Quotes That Rewired My Brain

From Jay’s Modern Family bombshell to Maya Angelou’s timeless wisdom—unfiltered insights on motherhood that shifted everything

I've had this note on my phone for a while now—a running list of quotes, words, and snippets about parenting and motherhood that stopped me in my tracks, shifted something fundamental, and made me rethink everything. They've infiltrated my bubble, altered my brain chemistry, and quietly reshaped how I see motherhood. This document is meant to evolve, as much mine as it is yours. If you recognize a quote I've missed crediting, please let me know in the comments. And I'd love if you'd share some of your personal favourites too, because we can never learn enough.

Here are some that live rent‑free in my head:

“The truth is that motherhood is a hero's journey. For most of us it's not a journey outward, to the most fantastic and farthest-flung places, but inward, downward, to the deepest parts of your strength, to the innermost buried core of everything you are made of but didn't know was there.” — Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

"You know, it's...thing about babies you...you fall in love with a baby with the cutest little fat folds, and then...bam...they're gone. But it's okay, because in its place is this...toddler with the greatest laugh on Earth. And then one day, the toddler's gone, and in its place, a little kid that asks the most interesting questions you've ever heard. And this keeps going on like that, but you never get the chance to miss any of them, 'cause there's always a new kid to take the place of the old. Until they grow up. And then...in a moment, all those kids you fell in love with walk out the door at the same time." — Jay, Modern Family

"...to calm the jangled nerves of [the] ... mother ... who is neither villain nor saint. I want to soothe the mind of a mother who mostly loves her children, who worships them at times and is repelled at others, who appreciates their beauty and intricacies, but is still tempted to lead her life outside and beyond them. I want to free this mother from the uncritical dependency on an ideology of good mothering that is ephemeral, of doubtful value, unsympathetic to caretakers, arbitrary, and ... man-made." — Shari L. Thurer, The Myths of Motherhood (1994)

“Men are what their mothers made them.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Now life seems like a single line, a succession of units of time, finite and conceivable and terrifyingly fleeting. I now feel a responsibility not to allow time to happen to me, but instead suck as much life as I can out of every meagre hour.-

Grace O'Neill

“If you think you’re teaching your child about the world, they’re teaching you who you are.” — UNKNOWN

“I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known.” — Maya Angelou, Mom & Me & Mom

I was four or five, and my mother gave me a big black tablet, because I kept complaining that I was bored. She said, "Then write something. Then you can read it." In fact, I had just learned to read, so this was a thrilling kind of moment. The idea that I could write something - and then read it! - Joan Didion

“The best thing she was, was her children.” — Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” — C.S. Lewis

"Care is not altruism." — Elissa Strauss

"Mothers always fail. It will be central to my argument that such failure should not be viewed as catastrophic but as normal, that failure should be seen as part of the task. But because mothers are seen as our point of entry into the world, there is nothing easier than to make social deterioration look like something that it is the sacred duty of mothers to prevent—a type of socially upgraded version of the tendency in modern families to blame mothers for everything." — Jacqueline Rose, Mothers (2018)

"There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children." —

Marianne Williamson

“You see, baby, you have to protect yourself. If you don’t protect yourself, you look like a fool asking somebody else to protect you.” I thought about that for a second. She was right. A woman needs to support herself before she asks anyone else to support her.” — Maya Angelou, Mom & Me & Mom

“A mother's love is the echo of her child's heartbeat long after the room goes silent.” — 18 Presents, Italian film

“It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.” — Erma Bombeck, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession (1983)

“If you think you’re teaching your child about the world, they’re teaching you who you are.”- UNKNOWN

"My mother is the bones of my spine… I cannot imagine a life without her." — Kristin Hannah, Summer Island

““Motherhood is THE resistance.”.” —

Jessica Waclawski

“You’re expected to make motherhood your life but not your personality.” —

Grace O'Neill

“Motherhood is an act of infinite optimism.” — Gilda Radner

“The art of mothering is to teach the art of living.” — Elaine Heffner

"Motherhood: All love begins and ends there." — Robert Browning

"A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take." — Cardinal Mermillod

"Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials." — Meryl Streep

I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known.”- Maya Angelou, Mom & Me & Mom

"The phrase 'working mother' is redundant." — Jane Sellman

"The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable." — Lane Olinghouse

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”– C.S. Lewis

“Motherhood is the exquisite inconvenience of being another person's everything.” — Unknown

If this made you laugh, nod in agreement, or immediately think of someone who needs to read it, go ahead and tap that little heart—it helps more people (including the lurkers) find this.

For more questionable takes and semi-useful life insights, come hang out on Instagram—follow me @victoriadela_fuente for behind-the-scenes nonsense, and while you’re at it, give Zillion Trillion a follow too. Because let’s be honest—your feed could always use one more mildly chaotic account.