Page 116 - Forbes - USA (November 2019)
P. 116
THOUGHTS ON
Family
“Family: a unit composed not “The best you can really hope
only of children but of men, for is a family where
women, an occasional animal everyone’s problems, big
112 and the common cold.” and small, work together.
Ogden Nash Kind of like an orchestra
where every instrument
is out of tune in exactly
“Families are about love over- the same way, so you don’t
coming emotional torture.” really notice.”
Matt Groening Neal Shusterman
“They were a tense and “When I walk, I walk with
peculiar family, the you. Where I go, you’re with
Oedipuses, weren’t they?” me always.”
Max Beerbohm Alice Hoffman
“I had underestimated this “Think of your forefathers!
place where I was born. I Think of your posterity!”
knew it was a good place to
be from. I had no idea how John Quincy Adams
great a place it was to be.”
Rod Dreher “A family can be the bane of
one’s existence. A family can
also be most of the meaning
“The greatest gift a parent can
leave a child is that parent’s of one’s existence.”
own independence.” Keri Hulme
Rosamunde Pilcher
“Start children off on the
way they should go, and
“One day you will do things
for me that you hate. That is even when they are old
what it means to be family.” they will not turn from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
Jonathan Safran Foer
“Call it a clan, call it a network, The Mighty Marriotts
call it a tribe, call it a family. FINAL THOUGHT
Whatever you call it, whoever February 1, 1971
you are, you need one.”
Jane Howard
First came Bill and Alice. Then their son Bill Jr. as well
as his younger brother, Richard. More than 40 years
“Parents learn a lot from
their children about coping after Bill Sr. founded Marriott Corp., he and his nuclear
with life.” family still commanded the company from its top floors.
Muriel Spark What had once been a lone Beltway root-beer parlor had
become a thriving, $315-million-in-sales collection (some
“Imperturbability could be $2.1 billion in current dollars) of hotels and restaurants,
depended upon. And from including Big Boy Coffee Shops and Roy Rogers.
her great and humble position The Marriotts owed a great deal of their success to
in the family she had taken their tight-knit family. “The principles of operations
dignity and a clean calm “Our Rockefellers, Carne-
beauty.” remained the same: close family supervision of all gies, Fricks, Vanderbilts,
John Steinbeck details, with Alice keeping the books; Bill running the Goulds, Hills, Harrimans,
Astors, Eastmans, Still-
business; benevolent and paternalistic labor relations; mans, Pullmans, Fields,
“The difference between a [and] a flair for promotions.” can bequeath enormous
‘man’ and a ‘father’ is that the fortunes, but they cannot
bequeath brains. Not one
former shares his genes, but SOURCES: THE LITTLE WAY OF RUTHIE LEMING, BY ROD DREHER; THE SHELL Napoleonic son has sprung
the latter gives his life.” SEEKERS, BY ROSAMUNDE PILCHER; EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED, BY JONATHAN from these titans.”
SAFRAN FOER; THE GRAPES OF WRATH, BY JOHN STEINBECK; THE COMFORTERS,
Craig D. Lounsbrough BY MURIEL SPARK; THE STORY SISTERS, BY ALICE HOFFMAN; ANTSY DOES TIME, —B.C. Forbes
BY NEAL SHUSTERMAN; THE BONE PEOPLE, BY KERI HULME.
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