My father always quoted poetry, but I didn't know it at the time. For instance, "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink," by Coleridge. My mother gave us many Southern expressions.
The most important thing she taught us was that we were "peculiar." I didn't know at the time why she told us that, but with age comes wisdom.
My mother was a proud child of the South, but didn't subscribe to the segregationist mentality prevalent there. Indeed, her family befriended the poor and the blacks, and often stood up for equality long before the Civil Rights movement took hold. Because of that, she prepared her own children to be ostracized or worse. We didn't care that we lived on the edge of society, because we were proud that we were different, that is, "peculiar."
Only when she was old and told us the stories of her youth, and of her mother's youth, did we learn why.
Dad has a gift for sarcasm and acid wit that I've often tried to emulate. 
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