Joey Lauren Adams Quotes

I never had a real conversation with my father.

We weren't the kind of family that talked about our problems. We were a close family, in a kind of faraway way. It wasn't a being-with-each-other kind of close. We all went our own ways.

I know my parents loved me - they certainly did everything they could for me - but displays of affection were kept on a distinctly low flame.

My father and I are friends and my mother and I don't speak. It's a bummer. I miss her.

My family - it wasn't an abusive family - they meant well, but they were in their own world.

I love my son, but I was never there for him, so I understand why he hates me.

My mother and I had a lot of distance between us emotionally, although, on the surface, most of the time, we appeared good and friendly, and all that. But I was a problem. I was a street kid.

You will not believe me, but I am proud of your strength. Sometimes. . . sometimes the only way I can care for my children is to keep my distance.

There was a lot of brokenness in my family. Let's just say that I was raised by my grandparents.

I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.

Great dad. Yeah, he would ask me for money on birthdays and, you know, inappropriate times. And I just wrote him off like, 'You're not a father.' I just learned you cannot emotionally invest in people who are not attainable.

I have six brothers and sisters. My mother has six kids from two different marriages. And we would just sit around making fun of each other's dad, and all our dads had real problems.

My relationship with my mom is really bad.

The hardest thing which I've experienced is calling up my father, Rance Howard, who's a wonderful actor, and telling him I've had to cut him out of the movie, which I've had to do twice. That's a lump-in-the-throat phone call.

My parents were complicated people. They had a complicated relationship. My home was very, very complicated.

Moms and dads don't last forever. If you've got unfinished business, we need to face that, and that's not easy. Every child wants to love their mother and their father. Love is the most important thing, and when they feel rejected and unloved, that hole can never be filled by anyone else.

I said something really stupid once. I told a friend that my mother was so beautiful, but my dad was ugly. My dad heard it and just laughed it off, but I felt guilty. It haunted me for years. I should never have said that.

There's a lot of conflict and darkness inside everybody's family. We all pretend to outsiders that it's not so, but behind locked doors, there are usually high emotions running.

It's very hard when your child doesn't want to talk to you and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them.

People feel very ashamed to admit that they have in-law problems. They think it's something petty. But it's not petty at all. It hits deep emotions.

My siblings and I kept everything to ourselves, and rather than blowing up in an instant, my family broke apart slowly.

I didn't feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy childhood. My mother was overly sensitive; my father, ascetic. I was neither. I felt as if I were living with complete strangers. I suspect that my parents felt the same way.

I came from a broken family.

A lot of Indian fathers don't know how to show affection. My parents really do love me, even though my dad has never been able to say those words to me.

I can understand a family that's imploding. I have experience of that in my own life.