“No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.”

— Margaret Atwood , book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Margaret Atwood 348

Canadian writer 1939

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“I know, Mother, you feel badly and that you would prefer to have me take some other course, if I could in conscience. Yet, Mother, I know you too well to suppose that you would wish me to turn away from what I think is my duty.”

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Context: I know, Mother, you feel badly and that you would prefer to have me take some other course, if I could in conscience. Yet, Mother, I know you too well to suppose that you would wish me to turn away from what I think is my duty. I surely would not be a public speaker if I sought a life of ease, for it will be a most laborious one; nor would I do it for the sake of honor, for I know that I shall be disesteemed, even hated, by some who are now my friends, or who profess to be. Neither would I do it if I sought wealth, because I could secure it with far more ease and worldly honor by being a teacher. If I would be true to myself, true to my Heavenly Father, I must pursue that course of conduct which, to me, appears best calculated to promote the highest good of the world.

“Then Pa, who had seen the occurrence,
And didn't know what to do next,
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Albert, 'Arold and Others (1938)

“Children love their mothers. Especially with a boy child and his mother, there's a bond that's unbreakable. I love my mother to this day. One of the most painful things I ever had to do was bury her, realizing that even though I was her hero, I couldn't help her with this last thing. I couldn't help her get better. All I wanted was to give her everything she wanted. Everything my father didn't give her, everything she never had.”

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“Everyone always talks about how well mothers know their children. No one ever seems to notice how well children know their mothers.”

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“It's all your fault, Mother,' said Larry austerely; 'you shouldn't have brought us up to be so selfish.' 'I like that!' exclaimed Mother. 'I never did anything of the sort!' 'Well, we didn't get as selfish as this without some guidance,' said Larry.”

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“It's the child who's supposed to cry, and the mom who makes it all better, not the other way around, which is why mothers will move heaven and earth to hold it together in front of their own kids.”

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“Socrates: The disgrace begins when a man writes not well, but badly.
Phaedrus: Clearly.
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258d (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
paraphrased in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: "And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
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“To me she was a woman but to herself she was still a child calling to her mother to hold her hand and help her. And her own mother, in the secret life we do not see, was a child too. I come from a line of children without end.”

J.M. Coetzee book Life & Times of Michael K

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Context: He closed his eyes and tried to recover in his imagination the mudbrick walls and reed roof of her stories, the garden of prickly pear, the chickens scampering for the feed scattered by the little barefoot girl. And behind that child, in the doorway, her face obscured by shadow, he searched for a second woman, the woman from whom his mother had come into the world. When my mother was dying in the hospital, he thought, when she knew her end was coming, it was not me she looked to but someone who stood behind me: her mother or the ghost of her mother. To me she was a woman but to herself she was still a child calling to her mother to hold her hand and help her. And her own mother, in the secret life we do not see, was a child too. I come from a line of children without end.

“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well….”

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“The integrity, beauty and fragrance of future society should be expressed through mothers. The mother is the first teacher. As such, she is the one who can influence a child the most. Whatever the mother does, the child will imbibe. A mother’s breast milk does more than nourish just the baby’s body. It also develops the baby’s mind, intellect and heart. Similarly, the life values a mother transmits to her child give it strength and courage in the future.”

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“No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.”

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Margaret Atwood 348

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