Grandmother Quotes

“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”
― Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

“From her thighs, she gives you life
And how you treat she who gives you life
Shows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator.
And from seed to dust
There is ONE soul above all others --
That you must always show patience, respect, and trust
And this woman is your mother.
And when your soul departs your body
And your deeds are weighed against the feather
There is only one soul who can save yours
And this woman is your mother.
And when the heart of the universe
Asks her hair and mind,
Whether you were gentle and kind to her
Her heart will be forced to remain silent
And her hair will speak freely as a separate entity,
Very much like the seaweed in the sea --
It will reveal all that it has heard and seen.

This woman whose heart has seen yours,
First before anybody else in the world,
And whose womb had opened the door
For your eyes to experience light and more --
Is your very own MOTHER.
So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel,
Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childish
How you treat her is the ultimate test.
If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right way
With simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness.
And always remember,
That the queen in the Creator's kingdom,
Who sits on the throne of all existence,
Is exactly the same as in yours.
And her name is,
THE DIVINE MOTHER.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“And now you're off to Port Caynn. Watch them sailor lads. They'll have your skirts up and a babe in your belly afore you know what you're about."
"Everyone keep warning me about sailors," I complained. "Why can't someone tell the sailors to stay clear of me?"
Granny snorted. "Oh, you're the fierce one now! Just take care no one else catches you unawares and knocks you on the nob!”
― Tamora Pierce, Bloodhound

“The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby’s grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida.”
― Dave Barry

“To all those who care,
You can't forever.
Time steals the years,
And your reflection in the mirror.
But I can still see the story in your eyes,
And your timeless passion that’s never died.
While your skin became tired,
Your heart became strong,
The present became the past,
And your memories like a song.
And though the moment at hand is all that we have,
You’ve taught me to live it like it is our last.
Since two words don't say ‘thank you’ the way they are meant to,
I'll try all my life to be something like you.”
― Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading 2

“His grandmother had taught him that there was no such thing as coincidence. There are millions of people in this world, she had told him, and the spirits will see that most of them, you never have to meet. But there are one or two that you are tied to, and spirits will cross you back and forth, threading so many knots until they catch and you finally get it right.”
― Jodi Picoult

“And like that, I said goodbye to my grandmother like we were two people who met in a coffee shop, shared a lifetime of stories and left wanting more, but knowing we’d meet there again.”
― Darnell Lamont Walker

“I carry within me
the heart of a warrior,
the mind of a pharaoh,
the soul of a goddess
and the wisdom of
my grandmothers'
grandmothers.”
― grace gegenheimer

“Grandmotherhood initiated me into a world of play, where all things became fresh, alive, and honest again through my grandchildren's eyes. Mostly, it retaught me love.”
― Sue Monk Kidd

“Gran, for the gods' love, it's talk like yours that starts riots!" I said keeping my voice down. "Will you just put a stopper in it?"

She looked at me and sighed. "Girl, do you ever take a breath and wonder if folk don't put out bait for you? To see if you'll bite? You'll never get a man if you don't relax."

My dear old Gran. It's a wonder her children aren't every one of them as mad as priests, if she mangles their wits as she mangles mine.

"Granny, "I told her, "this is dead serious. I can't relax, no more than any Dog. I'm not shopping for a man. That's the last thing I need.”
― Tamora Pierce, Bloodhound

“TJ frowns; she can’t write about willing wind and water in the official report. Voicing elements is a rumor. However, she remembers what her grandmother said five decades ago when she was a child; (it was shortly after the war): “Anyone who trains hard can be a Grade A by the time they’re forty or fifty. But it takes decades more to become strong enough to voice one element.”
“One element?” TJ asked.
“Do you want to voice the entire universe then?”
“Can’t I?”

Grandmother didn’t answer, not directly anyway, as most great masters do. They never say you can’t do this or no one can do that or that thing is impossible just because they couldn’t do it, or because they hadn’t found it yet. True masters answer differently. Wisely. Like her grandmother answered that day.

