success. In college he sent out the manuscript of her novel about Ponce de León to the major Boston publishers, and when he landed at The New Yorker he made sure her stories were read by editors instead of languishing in the slush pile. These efforts finally bore fruit when an editor at the magazine named Rachel MacKenzie championed “Translation,” a portentous family saga featuring Linda’s version of her father’s demise. Maxwell assured Updike that his colleagues all thought his mother “immensely gifted”; if that sounds like tactful exaggeration, Maxwell’s idea that he could detect “the same quality of mind running through” mother and son is curious to say the least. Published in The New Yorker on March 11, 1961, “Translation” was signed Linda Grace Hoyer and narrated by a character named Linda—but it wasn’t likely to be mistaken for a memoir. The story is overstuffed with biblical allusion, psychodrama, and magical thinking, most of it Linda’s. She believes that her ninety-year-old father plans to be translated directly to heaven, ascending like Elijah in a whirlwind, with chariots of fire, and to pass his mantle to a new generation, again like Elijah. It’s not clear whether this grand design is his obsession, as she claims, or hers. As it happens, the whirlwind is only a tussle with his wife that lands the old folks on the floor beside the bed. Linda finds them there and says, “Of all things. . . . What are you two doing?” Her father answers, his voice “matter-of-fact and conversational”: “We are sitting on the floor.” Having spoken these words, he dies. Linda’s son Eric (a writer, of course) arrives on the scene almost immediately. When she tells him, “Grampy died,” he replies, “I know, Mother, I know. It happened as we turned off the turnpike. I felt
Adam Begley (Updike)
It’s a tribute to his late mother—a phrase she used after she had a fantastic dinner, or after a perfect day, or when an experience was so meaningful it changed the course of her life. “OH, DID WE ENJOY.” I love that. Oh, did we enjoy. Indeed. We did.
Casey Wilson (The Wreckage of My Presence: Essays)
He wears a boring suit and a fresh haircut to please his mother, but the purple tie and pocket square are my uncle’s tribute to Prince.
Angeline Boulley (Firekeeper’s Daughter)
I should like to pay a special tribute to my mother, to whom this book is dedicated. Like a gentle, enthusiastic, and understanding Noah, she has steered her vessel full of strange progeny through the stormy seas of life with great skill, always faced with the possibility of mutiny, always surrounded by the dangerous shoals of overdraft and extravagance, never being sure that her navigation would be approved by the crew, but certain that she would be blamed for anything that went wrong. That she survived the voyage is a miracle, but survive it she did, and, moreover, with her reason more or less intact.
Gerald Durrell (My Family and Other Animals (Corfu Trilogy #1))
The Daglan ruled over the High Fae. And we, in turn, ruled the humans, along with the lands the Daglan allowed us to govern. Yet it was an illusion of power. We knew who our true masters were. We were forced to make the Tithe to them once a year. To offer up kernels of our power in tribute. To fuel their own power—and to limit our own. Bryce’s breath caught in her throat as an image of a Fae female kneeling at the foot of a throne appeared, a seed of light in her upheld hands. Smooth, delicate fingers closed around the Fae female’s droplet of power. It flickered, illumining pale skin. The hand that had claimed the power lifted, and Bryce stilled as the memory zoomed out to reveal the hand’s bearer: a black-haired, white-skinned Asteri. There was no mistaking the cold, otherworldly eyes. She lounged in golden robes, a crown of stars upon her head. Her red lips pulled back in a cold smile as her hand closed tightly around the seed of power. It faded into nothing, absorbed into the Asteri’s body. The Daglan became arrogant as the millennia passed, sure of their unending dominion over our world. But their overconfidence eventually blinded them to the enemies amassing at their backs, a force like none that had been gathered before. Bryce’s breath remained caught in her throat, Nesta still as death at her side, as the scene shifted to show a golden-haired High Fae female standing a step behind the Asteri’s throne. Her chin was lifted, her face as cold as her mistress’s. My mother served at that monster’s side for a century, a slave to her every sick whim. Bryce knew who it was before Silene spoke again. Knew whose truth she’d been led here, across the stars, to learn at last. Theia.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
Judaism—that some of its followers, old southern crackers who talked with southern twangs and wore straw hats, seemed to believe that its covenants went beyond the color of one’s skin.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
Why, she isn’t even crying!” she heard people say at her mother’s funeral, as if it was for this moist tribute that people died. People were always wanting children to cry and prove again and again their helplessness, so that they might take advantage of it.
