They did a lot of cleaning in their house, which I considered to be a sign of immoral parenting. The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child's life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping.

Haven Kimmel

Categorized in : Children Jobs House

I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.

Haven Kimmel

passion athlete sports

Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?

Haven Kimmel

phantoms ruins infinity

My mother was good at reading books, making cinnamon biscuits, and coloring in a coloring book. Also she was a good eater of popcorn and knitter of sweaters with my initials right in them. She could sit really still. She knew how to believe in God and sing really loudly. When she sneezed our whole house rocked. My father was a great smoker and driver of vehicles..He could hold a full coffee cup while driving and never spill a drop, even going over bumps. He lost his temper faster than anyone.

Haven Kimmel

coffee mother father

...she waited until she and my grandfather Anthel were just home from their honeymoon, and then sat him down and told him this: "Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait until you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan." Until he died, I am told, my grandfather was a gentle man.

Haven Kimmel

home men hands

I honestly believe that people who never have children or never love a child are doomed to a sort of foolishness because it cant be described or explained, that love. I didnt know anything before I had him, and I havent learned anything since I lost him. Everything that isnt loving a child is just for show.

Haven Kimmel

believe children people

On the wall next to the table, next to the scones that provided each table with its own circle of lamplight were quotations about reading, her favorite of which was from Kafka: 'A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

Haven Kimmel

wall reading book

But I think that what you'll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren't thinking about you at all.

Haven Kimmel

thinking-about-you people thinking

My hair looks like it had been purchased at a rummage sale after all the real hair was gone.

Haven Kimmel

real hair looks

Contrary to popular opinion, my dad was not a lazy man. He was not lazy at all, for instance, when it came to Going Places In His Truck. He was also very industrious about Preparing To Go Camping. And if something really interested him, he would work on it all day.

Haven Kimmel

lazy-man dad men

Mother always said she was a size 7 woman she kept wrapped in fat to prevent bruising.

Haven Kimmel

fats size mother

I respect every way in which you are a troublemaker, now get up and do what your mother says.

Haven Kimmel

get-up mother way

What kind of good deeds? Like Girl Scouts? Because I got kicked out of Brownies and they won't give me another chance to keep my clothes on at camp.

Haven Kimmel

kind-deeds clothes girl

Decoupage hit Mooreland pretty hard.

Haven Kimmel

hard

Ordinarily my mom just sunk deeper into her corner of the couch and ignored it. She had succesfully ignored a quarter of a century of entropy and decay, had sat peacefully crunching popcorn and drinking soda while the house fell down around us. If I had to guess the number of books she read during that time, I would place the number at somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand.

Haven Kimmel

mom drinking book

On Jesus: "Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people.

Haven Kimmel

mother animal jesus

My favorite was Love Is...Never Having to Say You're Sorry. This was,the good Lord knew, a dream of mine. But every time I refused to apologize for something, Love seemed to just fly out the window.

Haven Kimmel

sorry dream love-is