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Nicole Krauss Quotes about Children

All Nicole Krauss Quotes Ambition Character Children quotes Choices Desire Falling In Love Feelings Giving Heart House Language Literature Loneliness Love Lying Memories Reality Sadness Silence Waiting Writing Youth
It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

Nicole Krauss
Children, World, Unforgettable Moments
Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.93, W. W. Norton & Company

Perhaps that is what it means to be a father - to teach your child to live without you.

Nicole Krauss
Children, Father, Mean
"The History of Love". Book by Nicole Krauss, 2005.

. . . I would have let him go one finger at a time, until, without his realizing, he'd be floating without me. And then I thought, perhaps that is what it means to be a [parent] - to teach your child to live without you.

Nicole Krauss
Children, Mean, Parent

Only later did I come to understand that to be a mother is to be an illusion. No matter how vigilant, in the end a mother can't protect her child - not from pain, or horror, or the nightmare of violence, from sealed trains moving rapidly in the wrong direction, the depravity of strangers, trapdoors, abysses, fires, cars in the rain, from chance.

Nicole Krauss
Mother, Pain, Children
Nicole Krauss (2011). “Great House: A Novel”, p.270, W. W. Norton & Company

Except for when I was very little and thought that being an "engineer" meant he drove a train. Then I imagined him in the seat of an engine car the color of coal, a string of shiny passenger cars trailing behind. One day my father laughed and corrected me. Everything snapped into focus. It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

Nicole Krauss
Children, Father, Color

And he isn't crying for her, not for his grandma, he's crying for himself: that he: too, is going to die one day. And before that his friends wil die, and the friends of his friends, and, as time passes, the children of his friends, and, if his fate is truly bitter, his own children. (58)

Nicole Krauss
Children, Grandma, Fate
Nicole Krauss (2011). “Great House”, p.65, Penguin UK

Once upon a time you were a fish. How do you know? Because I was also a fish. You, too? Sure. A long time ago. Anyway, being a fish, you knew how to swim. You were a great swimmer. A champion swimmer, you were. You loved the water. Why? What do you mean, why? Why did I love the water? Because it was your life! And as we talked, I would have let him go one finger at a time, until, without his realizing, he'd be floating without me. Perhaps that is what it means to be a father-to teach your child to live without you.

Nicole Krauss
Children, Father, Mean

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