Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do. With no relatives, no support, we've put us in an impossible situation.

The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

'Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.'

'Daddy, there's Victor, only he has more white hairs now.' (about our neighbor 3 doors down who is a regular reader of McClelland Family.com)