Quotes about daughter
page 6

James K. Morrow photo

“Truth is the daughter of God, and in all her attributes God-like and eternal. Truth never depreciates in value”

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist

Sermon (1899)

Marcelo Tas photo

“Luiza (his oldest daughter) expressed this option. That, remember, is personal.”

Marcelo Tas (1959) Brazilian actor

In a news magazine Alfa, talks about his daughter being gay.

John Mayer photo
Jules Michelet photo

“France is the daughter of freedom. In human progress, the essential part, the main force, is called man. Man is his own Prometheus.”

Jules Michelet (1798–1874) French historian

[Peface de la Histoire de France, Michelet, Jules, Flammarion, 1893-1894, VIII]
History of France, 1833-1867

Ivanka Trump photo

“As a citizen, I love what he’s doing. As a daughter, it’s obviously more complicated.”

Ivanka Trump (1981) American businesswoman, socialite, fashion model and daughter of Donald Trump

(October 14, 2015). "Ivanka Trump on how she feels about her dad's run: It's complicated". POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ivanka-trump-on-donald-trumps-2016-presidential-run-214783

James Macpherson photo

“Can I forget that beam of light, the white-handed daughter of kings?”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"Cath-Loda", Duan I
The Poems of Ossian

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Rāmabhadrācārya photo
Heinrich Heine photo

“Although the Protestant Church is accused of much disastrous bigotry, one claim to immortal fame must be granted it: by permitting freedom of inquiry in the Christian faith and by liberating the minds of men from the yoke of authority, it enabled freedom of inquiry in general to take root in Germany, and made it possible for science to develop independently. German philosophy, though it now puts itself on an equal basis with the Protestant Church or even above it, is nonetheless only its daughter; as such it always owes the mother a forbearing reverence.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Wenn man auch der protestantischen Kirche manche fatale Engsinnigkeit vorwirft, so muß man doch zu ihrem unsterblichen Ruhme bekennen: indem durch sie die freie Forschung in der christlichen Religion erlaubt und die Geister vom Joche der Autorität befreit wurden, hat die freie Forschung überhaupt in Deutschland Wurzel schlagen und die Wissenschaft sich selbständig entwickeln können. Die deutsche Philosophie, obgleich sie sich jetzt neben die protestantische Kirche stellt, ja sich über sie heben will, ist doch immer nur ihre Tochter; als solche ist sie immer in betreff der Mutter zu einer schonenden Pietät verpflichtet.
Source: The Romantic School (1836), p. 24

Warren Farrell photo
Aron Ra photo
Fali Sam Nariman photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Days http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20591&c=323
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

Koenraad Elst photo

“Distortive or even totally false reporting on communally sensitive issues is a well-entrenched feature of Indian journalism. There is no self-corrective mechanism in place to remedy this endemic culture of disinformation. No reporter or columnist or editor ever gets fired or formally reprimanded or even just criticized by his peers for smearing Hindus. This way, a partisan economy with the truth has become a habit hard to relinquish. And foreign correspondents used to trusting their Indian secularist sources have likewise developed a habit of swallowing and relaying highly distorted news stories. Usually, the creation of a false impression of the Indian communal situation is achieved without outright lies, relying rather on the silent treatment for inconvenient facts and a screaming overemphasis on convenient ones. (…) So, moral of the story: feel free to write lies about the Hindus. Even if you are found out, most of the public will never hear of it, and you will not be made to bear any consequences.(…) These days, noisy secularists lie in waiting for communal riots and elatedly jump at them when and where they erupt. They exploit the anti-Hindu propaganda value of riots to the hilt, making up fictional stories as they go along to compensate for any defects in the true account. John Dayal is welcomed to Congressional committees in Washington DC as a crown witness to canards such as how Hindus are raping Catholic nuns in Jhabua, an allegation long refuted in a report by the Congress state government of Madhya Pradesh and more recently in the court verdict on the matter. Arundhati Roy goes lyrical about the torture of a Muslim politician's two daughters by Hindus during the Gujarat riots of 2002, even when the man had only one daughter, who came forward to clarify that she happened to be in the US at the time of the “facts.””

