Dysfunctional Family/Quotes

I am a Family Organiser. I am solely responsible for the family well-being at all times.

—X, Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left, on her role in her family, aged ten

Mom's resentful that she has to work so hard, which obscures her guilt about actually wanting to work so hard. Dad's guilty about being less driven than Mom, but thinks it's wrong to feel that way. So, he hides behind a smokescreen of cluelessness. Quinn wears superficiality like a suit of armor, because she's afraid to looking inside and finding absolutely nothing. And I'm so defensive that I actually work to make people dislike me so I won't feel bad when they do. Can I go now?

—Daria when being asked about her family by a psychiatrist.

Let me share with you a typical Thanksgiving at the Turk household. It starts with my mother yelling at my sister for yelling at my grandmother who's yelling at the television screen, which happens to be the microwave. And then my militant brother Jabari, formerly Bob, gives my father attitude for using the word black, even though he's referring to the turkey, which, by the way, only got burnt because instead of turning the oven off, my bi-polar Aunt Leslie tried to shove her head in it!

—Christopher Turk, Scrubs

They handle their anger management with violence and memory-repression, and they each have enough mommy and daddy issues to populate a colonial family cemetery.
I like them both, but they're so broken their missing pieces are missing some pieces.

— Kathryn Flinders on Karl and Kaff Tagons, Schlock Mercenary