Tracy K. Smith Quotes

I'm attracted to stories that deal with the family and what it's like to be a member of that family, whether it's together or apart, given the pressures that are put on it by the outside world.

It was so satisfying for me - a great reward, just to see it done well. And it was beautifully directed by my daughter Susan Riskin. Imagine, a play about my mother directed by my daughter?!

Some people found it difficult to understand my relationship with my father, but that may have been because they couldn't get beyond their relationship with their own parents.

There's a lot of truth in family relationships.

Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.

The mother-in-law is the centre of a family.

It's strange because you - your life goes so swiftly. You look up one day you're a teenager, the next day you're a grandfather and you want to decide, 'I sure hope my kids don't make the same mistakes.'

He never admitted anything, even on his deathbed. He was a deluded liar. If it weren't for my father, I don't think I would be so open. So that's a huge blessing.

I've been working on my relationship with my parents and my sister over the years. We have become more close. I think having kids makes you want to keep the gang together.

I'm obsessed with my parents.

I would have gone home to my mother, but I'm not that crazy about my mother.

The history of fiction is about family - an inexhaustible subject for literature. We are creatures driven by emotions that are on high display in intimate relations - inside the family.

I'm not entirely sure why I write about family, but I do know that it hasn't stopped interesting me. You meet and leave other people at different stages of your evolution, whereas family is made up of people who are constant links in your life, who know you over the course of time and have your complete curriculum vitae in their heads.

Although I never married, my brother fortunately did, and I have had the pleasure of watching his three sons and daughter grow up. Several of them now have children of their own. We have been a close-knit family, although often separated by distance, and have shared each other's happiness, sorrows, and aspirations.

My wife is the kind of girl who will not go anywhere without her mother, and her mother will go anywhere.

I grew up watching and learning from the ultimate partnership, and that is of my father and late uncle.

All my life, I've wanted to write a book inspired by my relationship with my grandfather. Basically, my grandfather was a guy who everybody in the family regarded as disagreeable at best. But I loved him intensely. He was wonderful to me.

I wish I had a great relationship with my mother.

Oddly enough, my grandfather probably had more of an influence on me than my father.

I was a real mummy's girl - still am. And as for my father, well, I have an Oedipus complex I'm still working out. I love that man!

The women here are the ones that hold the families together. So if my mom were to be unhappy with me, in a way, it would be like I would have lost my entire family.

There are secrets in families. That is the definition of a family.

The only people on this planet that can make me feel like my feelings are hurt are my kids.

'Queen Sugar' is a drama about family. It's something that allows us to be ourselves and see the ways that we interact with our own families.

I was kicked out of the house, and I was really difficult as a kid. I'm happy it happened because I was able to grow so much from it, you know? It's always hurtful to feel that you can't be on the same page with people that you love as much as your family. Sometimes they don't know how to deal with all the things that are coming at them.