“Do you know why we evolve, Tirity?”
“Because we’re supposed to?” TJ replied.
“Yes. It’s in the grand design. We’re ‘supposed to’ evolve. Not just in body, but also in mind,” she said. “In time. You see, time is the key. If given infinite time, you can evolve your mind infinitely. But we live only for a hundred years or so.”

“A hundred years is ‘only’?”
“You’re so young, Tirity! But yes, it is little for a complete cognitive evolution. Most hard trainers can prolong it to a couple of hundred years. They even get to call the wind or grow a giant plant that could touch the clouds. But voicing everything in the universe? I think only God can do it, the God who created everything with only words. And if God created the world so that he could see how far the humans can evolve, then I’d say, yes, even a human could get godly power. Godlier than voicing one or two elements. If. Given. The. Time.”

“How much time?”
“More than thousands of years, maybe. Could even need millions, who knows? …”

TJ smiles drily; she remembers how her eyes sparkled at the thought of becoming a goddess who could voice everything. She dreamed of flying in the air or walking in space. She thought of making her own garden full of giant flowers where only enormous butterflies would dance. Some days, when she played video games in VR, she even dreamed of voicing the thunder and lightning to join her wooden sword. She thought time could help her do it.

But she didn’t know then, time only makes you grow up.
Time steals your dreams.
Time only turns you into an adult.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Children should never have baths,’ my grandmother said. ‘It's a dangerous
habit.’
‘I agree, Grandmamma.”
― Roald Dahl, The Witches

“Grandmother didn’t answer, not directly anyway, as most great masters do. They never say you can’t do this or no one can do that or that thing is impossible just because they couldn’t do it, or because they hadn’t found it yet. True masters answer differently. Wisely. Like her grandmother answered that day.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“We believed in our grandmother’s cooking more fervently than we believed in God. Her culinary prowess was one of our family’s primal stories, like the cunning of the grandfather I never met, or the single fight of my parents’ marriage. We clung to those stories and depended on them to define us. We were the family that chose its battles wisely, and used wit to get out of binds, and loved the food of our matriarch.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“My grandmother was the only grandmother I ever met who smoked cigars.”
― Roald Dahl , The Witches

“The people we’d want to share it all with die before we get it.”
― Darnell Lamont Walker

“I haven't seen you in a while,
but today I was told you prayed for me.

And I prayed for the olive oil
when it slipped
from your hands
onto my scalp,
aching strands of hair
in the drought of being without you.”
― Mariam Dogar, Our Ancestors Did Not Breathe This Air

“Franny?” Rosy held up the four little Franks. “Could I keep one of these?”
Franny looked at her hard for a moment then nodded. “’Course you can, hen,” she said, “But that’s not your daddy.”
Rosy gaped. “It’s not?”
“That’s my wee darling. That’s my wee Frankie before the devil twisted him into a monster.” She poked her finger into another hole where Frank’s face should have been. Her eyes glinted.”
― R.G. Manse, Screw Friendship

“My grandmother used to complain about anything decorated with a skull. Said it was evil. This mostly stopped as I reminded her of the skull inside her own head.”
― Damon Thomas, Some Books Are Not For Sale

“I thought he was talking about my grandmother. I didn't want to see her. I knew she had died - of thirst, maybe - and I was afraid she wouldn't be as I remembered her. I was afraid she wouldn't have the black shawl on her head, nor those burning tears in her eyes, nor that clear, calm expression that could make you forget you were cold.”
― Elie Wiesel, Day

“It rises again, the frenzied smoke
as the phoenix rises from the ashes
shadows of dreams on the hills
a melange of memories

She speaks in unheard words
poignant with meanings deep
another bird of silence caws
as the breeze swirls and spins

My grandmother told me stories
about the mountains and the lakes
I saw the rainbows of hope
swaying to the music
as the daffodils of joy to the rain