Dawn Powell (A Time to Be Born)
Despite the brightness of the sun, I shivered in the brisk November air, for I had not taken a cloak with me when I had left my parlor. As if by magic, one fell about my shoulders, and I knew without looking that Narian had joined us. His mere presence bolstered my courage and brought my thoughts into focus. I scanned the throng of eager Hytanicans, some of whom were gathered inside the Central Courtyard with more outside its walls, then raised my hands to quiet them. Taking a deep breath, I began to speak. “Spread the word. Tell your families and friends. Let it be known across the Recorah River Valley that I am proud to be Queen of this Kingdom of Hytanica!” Cheers exploded, rising and falling in waves, and I let myself enjoy the sights and sounds of victory for several minutes. Then I once more raised my hands to quell the crowd. “Be it known that Commander Narian stands with me as a loyal citizen of Hytanica. Without him, I would not have been able to travel to Cokyri and safely return. And without him, I would not have been able to begin negotiations for lasting peace with the High Priestess. I believe a trade treaty that is fair for both of our countries will soon be signed. Regardless, we stand here now and forevermore as a people free of Cokyrian rule.” Jubilant shouts greeted these words, and I took Narian’s hand in mine, raising it high into the air. The people did not know that we were in love. They did not know that we were bound to each other according to Cokyrian custom and would soon be joined in marriage under Hytanican law. But this was a step forward, and that was enough for now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother appear at Narian’s other side to likewise take his hand and hold it aloft in a show of support. When the rest of my family followed her lead, my father next to my mother, Miranna and Temerson at my side, tears spilled down my cheeks. I met Narian’s mystified blue eyes and smiled, then gazed out at our people, a member of a united royal family, the man I loved among us. When the noise had subsided, I addressed the sorrow that hid beneath the joy, for it was essential to pay tribute to those who had fought bravely and tirelessly, but had not lived to see this day. “We all know the terrible price that was paid for our freedom. Remember those who died in the war. Honor them in your hearts, and join with me in honoring them with a memorial on the palace grounds. Let those who gave their lives for this kingdom never be forgotten.” I paused, permitting a moment of silence for our lost loved ones, then finished, “Embrace your families. Return to your homes. And know that you go in peace.” This received perhaps the greatest response of anything I had said, and to the tumultuous cries of my tired but elated people, Narian and I reentered the palace.
Cayla Kluver (Sacrifice (Legacy, #3))
(On the abdication of Edward VIII) My mother, then a woman of 34 with three young children, thought it was simply the most romantic story in the world: she also saw it as a tribute to women in general that a woman could wield such power over a king. it meant much more to her - in terms of female empowerment - than carrying placards and placing bombs in letterboxes, as the suffragettes had done.
Mary Kenny (Crown and Shamrock: Love and Hate Between Ireland and the British Monarchy)
See, a marriage needs love. And God. And a little money. That's all. The rest you can deal with. It's not about black or white. It's about God and don't let anyone tell you different. All this Jungle fever! Shoot! The Jungle fever goes away, honey, and then what are you gonna do?
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
intricate patterns on the pavement. Her enormous brown eyes glittered with happiness at the attention she had attracted. Sarah wasn’t the only passerby who had stopped to watch, entranced. Then the song ended, and the gathered crowd applauded. The girl bobbed a curtsey and looked around expectantly. In a moment, coins appeared, fished from pockets and purses and offered in tribute. The coins disappeared again as if by magic, spirited away by little fingers as nimble as the little feet had been and deposited into the pocket of her dress. While the crowd disbursed, the girl turned and hurried back to the man who had produced the music. That was when Sarah recalled her purpose in being here. The child was emptying her pocket and giving the coins to a handsome youth who sat on a small stool with his back against the building. He held the organ between his knees, resting on a small stand. He wore a dark shirt and trousers and had a red bandanna tied rakishly at his throat. He looked so perfect that Sarah almost didn’t notice the wooden crutches tucked discreetly between his stool and the wall. Finally, she saw the pant leg pinned up at the ankle. She’d never expected Georgio to have a child, which was why she’d been so slow to realize she’d found him. Taking advantage of this lull, she stepped over to where the man and the girl were conversing in Italian. There seemed to be some question about whether she’d given him all the coins she’d collected. “Georgio?” Sarah tried. He looked up from beneath the bill of his small cap. His eyes were dark and liquid, his smile big and bright and charming. “Si, Signorina, do you want to see the little one dance?” His English was very good, probably honed from conversing with his customers. “No, although she dances very well,” Sarah added, giving the child an approving smile, in case she didn’t understand the compliment. “I wanted to ask you about your sister Emilia.” His charming smile vanished, and the dark eyes grew wary. “She is dead,” he said very carefully. “I know. I’m very sorry.” “Who are you and what do you want?” he asked suspiciously. When he frowned, Sarah realized how much he looked like his mother. “My name is Sarah Brandt, and I met Emilia at the Prodigal Son Mission.” His expression hardened from wariness into anger. Plainly, none of the Donato family had any love for the mission. “She was such a lovely girl, and she was trying very hard to become a respectable young woman,” Sarah hurried on, wishing she had some idea how Georgio felt about his sister. Seeing that the grown-ups were going to talk a bit, the little girl sank down onto the pavement with a weary sigh and leaned back against the wall. Sarah wondered vaguely how many times she