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Harsh Mander has already been condemned by the Press Council of India for spreading false rumours about alleged Hindu atrocities in his famous column Hindustan Hamara. Teesta Setalwad has reportedly pressured eyewitnesses to give the desired incriminating testimony against Hindus in the Gujarat riots.
K. Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, Agni conference in The Hague, in The Problem with Secularism (2007)
2000s, The Problem with Secularism (2007)

Cotton Mather photo

“Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.”

Magnalia Christi Americana http://books.google.com/books?id=49JdS7NoSawC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Magnalia+Christi+Americana#PPA63,M1 (The Ecclesiastical History of New England), s. 63 (1702). Mather, commenting on the spiritual condition of the colonies, cited an old saying in Latin: Religio peperit Divitias, et filia devoravit matrem.

Leighton W. Smith, Jr. photo
Regina Spektor photo
Cindy Sheehan photo
Carl Linnaeus photo
Sam Harris photo
Chen Shui-bian photo

“Now my daughter's wedding is finished, I shall improve the economy in Taiwan.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

During his daughter's wedding banquet, September 27, 2001
Pet Phrases, 2001

Noel Coward photo
Vālmīki photo
Gangubai Hangal photo
Muhammad photo
Eddie Izzard photo
Godfrey Higgins photo
Jane Espenson photo

“I will not listen to childcare lectures from a man who put his daughter in a box and shipped her to Maine.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

Lines written for Regina (the Evil Queen) to David Nolan (Prince Charming), in the "We Are Both" episode of Once Upon a Time (7 October 2012)

Muhammad bin Tughluq photo

“All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus:
“The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” Such was their influx that Ibn Battutah writes: “At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.” Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India….. Ibn Battutah’s eye-witness account of the Sultan’s gifting captured slave girls to nobles or arranging their marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, corroborates the statement of Abbas. Ibn Battutah writes that during the celebrations in connection with the two Ids in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, daughters of Hindu Rajas and those of commoners, captured during the course of the year were distributed among nobles, officers and important foreign slaves. “On the fourth day men slaves are married and on the fifth slave-girls. On the sixth day men and women slaves are married off.” This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D., III, 580., Battutah)

D. L. Hughley photo

“Debbie Reynolds died a day after her daughter [Carrie Fisher] did! Black Mama's don't die cuz they kids do! They cry and say God don't make no mistakes!”

D. L. Hughley (1963) American actor and comedian

Commenting on the death of Carrie Fisher, and the death one day later of her mother Debbie Reynolds.
Source: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2016/12/29/dl-hughley-slammed-for-debbie-reynolds-tweet/95954690/

Miriam Makeba photo
David Brin photo

“One great mystery is why sexual reproduction became dominant for higher life-forms. Optimization theory says it should be otherwise.
Take a fish or lizard, ideally suited to her environment, with just the right internal chemistry, agility, camouflage—whatever it takes to be healthy, fecund, and successful in her world. Despite all this, she cannot pass on her perfect characteristics. After sex, her offspring will be jumbles, getting only half of their program from her and half their re-sorted genes somewhere else.
Sex inevitably ruins perfection. Parthenogenesis would seem to work better—at least theoretically. In simple, static environments, well-adapted lizards who produce duplicate daughters are known to have advantages over those using sex.
Yet, few complex animals are known to perform self-cloning. And those species exist in ancient, stable deserts, always in close company with a related sexual species.
Sex has flourished because environments are seldom static. Climate, competition, parasites—all make for shifting conditions. What was ideal in one generation may be fatal the next. With variability, your offspring get a fighting chance. Even in desperate times, one or more of them may have what it takes to meet new challenges and thrive.
Each style has its advantages, then. Cloning offers stability and preservation of excellence. Sex gives adaptability to changing times. In nature it is usually one or the other. Only lowly creatures such as aphids have the option of switching back and forth.”

