Sisters First Quotes

“A kind man once told me that in Japan, broken pottery is pieced back together using gold as the glue, highlighting the cracks, making them beautiful. And maybe that could be my heart—hurt and healed, but filled with gold because I’d known Kyle.”
― Barbara Pierce Bush, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated and fraught with the effects of moments from the past. My mom knew this and wanted me to know it too. On one visit home, I found an essay from the Washington Post by the linguistics professor Deborah Tannen that had been cut out and left on my desk. My mom, and her mom before her, loved clipping newspaper articles and cartoons from the paper to send to Barbara and me. This article was different. Above it, my mom had written a note: “Dear Benny”—I was “Benny” from the time I was a toddler; the family folklore was that when we were babies, a man approached my parents, commenting on their cute baby boys, and my parents played along, pretending our names were Benjamin and Beauregard, later shorted to Benny and Bo.
In her note, my mom confessed to doing many things that the writer of this piece had done: checking my hair, my appearance. As a teenager, I was continually annoyed by some of her requests: comb your hair; pull up your jeans (remember when low-rise jeans were a thing? It was not a good look, I can assure you!). “Your mother may assume it goes without saying that she is proud of you,” Deborah Tannen wrote. “Everyone knows that. And everyone probably also notices that your bangs are obscuring your vision—and their view of your eyes. Because others won’t say anything, your mother may feel it’s her obligation to tell you.” In leaving her note and the clipping, my mom was reminding me that she accepted and loved me—and that there is no perfect way to be a mother. While we might have questioned some of the things our mother said, we never questioned her love.”
― Jenna Bush Hager, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“When my grandfather went to war against Saddam Hussein after the invasion of Kuwait, he wrote a heartfelt letter to my dad about his worries and his fears. I remember the yellow ribbons tied around the trees throughout our suburban Texas neighborhood, and my dad remembers the gravity of the words his father penned: “I guess what I want you to know as a father is this: Every Human life is precious. When the question is asked ‘How many lives are you willing to sacrifice’—it tears at my heart. The answer, of course, is none—none at all.”
When my dad was weighing whether to go to war against Iraq, when intelligence reports were telling him that Iraq had chemical weapons and when Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapons inspectors into his country, he wrote his own heartfelt letter to Barbara and me: “Yesterday I made the hardest decision a president has to make. I ordered young Americans into combat. It was an emotional moment for me because I fully understand the risks of war. More than once, I have hugged and wept with the loved ones of a soldier lost in combat in Afghanistan.” His words spoke of how much he didn’t want to go to war, how he had hoped the battle could be averted.”
― Jenna Bush Hager, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“And although some of my agents were really handsome, I never fell in love with them. I'm also quite sure that none of them ever fell for me; I was twenty and my photos made regular appearances in the National Enquirer.”
― Jenna Bush Hager, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“Words of wisdom: Always photograph your hitcher. Rome was the first place I created an identity apart from my sister.”
― Jenna Bush Hager, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“When we were rude and disrespectful teenagers, his favorite line was “I love you. There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you. So stop trying.”
― Jenna Bush Hager, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“By far, though, the best celebrity encounter either of us ever had belonged to Barbara. She met LeBron James at the Beijing Olympics, and after some joking around, he passed along his number. Henry and I had visions of a Bush-James basketball dynasty. We could see ourselves living comfortably in their guesthouse . . . But just like Justin Timberlake unplugged at the White House, it was not to be. Or, to quote U2, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
― Jenna Bush Hager, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“The adage that warns, "Never drive faster than your guardian angels can fly," took on profound meaning for my driver friends because they actually couldn't drive faster than my Secret Service angels could fly or drive.”
― Barbara Pierce Bush, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

“Not even a lane could be changed without an exact copycat movement by my Secret Service.”
― Barbara Pierce Bush, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life