Susan Minot Quotes

Families are endlessly fascinating. We all have one, and they have a great impact on who we are and what we do - Freudian as that is.

I think we are defined as human beings through our families, no matter what kind of family - through our relationships with parents, brothers and sisters.

I write about families. That is who we are.

I'm a family-based person, even though we didn't exactly have a very happy family. I was never in any doubt that this was a centre of writing.

There was a point when I was 15 or 16 that I realized that my father wanted me to be a loner. I decided, 'It's okay to be an introvert, but I don't want to be a loner. I want a few other people in my life.'

Between children and parents, there is a difficulty of seeing each other simply as people.

There's nothing like meeting someone's family to get a true sense of them and a reflection of their ethics and personality. It just makes them a more rounded person.

Family is this very deep, complex thing that for most people becomes everything. It informs your entire life.

Yes, I'm very close to my family. And being that close to your family, I think you also struggle with how to become your own person.

My idea of family is not dominated by blood ties. Families are fragile things, and I think it is social pressure and emotional attachments that keep them together.

People often ask me when I realised that I was different. Some people seem surprised that it's a question that I cannot answer. I was never told that I was different. I was always just Sinead; I was just like my dad.

Sometimes 'Frances' can be about finding the missing piece, trying to look for biological family as opposed to maybe realizing your family is whoever is around you at the time.

I think when you grow up living next to your grandparents and cousins and you're 300 meters from the family offices and the setting of your after-school games is the fashion atelier, it can be hard to see yourself as an individual. It's quite understandable that a young person might feel the need to prove themselves as a single entity first.

I am my mother's daughter,... I am her only novel.

I am who I am because of the people who influenced me growing up, and many of them were gay. No one has any right to tell anyone what makes a family

When I search myself carefully I do think it's from my mother. I even feel strange saying that. Most people, I believe, when they're asked profound questions about their own persona are not really able to enunciate it, because it's a combination of so many things. But certainly influences early on that I felt from my mother. I wouldn't say she was "political" per se; she was sensitive to other people.

Whatever role we were in our family of birth, we take on this persona and in your 20s and 30s in particular, you end up thinking that's you and that isn't necessarily you.

I know I'm going to have to get beyond being George H.W. Bush's son and Barbara's son -- for which I'm really proud. And I'm going to get beyond being George W.'s brother for which I am extraordinarily proud as well, there's a lot of interest in finding the ways that we are different and all this. Well, the simple fact is that we're all on our own life's journey -- my brothers and sister are different than me.

As you get older, you welcome people into your family because siblings get married and have kids. But then people also get divorces and things like that, and sometimes there's an exit from the family.

My family lives all around me. We see each other daily. It's very, very complicated. I think that families hold us together and they split us apart.

Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.

I guess there are a lot of people out there that think they're supposed to define themselves in isolation, but that's not necessarily the case.

People see my face, they hear my voice, and I know they're thinking about my father. That's OK - he was a great man.

I think spending a lot of time with my mom, who's a talker and a storyteller, and my dad, who has kind of a soft-spoken, understated sense of humor, I think that's how I became what I am, which is sort of an understated storyteller.

A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.