Emotional Absence Quotes

I wasn't present for my own life for a long time. I wasn't there; I wasn't in my relationships; I wasn't in my band; I wasn't in my soul - I was disconnected from all of it. I would let myself live in a miserable situation forever, mostly of my own making. I made my own misery and made the people around me miserable.

There were times I should have been completely emotionally available to my kids and I wasn't there, even for reading a book with them or watching TV or tucking my daughter into bed.

Crying adds something: crying is you, plus tears. But the feeling Colin had was some horrible opposite of crying. It was you, minus something. He kept thinking about one word - forever - and felt the burning ache just beneath his rib cage.

Hey, Ocean Eyes,” my father said. “Where’d you go on us?

Cyborg was the first superhero that I've ever seen whose parent was around but just was not there for him emotionally, mentally. I related to that in a big way because, growing up, it was my mother and grandmother that raised me and my brother and sisters. I'm the second youngest of five; my father was never in the picture.

I know virtually no one of my age who can remember a hug, or a smile from their father, or a 'Let's go play football.'

They [corporations] feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.

My dad never explained anything growing up.

You're watching your kids playing football, and you're not present. It's like the worst... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with.

It is only when parental feelings are ineffective or too ambivalent or when the mother's emotions are temporarily engaged elsewhere that children feel lost.

I definitely understand what it's like not having family around when you want them there, but you don't live in the same city.

There was no demonstration of love I could read as a little boy.

I can be a friend from a million miles away. I can play basketball in China. The only thing I can't do is be a father. I missed my kids' first basketball game. I missed birthdays. I can talk to you from a million miles away, but I was missing the dad part of life.

It's weird to not know what a family is. Not know what a mother's love is. And not really know what a hug is or anything.

People are able to live with only half a heart, to live without real compassion, because they are able to use words that are only forms.

What is remarkable about Joy Division is the way they are bereft of two of the mainstays of most other rock and pop: longing and supplication.

I still feel as if I weren't a good enough mother. I didn't break any rules. I didn't cause my son any pain. But I did bring to my life some of my father, who was very controlling and very remote. I was working a lot. I wasn't there enough.

Its the people you are close to, the ones who love you, the ones who have seen your heart, who have touched your soul - to them, it is obvious that something is wrong or missing. Your heart and soul are missing. They feel it. It hurts them. It kills them.

You want to know what I was thinking?...I was thinking that I wished you'd been with me the last couple of days. I mean, I enjoyed getting to know everyone better. We ate lunch together, and the dinner last night was a lot of fun, but it just felt like something was wrong, like I was missing something. It wasn't until I saw you walking up the beach that I realized it was you.

My parents' relationship with Kolkata is so strong. Growing up, the absence of Kolkata was always present in our lives.

We soon cease to feel the grief at the deaths of our friends, yet we continue to the end of our lives to miss them. They are still with us in their absence.

I was never really a big presence in the home.

I knew medicine only by its absence - specifically, the absence of a father growing up: one who went to work before dawn and returned in the dark to a plate of reheated dinner.

O thou that dost inhabit in my breast, leave not the mansion so long tenantless; lest, growing ruinous, the building fall and leave no memory of what it was!

I knew that love was around. I truly believe my mother loved me. But feeling it all the time? I didn't.