Family Quotes for Letters & Messages
Family is the hardest thing to put into words precisely because it is so constant. These 100 quotes give you a place to start — for a letter to a parent, a sibling or a child. Copy one, then say the specific thing only your family would understand.
Write a letter with one of these — freeNo account needed • Free • Encrypted
Writing to family when nothing needs fixing
Family letters usually get written at extremes — a crisis, an illness, a funeral, an estrangement. The ordinary ones, written for no reason to a parent or sibling who is perfectly fine, are much rarer and land much harder, precisely because nothing prompted them. The absence of an occasion is the message.
Say the specific thing, not the summary
"Thank you for everything" is the most common line in family letters and the least effective, because it compresses decades into a phrase that could be addressed to anyone. One concrete scene does more: the drive, the argument you now understand differently, the thing they did that you only recognised as a sacrifice years later. Specificity is what makes a family letter unmistakably yours.
On difficult family relationships
Not every family letter is warm, and a quote will not resolve a complicated relationship. If what you are writing is honest rather than affectionate, keep it factual, keep it about your own experience rather than their character, and consider whether it needs to be sent at all — an unsent letter is a legitimate form and does much of the same work.
100 family quotes
“The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.”
— Mario Puzo
“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”
— C.S. Lewis
“To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.”
— Barbara Bush
“It didn't matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.”
— Peter Buffett
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart.”
— Frederick Buechner
“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”
— Alex Haley
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.”
— Anthony Brandt
“Everyone needs a house to live in, but a supportive family is what builds a home.”
— Anthony Liccione
“Family means too much, friends are too valuable, and life is too short to put off sharing with people how much they really mean to you.”
— Unknown
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
— Leo Tolstoy
“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”
— Honore de Balzac
“Family is the compass that guides us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.”
— Brad Henry
“Other people's opinion of you does not have to become your reality; your family's love does.”
— Unknown
“Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are.”
— Unknown
“If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable, each segment distinct.”
— Letty Cottin Pogrebin
“Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.”
— Irina Shayk
“You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.”
— Anita Baker
“Family and friends are hidden treasures; seek them and enjoy their riches.”
— Wanda Hope Carter
“Family: where life begins and love never ends, no matter the distance between us.”
— Unknown
“Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.”
— Reinhold Niebuhr
“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”
— George A. Moore
“Grandparents are a family's greatest treasure, the founders of a loving legacy.”
— Unknown
“Pray in your family daily, that yours may be in the number of the families who call upon God.”
— Christopher Love
“The informality of family life is a blessed condition that allows us all to become our best while looking our worst.”
— Marge Kennedy
“Family is like branches on a tree. We all grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.”
— Unknown
“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues of human society are created, strengthened and maintained.”
— Winston Churchill
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: he believed in me.”
— Jim Valvano
“The love in our family flows strong and deep, leaving us memories to treasure and keep.”
— Unknown
“Having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family. Having both is a blessing.”
— Unknown
“The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture.”
— Michael Novak
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
— George Burns
“A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life.”
— Isadora James
“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
— Chris Sanders
“The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.”
— Lee Iacocca
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
— George Bernard Shaw
“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching, they are your family.”
— Jim Butcher
“Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible — the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.”
— Virginia Satir
“At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable.”
— Mark V. Olsen
“Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.”
— Lisa Weed
“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”
— Dr. Seuss
“Everybody wants to be a part of a family. It's what keeps us grounded.”
— Angie Harmon
“The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.”
— Orlando Aloysius Battista
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.”
— Richard Bach
“Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.”
— Barbara Bush
“Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation.”
— Lois Wyse
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“Family is not defined by our genes, it is built and maintained through love.”
— Amalia G.
“Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.”
— Gail Lumet Buckley
“A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.”
— Victor Hugo
“One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad.”
— Jim DeMint
“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nothing can bring a real sense of security into the home except true love.”
— Billy Graham
“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”
— Jane Howard
“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.”
— Robin Hobb
“The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended, and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended.”
— Robert Frost
“Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family.”
— Menachem Begin
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”
— Mother Teresa
“Our family is a circle of strength and love. With every birth and every union, the circle grows.”
— Unknown
“You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.”
— Desmond Tutu
“There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.”
— Henry Ward Beecher
More quote categories
Turn a quote into a letter
Pick a line you love, then say the rest in your own words. It is free, private, and they open it as a sealed envelope.
Start writing — free