Introduction to Chapter 8 (pp. 123-124)
Glory Season (1993)

Hoyt Axton photo

“And I dream in the morning that she brings me water
And I dream in the evening that she brings me wine
Just a poor man's daughter from Puerta Piñasco
South of the border, in old Mexico.”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

"Evangelina" on Fearless (1976) · Stage performance by Axton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O53wg24FAT0

Tommy Douglas photo
Common (rapper) photo

“This is street rad-i-o, For unsung hero,
Driving in the regal, trying to stay legal,
My daughter found Nemo, I found the new primo,
Yeah, you know how we do, we do it for the people.”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"The People", Finding Forever
Albums, Compilations, Singles, and Cameos

William Faulkner photo
John Gay photo
Jeff Foxworthy photo
Jesse Ventura photo
Lyndon LaRouche photo

“Georgie Pringle: The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Pringle, "the class comic", has been asked to choose the bible reading for a secondary school class. He has a reputation for knowing "all the dirty bits in the bible off by heart," according to Nigel Barton's narration. The quote is from Ezekiel, chapter 23, verses 1-3.
Stand up, Nigel Barton (1965)

Bill Engvall photo
Frederick IV of Naples photo

“It seems to me that the Pope's son, the Cardinal, is not in a condition for me to give him my daughter to wife. Make a cardinal who can marry and take off the hat, and then I will give him my daughter.”

Frederick IV of Naples (1451–1504) King of Naples

Dated 1498 or earlier. Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Cesare Borgia / His Life and Times (1976, George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Limited. London. Reprinted 1981. ISBN 0-297-77124-8), p. 72

Tenzin Gyatso photo

“Thousands — millions and billions — of animals are killed for food. That is very sad. We human beings can live without meat, especially in our modern world. We have a great variety of vegetables and other supplementary foods, so we have the capacity and the responsibility to save billions of lives. I have seen many individuals and groups promoting animal rights and following a vegetarian diet. This is excellent. Certain killing is purely a "luxury." … But perhaps the saddest is factory farming. The poor animals there really suffer. I once visited a poultry farm in Japan where they keep 200,000 hens for two years just for their eggs. During those two years, they are prisoners. Then after two years, when they are no longer productive, the hens are sold. That is really shocking, really sad. We must support those who are attempting to reduce that kind of unfair treatment. An Indian friend told me that his young daughter has been arguing with him that it is better to serve one cow to ten people than to serve chicken or other small animals, since more lives would be involved. In the Indian tradition, beef is always avoided, but I think there is some logic to her argument. Shrimp, for example, are very small. For one plate, many lives must be sacrificed. To me, this is not at all delicious. I find it really awful, and I think it is better to avoid these things. If your body needs meat, it may be better to eat bigger animals. Eventually you may be able to eliminate the need for meat. I think that our basic nature as human beings is to be vegetarian — making every effort not to harm other living beings. If we apply our intelligence, we can create a sound, nutritional program. It is very dangerous to ignore the suffering of any sentient being.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Interview in Worlds in Harmony: Dialogues on Compassionate Action, Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992, pp. 20-21.

Rubén Darío photo
Jahangir photo
Vittorio Alfieri photo

“Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence.”

Vittorio Alfieri (1749–1803) Italian dramatist and poet

Alta vendetta
D'alto silenzio è figlia.
La Congiura de' Pazzi, I, 1; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 707.

David Hunter photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Robert Skipwith (3 August 1771) http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.html#hd_lf054.2.head.010 ; also in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 4, p. 239 http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC61981280&id=YjaXnbNMaccC&pg=RA6-PA239&lpg=RA6-PA239&dq=Bergh+%22volumes+of+ethics,+and+divinity%22
1770s

Edward Thomas photo

“If I should ever by chance grow rich
I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,
Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,
And let them all to my eldest daughter.”

