Family tree Quotes

“The clock had been Sylvie's, and her mother's before that. It had gone to Ursula on Sylvie's death and Ursula had left it to Teddy, and so it had zigzagged its way down the family tree......The clock was a good one, made by Frodsham and worth quite a bit, but Teddy knew if he gave it to Viola she would sell it or misplace it or break it and it seemed important to him that it stayed in the family. An heirloom. ('Lovely word,' Bertie said.) He liked to think that the little golden key that wound it, a key that would almost certainly be lost by Viola, would continue to be turned by the hand of someone who was part of the family, part of his blood. The red thread.”

“The clock had been Sylvie's, and her mother's before that. It had gone to Ursula on Sylvie's death and Ursula had left it to Teddy, and so it had zigzagged its way down the family tree......The clock was a good one, made by Frodsham and worth quite a bit, but Teddy knew if he gave it to Viola she would sell it or misplace it or break it and it seemed important to him that it stayed in the family. An heirloom. ('Lovely word,' Bertie said.) He liked to think that the little golden key that wound it, a key that would almost certainly be lost by Viola, would continue to be turned by the hand of someone who was part of the family, part of his blood. The red thread.”

“It takes about five years for a walnut tree to produce nuts but this is not true of a family tree.”

“She felt as buoyantly patriotic as her Chechen classmates who could trace their family trees back to the acorns”

“The family tree of earthly ancestors was really not important”

“The family trees of all of us, of whatever origin or trait, must meet and merge into one genetic tree of all humanity by the time they have spread into our ancestries for about 50 generations.”

“Simon was still trying to work out how Shadowhunter government and also Shadowhunter family trees worked. They all seemed to be related to each other and it was very disturbing.”

“There is a rustle of dead leaves. Dried sap, a branch crack, the whirring teeth of Mr. Omaru's saw. My father--my real father--is a limb that got axed off the family tree a long time ago now. My mother coughs and cleans phantom juices off her silver with a cloth doily. My sisters clench their knives.”

“During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this family tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something depressing on their minds.”

“[Prince Stefan’s] family was of Eastern European descent, with some real royalty thrown in via a connection to Vlad the Impaler—who hung from a branch that Ian wouldn’t kept secret had the family tree been growing in his yard.”

“I was thinking how complicated life is and how there are no simple roads or paths. We are a fabric of mistakes and hurts; a family tree of fumbled attempts, successes and failures.”