The opalescent sky looks melancholy
as the clouds of Alzheimer's hover her life
perhaps she has not forgotten everything
I hope the moon tells her about me

I keep searching for my footsteps now
smudged in the sands of time
like the proverbial breeze that drifts
but never gets to stay a while

Gazing at old photographs, I keep
the memories treasured and vaulted
a boulevard of thatched moments
a promenade of myriad stories!”
― Avijeet Das

“Gentle Tree,
I can hear you speaking
Reminding me with your silence
Of what I all so often fail to see:
That within me
Is a tree
Reaching from seed towards star
Limited only by
How much of me I want to see
And how far I believe I can travel
Before I unravel
And my trunk becomes a branch
Which branches into tiny twigs
Each adorned with wigs
Of flowers nourished by rain showers
And visited by lots of little things
With wings and unique ways to sing.”
― Laughing Lion Silly Monkie, Rewilding Hypergraphia

“Eva was rather impressed that we had made all the necessary arrangements. I did not tell her that I would shortly be leaving my job, because already she had said that penniless people had no right to have children. She didn’t seem to think it was Charles’s baby — only mine, because later on, when I was upstairs putting on my coat, she kissed me quite kindly, but spoilt it by saying, ‘I shall never forgive you, Sophia, for making my son a father at twenty-one.’ I almost added, ‘And you a grandmother at forty-six.”
― Barbara Comyns, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

“With my grandmother, there’s always something to slow you down—if isn’t meatloaf, then she’s buttoned her blouse wrong, or she’s wearing slippers instead of shoes, or she’s waiting for Grandpa to come home, even though he died a long time ago.”
― Gordon Korman, The Unteachables

“She knew of a flower that grew in the clearing where she performed her rituals. It was the darkest green, so dark that it appeared black to most. She'd never seen it anywhere else, nor could she ever identify it using her numerous botany books. Her grandmother believed it grew out of the ashes of their words and intentions, that their work seeded and fertilized the blooms. If anything could offer transcendence in digestible form, it would be this.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“[Quoting her grandmother] 'We inherit our circumstances, we improve them for the next generation. I had little education, I wanted you to do better. Now you need to make sure your daughter has more than you had. Isn’t this the natural way of the world?”
― Elif Shafak, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division

“She'd lived long and survived some heartbreaking shit. Growing up with a father who spent most of his life sucking down whatever alcohol he could find only to escape to a husband who used his fists to carry his side of the conversation. The men in her life taught her to be on guard. Losing my mom, Gram's daughter, by her son-in-law's hand shaped everything that came after, including raising me to be bold, fight back, and detest violent men, especially the one who made my existence possible.”
― HelenKay Dimon, The Usual Family Mayhem

“My grandmother prayed on her knees until she couldn’t. And sitting hunched over in her wheelchair in the waning hours of her life, she would say that her heart was always on its knees even though the ability of her body to do so had long passed. And as long as I am able, both my body and my heart will remain on their knees because that is the only way that my soul is able to stand on its feet.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“This duet was my soundtrack. What my grandmother would call a ‘poor pearl’ mindset—always careful to overly dramatize the phrase and make ‘poor’ sound more like ‘paw’ before drawing out the ‘purl’ in her trademark Brooklyn/Italian drawl. Somewhere, Sergeant Stunod was rubbing his hands together, maniacally watching me slip into his shadow world. He could taste victory with each ‘poor purl’ I added to the string I was tripping over.
— Chapter One: Mosquitos | Miseries | Mindsets, p. 18”
― John S. Johnson, Breaking Building Belonging: Why the Voices We Follow Matter

“Tilting their heads over the pot, they sniffed the almost buttery sweetness of the jam.
"One final touch to make it perfect," her grandmother said, pulling a little brown glass jar out of a cupboard. "The trick to the perfect strawberry jam is a teaspoon of rosewater."
The heady scent of roses wafted through the kitchen.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Love at First Fright