Edward Thomas (1878–1917) Poet and journalist

Poem If I Should Ever By Chance http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-i-should-ever-by-chance/

Margaret Sanger photo
Bill O'Neill photo
John Knox photo
Anna Akhmatova photo

“And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

The just man followed then his angel guide
Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;
But a wild grief in his wife's bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late for a last sight
Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.
Translator unknown
Lot's Wife

Jefferson Davis photo

“Julia Hayden, the colored school teacher, one of the latest victims of the White man's League, was only seventeen years of age. She was the daughter of respectable parents in Maury County, Tennessee, and had been carefully educated at the Central College, Nashville, a favorite place for the instruction of youth of both sexes of her race. She is said to have possessed unusual personal attractions as well as intelligence. Under the reign of slavery as it is defined and upheld by Davis and Toombs, Julia Hayden would probably have been taken from her parents and sent in a slave coffle to New Orleans to be sold on its auction block. But emancipation had prepared for her a different and less dreadful fate. With that strong desire for mental cultivation which marked the colored race since their freedom, in all circumstances where there is an opportunity left them for its exhibition, the young girl had so improved herself as to become capable of teaching others. She went to Western Tennessee and took charge of a school. Three days after her arrival at Hartsville, at night, two white men, armed with their guns, appeared at the house where she was staying, and demanded the school teacher. She fled, alarmed, to the room of the mistress of the house. The White Leaguers pursued. They fired their guns I through the floor of the room and the young girl fell dead within. Her murderers escaped.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

"Louisiana and the Rule of Terror" http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=EL18741010.2.9#, The Elevator (10 October 1874), Volume 10, Number 26.

Taylor Swift photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Harry Chapin photo
Joseph Strutt photo

“The wassail is said to have originated from the words of Rowena, the daughter of Hengist; who, presenting a bowl of wine to Vortigern, the king of the Britons, said, wæs hæl or, health to you, my lord king…”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 363
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Wassail

Robert E. Howard photo
Bill Engvall photo
Anita Sarkeesian photo
Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama photo

“Wanting this landlord's daughter
is wanting the topmost
peach.”

Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (1683–1706) sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Source: Attributed, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004, p.37

“The Hindus of this region had been victims of Muslim high-handedness for a long time, particularly in respect of their women. Murshid Qulî Khãn, the faujdãr of Mathura who died in 1638, was notorious for seizing “all their most beautiful women” and forcing them into his harem. “On the birthday of Krishna,” narrates Ma’sîr-ul-Umara, “a vast gathering of Hindu men and women takes place at Govardhan on the Jumna opposite Mathura. The Khan, painting his forehead and wearing dhoti like a Hindu, used to walk up and down in the crowd. Whenever he saw a woman whose beauty filled even the moon with envy, he snatched her away like a wolf pouncing upon a flock, and placing her in the boat which his men kept ready on the bank, he sped to Agra. The Hindu [for shame] never divulged what had happened to his daughter.” Another notorious faujdãr of Mathura was Abdu’n Nabî Khãn. He plundered the people unscrupulously and amassed great wealth. But his worst offence was the pulling down of the foremost Hindu temple in the heart of Mathura and building a Jãmi‘ Masjid on its site. This he did in AD 1660-61. Soon after, in 1665, Aurangzeb imposed a pilgrim tax on the Hindus. In 1668, he prohibited celebration of all Hindu festivals, particularly Holi and Diwali. The Jats who rightly regarded themselves as the defenders of Hindu hounour were no longer in a mood to take it lying. (Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzeb, Vol. III, Calcutta, 1972 )”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Barbara Hepworth photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Warren Farrell photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo
Charles Stuart Calverley photo
John McCain photo
Diodorus Siculus photo
Muhammad bin Qasim photo

“It is not Beauty I demand,
A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair.”

George Darley (1795–1846) Irish poet, novelist, and critic

Poem The Loveliness of Love http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~ridge/local/iinbid.html

Honoré de Balzac photo

“Mothers with marriageable daughters ought to look out for men of this stamp, men with brains to act as protecting divinity, with worldly wisdom to diagnose like a surgeon, and with experience to take a mother’s place in warding off evil. These are the three cardinal virtues in matrimony.”

Les mères de famille devraient rechercher de pareils hommes pour leurs filles: l'Esprit est protecteur comme la Divinité, le Désenchantement est perspicace comme un chirurgien, l'Expérience est prévoyante comme une mère. Ces trois sentiments sont les vertus théologales du mariage.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 3: The Story of a Happy Woman.

Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Irene Dunne photo

“I'll never have to write my memoirs now after reading this. She had six husbands, at least six lovers - why, my life is so dull compared to hers! I've had one husband, one daughter, one house and no lovers.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

Everyone Loved Irene, by William Frye http://www.irenedunnesite.com/press/vanity-fair-march-2004/ Vanity Fair, 2004]

Cloris Leachman photo
Jeff Foxworthy photo
Louis C.K. photo

“Last week I got a flu that I caught, 'cause my daughter coughed … into my mouth.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Chewed Up

Marie-Louise von Franz photo

“Just as the mother influence is formative with a man's anima, the father has a determining influence on the animus of a daughter. The father imbues his daughter's mind with the specific coloring conferred by those indisputable views mentioned above, which in reality are so often missing in the daughter. For this reason the animus is also sometimes represented as a demon of death. A gypsy tale, for example, tells of a woman living alone who takes in an unknown handsome wanderer and lives with him in spite of the fact that a fearful dream has warned her that he is the king of the dead. Again and again she presses him to say who he is. At first he refuses to tell her, because he knows that she will then die, but she persists in her demand. Then suddenly he tells her he is death. The young woman is so frightened that she dies. Looked at from the point of view of mythology, the unknown wanderer here is clearly a pagan father and god figure, who manifests as the leader of the dead (like Hades, who carried off Persephone). He embodies a form of the animus that lures a woman away from all human relationships and especially holds her back from love with a real man. A dreamy web of thoughts, remote from life and full of wishes and judgments about how things "ought to be," prevents all contact with life. The animus appears in many myths, not only as death, but also as a bandit and murderer, for example, as the knight Bluebeard, who murdered all his wives.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Source: Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Animus, a Woman's Inner Man, p. 319 - 320

Anthony Trollope photo
Charles Darwin photo

“Meantime her sire was shuddering at the cruel news that reached his ear: the doom of his house, the mourning, his daughter's crafty flight.”
Interea patrias saevus venit horror ad aures fata domus luctumque ferens fraudemque fugamque virginis.

Source: Argonautica, Book VIII, Lines 134–136

J. M. Barrie photo
Anton Chekhov photo
Russell Brand photo

““I believe in God,” says my nan, in a way that makes the idea of an omnipotent, unifying frequency of energy manifesting matter from pure consciousness sound like a chore. An unnecessary chore at that, like cleaning under the fridge. I tell her, plucky little seven-year-old that I was, that I don’t. This pisses her off. Her faith in God is not robust enough to withstand the casual blasphemy of an agnostic tot. “Who do you think made the world, then?” I remember her demanding as fiercely as Jeremy Paxman would later insist I provide an instant global infrastructure for a post-revolutionary utopia. “Builders,” I said, thinking on my feet. This flummoxed her and put her in a bad mood for the rest of the walk. If she’d hit back with “What about construction at a planetary or galactic level?” she’d’ve had me on the ropes. At that age I wouldn’t’ve been able to riposte with “an advanced species of extraterrestrials who we have been mistakenly ascribing divine attributes to due to our own technological limitations” or “a spontaneous cosmic combustion that contained at its genesis the code for all subsequent astronomical, chemical, and biological evolution.” I probably would’ve just cried. Anyway, I’m supposed to be explaining the power of forgiveness, not gloating about a conflict in the early eighties in which I fared well against an old lady. Since getting clean from drugs and alcohol I have been taught that I played a part in the manufacture of all the negative beliefs and experiences from my past and I certainly play a part in their maintenance. I now look at my nan in another way. As a human being just like me, trying to cope with her own flaws and challenges. Fearful of what would become of her sick daughter, confused by the grandchild born of a match that she was averse to. Alone and approaching the end of her life, with regret and lacking a functioning system of guidance and comfort. Trying her best. Taking on the responsibility of an unusual little boy with glib, atheistic tendencies, she still behaved dutifully. Perhaps this very conversation sparked in me the spirit of metaphysical inquiry that has led to the faith in God I now have.”

Revolution (2014)

Stephen Fry photo
Margaret Mead photo