Books

14 Quotes About Family From Books For Thanksgiving

by Sadie Trombetta

Though Halloween feels like it was just yesterday, the full-fledged holiday season is already upon us. You know what that means, don't you? Family time, and lots of it. There will be casual get-togethers, formal dinners, holiday parties, gift exchanges, you name it, and while many dread their awkward in-laws, drunken relatives, and inevitable drama, the holidays are supposed to be a time where families are celebrated. If you're not in the family-loving mood just yet, I have just the thing for you: loving quotes about families from books.

Though you might not be ready to spread love and cheer to all of your relatives, literature always is. Sure, there are plenty of books with dysfunctional families and holiday dinners you would never want to be at, but there are still authors and novels that celebrate the love of family. If you can't get yourself in the mood for endless hours of family time, maybe you should take a page out of someone else's book, literally.

Just in time for the holidays, here are 14 quotes about family from books to warm your heart and prepare you for the next two months with your relatives. Trust me, it won't be as bad as you think.

1. “This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.”

― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

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2. “There was that constant communication which strong family affection would dictate; and though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.”

― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

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3. “You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”

― Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society

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4. “Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life.”

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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5. “My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.”

― Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith

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6. "The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to."

— Dodie Smith, Dear Octopus

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7. “In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the Children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream. And it might be that a sick child threw despair into the hearts of twenty families, of a hundred people; that a birth there in a tent kept a hundred people quiet and awestruck trough the night and filled a hundred people with the birth-joy in the morning...”

― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

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8. "I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world!”

― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

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9. “Whether anybody was home meant everything to a house. It was more than a major fact: it was the only fact ... The family was the house's soul.”

― Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

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10. “There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good.”

― Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

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11. "To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing — I'm sorry, I would rather not go on."

— Yann Martel, Life of Pi

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12. “As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.”

― Kristin Hannah, Summer Island

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13. “It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”

― Roald Dahl, Matilda

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14. “She used that word at some point referring to her family's love, infinite, and I thought about how infinite is not a large number. It is something else entirely. It is boundlessness.”

― John Green and Esther Earl, This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl

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Images: taijan.huang/flickr; Giphy (7)