The fundamental human truth underpinning 'Ox Mountain Death Song' is that men so very often turn into their fathers. The way that everything gets passed down.
The footsteps a child follows are most likely to be the ones his parents thought they covered up.
It's funny, I see my dad in myself when I say certain things or I do certain things. I'll say, 'That was my dad right there.'
As I've gotten older, my mannerisms are more and more like my mom's. Also, she was an educator - she's extremely passionate about education and children. I guess I inherited that in some way.
Ancestral habits of mind can be constricting; they also confer one's individuality.
We all grow up with inherited genes and inherited sensibilities, and they run very, very deep.
Sometimes in someone's gestures you can notice how a parent is somehow inhabiting that person without there being any awareness of that. Sometimes you can look at your hand and see your father.
The harder you try to become the opposite of your parents, the more quickly you become them.
No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.
Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel.
I get sort of short with people and start grumbling and clearing my throat - in honor of my father - when I'm impatient. It's very charming.
I am completely turning into my mom. Me, trying to be stern, is her. Or when I make silly voices. My mom always uses weird voices if she's talking to a kid or a dog. I'm the same person - completely my mother.
Everything that Mr Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly.