Victoria Thompson (Murder on Mulberry Bend (Gaslight Mystery, #5))
A part war drama, part coming-of-age story, part spiritual pilgrimage, Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is the story of a young woman who experienced more hardships before graduating high school than most people do in a lifetime. Yet her heartaches are only half the story; the other half is a story of resilience, of leaving her lifelong home in Germany to find a new home, a new life, and a new love in America. Mildred Schindler Janzen has given us a time capsule of World War II and the years following it, filled with pristinely preserved memories of a bygone era. Ken Gire New York Times bestselling author of All the Gallant Men The memoir of Mildred Schindler Janzen will inform and inspire all who read it. This is a work that pays tribute to the power and resiliency of the human spirit to endure, survive, and overcome in pursuit of the freedom and liberty that all too many take for granted. Kirk Ford, Jr., Professor Emeritus, History Mississippi College Author of OSS and the Yugoslav Resistance, 1943-1945 A compelling first-person account of life in Germany during the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party. A well written, true story of a young woman overcoming the odds and rising above the tragedies of loss of family and friends during a savage and brutal war, culminating in her triumph in life through sheer determination and will. A life lesson for us all. Col. Frank Janotta (Retired), Mississippi Army National Guard Mildred Schindler Janzen’s touching memoir is a testimony to God’s power to deliver us from the worst evil that men can devise. The vivid details of Janzen’s amazing life have been lovingly mined and beautifully wrought by Sherye Green into a tender story of love, gratitude, and immeasurable hope. Janzen’s rich, post-war life in Kansas serves as a powerful reminder of the great promise of America. Troy Matthew Carnes, Author of Rasputin’s Legacy and Dudgeons and Daggers World War II was horrific, and we must never forget. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is a must-read that sheds light on the pain the Nazis and then the Russians inflicted on the German Jews and the German people. Mildred Schindler Janzen’s story, of how she and her mother and brother survived the war and of the special document that allowed Mildred to come to America, is compelling. Mildred’s faith sustained her during the war's horrors and being away from her family, as her faith still sustains her today. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is a book worth buying for your library, so we never forget. Cynthia Akagi, Ph.D. Northcentral University I wish all in the world could read Mildred’s story about this loving steel magnolia of a woman who survived life under Hitler’s reign. Mildred never gave up, but with each suffering, grew stronger in God’s strength and eternal hope. Beautifully written, this life story will captivate, encourage, and empower its readers to stretch themselves in life, in love, and with God, regardless of their circumstances. I will certainly recommend this book. Renae Brame, Author of Daily Devotions with Our Beloved, God’s Peaceful Waters Flow, and Snow and the Eternal Hope How utterly inspiring to read the life story of a woman whose every season reflects God’s safe protection and unfailing love. When young Mildred Schindler escaped Nazi Germany, only to have her father taken by Russians and her mother and brother hidden behind Eastern Europe’s Iron Curtain, she courageously found a new life in America. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is her personal witness to God’s guidance and provision at every step of that perilous journey. How refreshing to view a full life from beginning to remarkable end – always validating that nothing is impossible with God. Read this book and you will discover the author’s secret to life: “My story is a declaration that choosing joy and thankfulness over bitterness and anger, even amid difficult circumsta
MILDRED SCHINDLER JANZEN
Dennis McBride: Sometimes without conscious realization, our thoughts, our faith, our interests are entered into the past. We talk about other times, other places, other persons, and lose our living hold on the present. Sometimes we think if we could just go back in time we would be happy. But anyone who attempts to reenter the past is sure to be disappointed. Anyone who has ever revisited the place of his birth after years of absence is shocked by the difference between the way the place actually is, and the way he has remembered it. He may walk along the old familiar streets and roads, but he is a stranger in a strange land. He has thought of this place as home, but he finds he is no longer here even in spirit. He has gone on to a new and different life, and in thinking longingly of the past, he has been giving thought and interest to something that no longer really exists. This being true of the physical self, how much more true it is of the spiritual self.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
A Better Future A special tribute to my beautiful Mother When you were strict towards me I thought you were being mean When you advised me to behave I would sometimes misbehave When you instilled discipline I assumed you were ill-treating me When you taught about being responsible I did not want to be accountable When you told me to go to school I felt it was not cool When you gave me less money for lunch I somehow expected more When you asked for my homework I was keen to do nothing When you said I should pray I only wanted to play Mother! It was because back then I did not know, but now I realise You were preparing me For a better future!
