Michael Jones > Michael's Quotes

“When God Created Mothers"

When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."

And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands."

The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way."

It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have."

That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded.

One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word."

God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...."

I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower."

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed.

But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure."

Can it think?"

Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator.

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek.

There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."

It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear."

What's it for?"

It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride."

You are a genius, " said the angel.

Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.”
― Erma Bombeck, When God Created Mothers

“It seems a lot of Christians are quick to condemn the world and write its inhabitants off as lost causes. It’s odd, though, Jesus never did. He healed and lovingly confronted. Jesus engaged and walked among his enemies, not to breathe fire upon them, but to breathe life into them. He could only change their lives through being part of their lives. He didn’t write books, he didn’t constrain his preaching to just the synagogues. He didn’t stand aloof bad mouthing the world and his enemies to his disciples in the safety of an insular compound. No, Jesus deliberately walked and lived amongst those he came to serve.”
― Katherine J Walden

“Gossip and drama are different stages of the same intoxication… the first is the buzz; the latter is the hangover.”
― Steve Maraboli

“Gossip is passing on information when you are neither part of the problem nor part of the solution.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

“Let's gossip.... let's tell everyting about us....”
― Deyth Banger

“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“Convince your enemy that he will gain very little by attacking you; this will diminish his enthusiasm”
― Sun Tzu

“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“[H]iding how you really feel and trying to make everyone happy doesn't make you nice, it just makes you a liar.”
― Jenny O'Connell, The Book of Luke

“This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy.”
― Susan Polis Schutz

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Revenge is Always Sweet, it's the Aftertaste that's Bitter.”
― Joshua Caleb

“She has her helmet, shield and sword. Does she finish him or take pity on the gutless thing before her?

Does she set fire and smoke him out, forcing him to fight, or does she let him live with himself and take satisfaction from knowing that he has never been in a real fight in his life and that one day he will have to face his demons in person, along with the consequences, and that both can be far more painful than anything she could ever do to him.”
― Donna Lynn Hope

“If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.”
― Roberto Bolaño, The Insufferable Gaucho

“You must not pay too much attention to opinions. The written word is unalterable, and opinions are often only an expression of despair.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“The funny thing about truth, everyone seems to have their own version.”
― Carlos Wallace

“Thinking that someone is wrong is a very common way of being wrong.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Give people the benefit of the doubt, over and over again, and do the same for yourself. Believe that you’re trying and that they’re trying. See the good in others, so it brings out the best in you.”
― Liz Newman

“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“We ruined each other by being together. We destroyed each other’s dreams.”
― Kate Chisman, Run

“We met each other when we were young, before we knew enough about disappointment, and once we did we found we reminded each other of it.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Why is it so hard to articulate love yet so easy to express disappointment?”
― Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants

“I caught myself thinking about falling in love with someone who I hoped was out there right now thinking about the possibility of me, but I quickly banished the notion. It was that kind of thinking that landed me in this situation to begin with. Hope can ruin you.”
― Perry Moore, Hero

“Truth is, something that I thought was perfect was taken away from me, and I never wanted perfect again. I wanted middle of the road, stuff I didn’t care about so that I couldn’t lose anything I really loved ever again.”
― Cecelia Ahern, The Time of My Life

“My mother gave me a disappointed look. Then I gave her one back. Mine was for everything, not just the sandwich.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

“You fall in love, it's intoxicating, an for a little while you feel like you've actually become one with the other person. Merged souls, and so on. You think you'll never be lonely again. Only it doesn't last and soon you realize you can only get so close and you end up brutally disappointed, more alone than ever, because the illusion-the hope you'd held on to all those years-has been shattered.”
― Nicole Krauss, Man Walks into a Room

“Disappointment

Can do a couple things.
It can drop you into a giant
sucking sinkhole of

depression,

a place you have to fight
to climb out of. Or it
can trigger an epic

mania

to overcome the odds
and transform failure
into success. Say you

swing

as high as the chains will
take you because you seek
the thrill of flight, and on the

up-

kick, you lose your seat.
Injury is likely. But if you
worry about falling

down,

and never chance "up,"
the sky will remain
forever out of reach.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“I saw everything in the world build up and then everything in the world fall down again.”
― Marina Keegan, The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories

“Sometimes parents don't find what they're looking for it their child, so they plant seeds for what they'd like to grow there instead. I've witnessed this with the former hockey player who takes his son out to skate before he can even walk. Or in the mother who gave up her ballet dreams when she married, but now scrapes her daughter's hair into a bun and watched from the wings of the stage. We are not, as you'd expect, orchestrating their lives; we are not even trying for a second chance. We are hoping that if this one thing takes root, it might take up enough light and space to keep something else from developing in our children: the disappointment we've already lived.”
― Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts

“You said you were a fairy princess
You said you were a shooting star
You said we'd go to Bora Bora
Now look at where the fuck we are”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad