The Family Table

There is no better classroom
than the family table.
– Kaye Earle

Researchers have confirmed what parents have known
for a long time; sharing a family meal is good for the spirit,
the brain and the health of all family members.
– Anne Fishel, Ph.D.

The family is the nucleus of civilization.
– Will Durant

In family life, love is the oil that eases friction,
the cement that binds closer together, and
the music that brings harmony.
– Eva Burrows

Other things may change us,
but we start and end with the family.  
– Anthony Brandt

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

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, your mind, your stomach,
because you do not just live in a world.
A world lives in you. 
– Frederick Buechner

Our family dinner table was like Speakers’ Corner in London.  
We  discussed, debated, argued, declaimed –
all of us at the same time.
– E. Thomson Earle

It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens,
that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments,
sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers,
stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.
– Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven