Mothers and fathers - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

Families can be just as oppressive as governments.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Between Planets (1951)

I have been exploring this notion of parenthood. [. . .] It seems to be based on a reverence for the young, and an extremely patient and protective attitude toward their physical and mental welfare. Yet you make them live in these huge caves, utterly out of contact with the natural world, and you teach them to be afraid of death - which of course makes them a little insane, because there is nothing anybody can do about death. It is like teaching them to be afraid of the second law of thermodynamics, just because living matter sets that law aside for a very brief period. How they hate you!

- James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958)

Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit - Will Travel (1958)

lady reporter: Are you in favor of Motherhood, Lord Ragelle? defense minister: I am sternly opposed to it, Madam. It exerts a malign influence on youth, particularly upon young recruits. The military services would have superior soldiers if our fighting men had not been corrupted by Motherhood.

- Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)

A boy's best friend is his mother.

- Joseph Stefano, Psycho (film, 1960)

He felt that sense of being necessary which is the burden and reward of parenthood.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974)

When wired Come at once to the sick mother's bedside, one comes. To certain moves in chess only certain responses are possible.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, ''Two Delays on the Northern Line'' (1979)

It says in the Book that you must honor thy father and thy mother. Not one word about loving them.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well.

- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1986)

Motherhood involves a lifetime of mixed self-deception and clear sight.

- George Turner, Drowning Towers (1987)

We don't consider it good manners to discuss our fathers, Stavvy. It has no relevance inWomen's Country.

- Sheri S. Tepper, The Gate toWomen's Country (1988)

It is pleasant to be mothered by a daughter, and to behave as a daughter to one's daughter.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (1990)

When you lost things, it was like you only knew for the first time that you'd ever had them. Took a mother's leaving for you to know she'd ever been there, because otherwise she was that place, everything, like weather.

- William Gibson, Virtual Light (1993)

Many mothers are best.

- Jane Yolen, ''The One-Armed Queen'' (1995)

Not for the first time, a son knew himself to be older than his father.

- Tanith Lee, ''Rapunzel'' (2000)