Gift Gugu Mona (From My Mother's Classroom: A Badge of Honour for a Remarkable Woman)
Master English language. But do not become its slave.
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
Many times true merit and creativity, gets suppressed by various contemporary vested powerful political and commercial factors. This happens in all spheres of human endeavor. Whereas political and commercial considerations get swept away by the unending march of time, regardless of how powerful they are in their prime times, true talent eventually bubbles up to be rediscovered, to be cherished, albeit even generations down the line.. time can never erase that.
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
The key to excellence in any subject is to keep revisiting the fundamentals from different angles and perspectives.
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
I do not know whether I'm good or bad at what I do.. But one thing I know for sure... I LOVE THE PRACTICE.. those.each and every steps, that at the least points me in the direction of excellence regardless of whether I make it there or not.
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
I do not know whether I'm good or bad at what I do.. But one thing I know for sure... I LOVE THE PRACTICE.. those each and every steps, that micro-crawl me or, at the least, point me in the direction of excellence regardless of whether I make it there or not. Good Day Dr Sivaram Hariharan
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
I do not know whether I'm good or bad at what I do.. But one thing I know for sure... I LOVE THE PRACTICE.. those each and every steps, that at the least points me in the direction of excellence regardless of whether I make it there or not.
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
After the events chronicled here, the tales told about Poe Didelot and his mother, Rose, became darker, but not a whit more true. That they persist to this day is a tribute to the human tendency to cling to a falsehood, even when the unadorned truth stands before us, solid and incontrovertible as an oak tree. The fabrications of decades cannot be swept away with a wave of the hand, but there is surely no harm in attempting to set down the truth for posterity, or preparing the visitor for an excursion to a part of this country that may seem like the setting for a dark fairy tale.
Jack Todd (Rose & Poe)
Italians were confined to the district by a combination of illiteracy and the constant tribute demanded by their wayward countrymen. It was a ghetto ruled by the Black Hand, a criminal organization with roots in Sicily. And though the mobsters carried black-handled revolvers as they conducted business in the neighborhood, the name Black Hand originated in the old country. Mob activity flourished during that era. A train of organized corruption ran from Cleveland to Canton to Steubenville. Cherry Street was the center of the Canton action, an avenue where racketeering joints and roving prostitutes vied for the same souls as St. Anthony’s Catholic Church.
Raymond Arroyo (Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles)
Firstly, Confucianism was a Chinese belief system. Within that small sentence, you can see two problems. Vietnam was being dominated by a foreign power to whom they were forced to pay tribute. And secondly, over the centuries, Vietnamese society had developed into an almost matriarchal society. While women were infrequently the rulers of the country, they held great influence at the highest levels of court, and they were the authority in the home and, many times, the village. This holds true to a great degree to this day. Perhaps a better adjective is “matrifocal,” as the mother is the focus of society, the glue that holds the family and society
Captivating History (History of Vietnam: A Captivating Guide to Vietnamese History)
I was enchanted as soon as I stepped off the train. As were the hundreds of others who got off the train with me who were now in the process of climbing into buggies and wagons, en route to the dozens of resorts, enclaves, and tent campgrounds in the area, where they would soak up the sun, get drunk on Cabernet, swim and picnic in the druidy redwood groves while reciting Shakespeare. I climbed into a wagon and was driven off by a Mr. Lars Magnusson to view the old Olson farm. We traveled a mile or so into the hills, past oak glens, brooks, and pools of water, past manzanitas, madrones, and trees dripping with Spanish moss. Sonoma Mountain was to the west; its shadow cast everything in a soft purple light. When we finally reached the farm and I saw the luscious valley spread out in front of me, I knew this was it. Greengage. It would be a home for me and Martha at first, but I hoped it would soon be something more. A tribute to my mother and her ideals; a community in which she would have flourished, where she would have lived a good long life. Greengage.The burbling creek that ran smack down the middle of the property. The prune, apple, and almond orchards: the fields of wheat, potatoes, and melons. The pastures for cows and sheep. The chicken house and pigsty. The gentle, sloping hills, mounds that looked like God's knuckles, where I would one day plant a vineyard.
