41 Quotes About Being an Orphan

Just because a child is left to be an orphan does not mean that there are some invaluable experiences to be learned and shared with others. These quotes about being an orphan are encouraging to the many others that have been negatively affected.

“Adolescents are attracted to tragic heroes. That’s why rock stars dress like homeless people. Adolescence is a fall. It’s when every child becomes an orphan.”

“Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.”

“Biography is, simply, the orphan of academia.”

“Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.”

“Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.”

“I did nothing to deserve God’s love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God’s family.”

“I don’t even know how it is to have a home. I feel like an orphan or something.”

“I love creating opportunities for people. I think it’s my orphan mentality.”

“I reached down and picked up a baseball bat at my feet and I flung it as hard as it could. It circled and arced high in the air until it slammed against the side of the dining hall with a crack and fell.”

“I’d always been insecure. Being the fourth of five kids means attention is divided five ways, and to do this equally is impossible. I grew up feeling like the little orphan in the family, the one who didn’t fit in.”

“If I lose show business – I’ll really be an orphan!”

“If you want to celebrate a happy occasion, Do it by helping those who are in need.”

“I’m an orphan. But the public has adopted me, and that has been my only family. The biggest family in the world is my fans.”

“Mother was anchor. Mother was comfort. Mother was home. A girl who lost her mother was suddenly a tiny boat on an angry ocean.”

“My maternal granddad, Leonard, was full of amazing stories. He was an orphan, with 11 or 12 brothers and sisters, and he used to tell us about growing up near the Irrawaddy river and how one brother was eaten by a crocodile.”

“My mom was an orphan, and there was never anybody to tell her what she could or couldn’t do. At the core, she’s probably an artist – an artist and a feminist.”

“Not everyone can be an orphan.”

“Not sure how much longer she can continue her fight for the children or how much more of her there is to give, she pledged to keep going until she no longer can.”

“Orphanages are the only places that ever left me feeling empty and full at the same time.”

“Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much.”

“Perhaps there are those who are able to go about their lives unfettered by such concerns. But for those like us, our fate is to face the world as orphans, chasing through long years the shadows of vanished parents.”

“Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.”

“Recent results from astronomers who study the occasional gravitational lensing of unknown worlds by intervening stars suggest that orphan planets could be at least as numerous as the stars. In other words, there could be hundreds of billions of orphan worlds shuffling through
our galaxy.”

“The most surprising thing, honestly, is that so few Americans know about the orphan trains. I was also surprised at the resilience and fortitude of the riders I met, their pragmatism and grace. I don’t know whether this is a Midwestern trait or simply a human one.”

“The one phrase you can use is that success has a thousand fathers, and failure is an orphan.”

“The purpose of having the orphans study all these diverse fields was not for them to just become geniuses, but to become polymaths – meaning they would be geniuses in a wide variety of fields.”

“The truth is you can be orphaned again and again and again. The truth is, you will be. And the secret is, this will hurt less and less each time until you can’t feel a thing. Trust me on this.”

“The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome — this orphan, this foundling, this outcast.”

“There would be fewer absent fathers, if straight men were turned on only by women with whom they would not mind having children.”

“There’s something really unique about ‘Orphan Black’ is that it has a lot of female leads, so it’s about a lot of women’s stories, but it’s not women’s stories in terms of trying to find a guy or keep a guy; it’s about entirely other things.”

“This country owes them all a debt of gratitude. The down payment on that debt is making sure that we live up to Lincoln’s charge: to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.”

“Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.”

“We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.”

“We did a show called The Orphan Train, during the depression, when families didn’t have enough money to support their children, they’d put them on the train and hope someone would pick them up who had enough money to support their children.”

“We were castoffs and slaves, orphans and unwanteds and used-to-be princesses… and we were mighty.”

“When I was an orphan, I was the richest kid at the orphanage because everyone else was complaining about not having anything. But when I discovered that you could get two cents for a Coca-Cola bottle, I would follow people around who were drinking it and ask them if they were almost through with it.”

“When my father died, my mother was still alive. And I think when your second parent dies, there is that shock: ‘Oh man, I’m an orphan.’ There’s also this relief: It’s done; it’s finished; it’s over.”

“When you lose a parent, you realize how vital they are to the foundation of your life. It’s impossible to understand what it means until that curtain is pulled. You’re an orphan. But then I think that life is kind of remarkable, and the thing that causes the biggest pain can also bring amazing energy.”

“When you lose a spouse, you’re a widow or widower; when you lose your parents, you’re an orphan. When you lose a child, there’s no word in the English language for that position, that place that you’re left.”

“When you lose your parents as a child, you are indoctrinated into a club, you re taken into life’s severest confidence. You are undeceived.”

“You are ugly when you love her, you are beautiful and fresh, vital and free, modern and poetic when you don’t… you are more beautiful as an orphan than as your mother’s son.”

There is much harm that comes out of the negative experiences of being raised in an orphanage. Making life better for the children of the future is key to ending the tragedy for some.