Only Child Quotes

“Maybe it's because I was an only child, but I've always wanted kids.”
― Benedict Cumberbatch

“I haven't met loads of asshole only children. If you fill a room with all the assholes you know, I bet that most of them have siblings.”
― Judy Greer, I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star

“Don't die, Violet. I'd hate to be an only child.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“Attributing feelings to inanimate things is probably a symptom of only-child-ness. Who else to talk to when the parents fight except walls and banisters and things?”
― Weike Wang, Chemistry

“Rose had grown up in a room filled with sixty other girls. She was used to the intimacy of other female bodies. When a girl reached out a hand to her, Rose always instinctively grabbed it. Poppy was not used to touching other women. Poppy was that strange thing: an only child.”
― Heather O'Neill, The Lonely Hearts Hotel

“I was an only child. It was lonely."
"I was one of four. It was noisy.”
― Kate Morton, The Secret Keeper

“Being in the middle meant no one remembered anything except as a foggy mist, just the most general idea that Porter had been there. That was sometimes how Cecelia felt about her parents, too, though of course she was an only child and they had no one else to pay attention to, other than themselves.”
― Emma Straub, All Adults Here

“I can't think I had much of a sense of humor as long as I remained the only child. When my brother Edward came along we both became comics, making each other laugh.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing

“Like Gil, Brian had been raised as an only child by strong women. "It shaped our views of ourselves. We considered ourselves loners, on the outside of society," said Jackson. And the two of them often preferred being alone to being around other people.”
― Marcus Baram, Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man

“I stället ställde hon den fråga som flöt under alla de andra frågorna som en djup underjordisk flod. »Var jag önskad?«”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“...Her upbringing as an only child had given her a low tolerance for bullshit and a high dose of self respect.”
― Erin Chack, This Is Really Happening

“I felt a wave of loneliness. It occurred to me for perhaps the first time, as the car lurched forward, that if anything were to happen to my family, I’d be all alone in the world.”
― Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles

“Her breath caught as a memory hit her like a tidal wave: ten-year-old Jasmine, curled up with a book at her father's feet while he worked through the piles of parchment in the box, full of official correspondence from his ministers and satraps, the governors who ruled neighboring provinces in the sultan's name.
"One day, Jasmine azizam, this will be your job too," he had said, peering down at her with a serious expression. "It's the most important work a mortal could ever do: taking care of an entire kingdom and its people. Is that something you can see yourself doing one day? Ruling just like your Baba?"
"I only have to do it if you don't have a son." Jasmine had shrugged off the question with all the carefree obliviousness of a child.
An inscrutable expression had come over her father then. He opened his mouth to say something and stopped, as if thinking better of it. And then he reached down to squeeze her shoulder.
"There will be no son, Jasmine," he had said. "You are the one.”
― Alexandra Monir, Realm of Wonders

“That's the depressing side of being an only child; when your parents die, and you inevitably become an orphan, you own the title in every sense of the word. Meaning now you've got no one to clean up the remnants of a life you no longer share with anyone.”
― Amy Matayo, They Call Her Dirty Sally

“Parents are funny things. As an only child, I studied them like apes in a zoo—their whims, habits, moods—and believed it was my duty to make them happy, There was no Child Number Two. Everything fell on me.”
― Christine Rice, Swarm Theory