Quotes: Grandparents

Why do grandparents and grandchildren get along so well? The mother.

I phoned my grandparents and my grandfather said ‘We saw your movie.’ ‘Which one?’ I said. He shouted ‘Betty, what was the name of that movie I didn’t like?

When I was a child in the 1940s and early 1950s, my parents and grandparents spoke of Britain as home, and New Zealand had this strong sense of identity and coherence as being part of the commonwealth and a the identity of its people as being British.

Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.

The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.

No, like I said, my dad was never really part of the tennis. His involvement around what I did with the tennis and with my mom and my grandparents was really not a part of my life.

The vision of a nation formed from many different peoples bound together by a common love of freedom was staked out long before our lifetimes or even our parents’ or grandparents’ lifetimes.

My parents moved to Los Angeles when I was really young, but I spent every summer with my grandparents, and I’d stay with my grandfather on the farm in Longview. He was retired from the railroad, and he had a small farm with some cows and some pigs. I remember part of my youth was feeding hogs and plowing fields and stuff, so that’s a part of me.

I write to tell my grandchildren where they come from, and what their grandparents were up to, and I hope they will in their own way continue. I invite anyone else to listen in.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don’t only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents’ and grandparents’ lives come to you.