Melanie Gideon (Valley of the Moon)
Now he was as lost as the rest of us, and didn't know his way out of the particular patch of woods and that homestead any more than a bird knows his way out of a privy with the door closed, but he was the leader, and he had found what he wanted.
James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother)
in the bowl distill a word most bitter, marah, a word bitterer still, mar, sea, brine, breaker, seducer . . . till marah-mar are melted, fuse and join and change and alter, mer, mere, mère, mater, Maia, Mary, Star of the Sea, Mother.
H.D. (Trilogy: The Walls Do Not Fall / Tribute to the Angels / The Flowering of the Rod)
In science lies the seeds of spiritualism and in spiritualism, the sprouting of science. The energetics sacrifice of an individual atom for the greater good of the molecular system, those various examples of resonance for greater stability, reflects an harmony for the greater good that is at the very basis of the ethos of our ancient Vedas and Sanaathana Dharma - Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu .. In that greater universal good lies our own good... Dr Sivaram Hariharan
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
To practice is not to be perfect. To practice is to savor the journey to excellence even if your destination is unattainable
Syd K. (I-Tigress: A letter to humans: A Tribute to Fighting Mothers)
A Tribute to the Kite .....Oh such joy what a splendor has never been heard of a string that would lend you the wings of a bird. Sara Loo, Mother Goose Move Over or you're gonna love poetry
Sara Loo
A Tribute to the Kite .....Oh such joy what a splendor has never been heard of a string that would lend you the wings of a bird. Sara Loo,'Mother Goose Move Over or you're gonna love poetry
Sara Loo
Brad, I first saw you about twenty-five years ago at a Frontrunner's run around Silver Lake reservoir. I thought you were drop-dead gorgeous! Then I saw that you were the best runner in the club to boot. Later, I learned that you had already run two marathons. I decided you were going to train me for my first marathon. And you did. You did a good job because I finished that 26.2 mile run. Since then, we've been running the marathon of life together for the last 21 years. In those years, we've come to know each others' strengths, shortcomings, and where we complement each other. Brad, you are an organized, detail obsessed, punctuality driven control freak. I'm easy-going with details. So we're a perfect fit. We've worked together, achieved together, and enjoyed the fruits of our achievements together. When my mother became ill and no longer could take care of herself, we moved her in with us. And you helped me care for her with the devotion and affection of a true son. So my vow to you is also a tribute to you. As we bind our love with this wedding ceremony, in this forum of democracy, in this September of my life, I vow to care for you as you've cared for me, cherish you with all my heart, and love you as my husband and the only man in my life. I love you very much.
George Takei
Packard and Giles entreated Rockefeller for a donation to secure the school on a permanent footing: “Give it a name; let it if you please be called Rockefeller College, or if you prefer let it take your good wife’s Maiden name or any other which suits you.” Although Rockefeller retired the $5,000 debt, he humbly declined to use his own name. Instead, in a fitting tribute to his in-laws, he opted for the Spelman name, thus giving birth to Spelman Seminary, renamed Spelman College in 1924. It developed into one of America’s most respected schools for black women, counting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mother and grandmother among its many prominent alumnae.
Ron Chernow (Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.)
Other similarities between the Mexican and Christian religions include baptism and the end-of-October festival of "All Souls" or "All Saints Day." The Mexican fast for 40 days as a tribute to the god was essentially the same as the fasting of Jesus "forty days upon a mountain." Also, like Jesus (Rev. 22:16) and Lucifer (Is. 14:12: "Helel, son of the dawn"), the Mexican god Quetzalcoatl was the "morning star." Furthermore, the Mexicans revered the cross, upon which their god was nailed. Likewise, the Mexican Mother and Child were adored, and many Mexican sayings find their equivalents in the Judeo-Christian bible. Moreover, the Mexican priesthood was startlingly similar to that of Catholicism, with "fathers" who acted as confessors listening to penitents' sin and who prescribed prayers, penance and fasting. 14 Like that of Catholicism, the Mexican priesthood exacted tithes in order to support itself, and priests and nuns constituted the populace's teachers.15
D.M. Murdock (Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled)