“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
- Erma Bombeck
“In the family sandwich, the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are, for a time, the meat.”
- Anna Quindlen
“What strange creatures brothers are!”—Jane Austen
“Some family trees bear an enormous crop of nuts.”—Wayne Huizenga
“Siblings that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something.”—Lemony Snicket, Horseradish
“As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.”—Buddy Hackett
“I think the family is the place where the most ridiculous and least respectable things in the world go on.”
- Ugo Betti
“To a small child, the perfect grandad is unafraid of big dogs and fierce storms but absolutely terrified of the word “boo”.—Robert Breault
“Grandmas don’t just say “that’s nice”—they reel back and roll their eyes and throw up their hands and smile. You get your money’s worth out of grandmas.”—Unknown
“Family ties mean that no matter how much you might want to run from your family, you can’t.”—Unknown
“A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do.”—Lois Wyse
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”—George Burns
“I grew up with six brothers. That’s how I learned to dance—waiting for the bathroom.”—Bob Hope
"Families are like fudge ... mostly sweet with a few nuts." - Unknown
"When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them." - George Bernard Shaw
“It was nice growing up with someone like you—someone to lean on, someone to count on…someone to tell on!”—Unknown
“What brothers say to tease their sisters has nothing to do with what they really think of them.”—Esther Friesner
"In some families, 'please' is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was 'sorry.'" - Margaret Laurence
“Parents must get across the idea that “I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior.”—Amy Vanderbilt
“I love playing a dad. It’s hard to find family dramas that are genuinely funny.”
- Peter Gallagher
“If you don’t annoy your big sister for no good reason from time to time, she thinks you don’t love her anymore.”—Pearl Cleage
“If minutes were kept of a family gathering, they would show that “Members not Present” and “Subjects Discussed” were one and the same.”
- Robert Brault
"The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.”
- Robert Fros
“Children really can brighten up a house, because they never turn the lights off.”
- Ralph Bus.
“Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie, not perfect but who’s complaining?”
- Robert Brault.
“I don’t have to look up my family tree, because I know that I’m the sap.”—Fred Allen
“One would be in less danger, from the wiles of the stranger, if one’s own kin and kith, were more fun to be with.”
- Ogden Nash
“Obviously, if I was serious about having a relationship with someone long-term, the last people I would introduce him to would be my family.”—Chelsea Handler
“As a child, my family’s menu consisted of two choices take it or leave it.”
- Buddy Hacket
"Grandchildren don’t make a man feel old, it’s the knowledge that he’s married to a grandmother that does." - J. Norman Collie
“My dad used to say, ‘Always fight fire with fire.’ Which is probably why he got thrown out of the fire brigade.”—Harry Hill
“It’s not easy being a mom. If it were easy, fathers would do it.”—Betty White
“The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.”—Sam Levenson
“Have you ever noticed how parents can go from the most wonderful people in the world to totally embarrassing in three seconds?”—Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid
“A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.”—Ogden Nash
“A man’s womenfolk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity.”
- H. L. Mencken.
“Mother-daughter disagreements were, in hindsight, basically mother stating the truth and daughter taking her own sweet time coming around.”—Barbara Delinsky
"Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space." - Evan Esar
“You can kid the world, but not your sister.”—Charlotte Gray
“Respect your parents. These guys pay for your internet.”—Unknown
"When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.”
- George Bernard Shaw
"In the family sandwich, the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are, for a time, the meat." - Anna Quindlen
“Every family is dysfunctional, whether you want to admit it or not.”
- Shailene Woodley.
“If your family tree does not fork, you might be a redneck.”
- Jeff Foxworthy.
“Teach your kids to spend more time annoying each other so they have less time to spend annoying you.”—Unknown
"At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves." - George Orwell“Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years.”
- Gracie Allen
“Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”
- Cary Grant.
“In a household of toddlers and pets, we discover this rule of thumb about happy families, that they are least two-thirds incontinent.”
- Robert Brault.
“Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern…like bad wallpaper.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche.
“I think a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
- Mary Karr