floriane

“Children have an elemental hunger for knowledge and understanding, for mental food and stimulation. They do not need to be told or “motivated” to explore or play, for play, like all creative or proto-creative activities, is deeply pleasurable in itself. Both the innovative and the imitative impulses come together in pretend play, often using toys or dolls or miniature replicas of real-world objects to act out new scenarios or rehearse and replay old ones. Children are drawn to narrative, not only soliciting and enjoying stories from others, but creating them themselves. Storytelling and mythmaking are primary human activities, a fundamental way of making sense of our world. Intelligence, imagination, talent, and creativity will get nowhere without a basis of knowledge and skills, and for this education must be sufficiently structured and focused. But an education too rigid, too formulaic, too lacking in narrative, may kill the once-active, inquisitive mind of a child. Education has to achieve a balance between structure and freedom, and each child’s needs may be extremely variable.”
― Oliver Sacks, The River of Consciousness

“There is something threatening about a woman who is not occupied with children. There is something at-loose-ends feeling about such a woman. What is she going to do instead? What sort of trouble will she make?”
― Sheila Heti, Motherhood

“I was longing for that soft spot-the age where your parents look at you and you look at them back, and you're just their child. And you don't yet feel the strain of being something else. Of being yourself.”
― Bronwyn Fischer, The Adult

“Maybe I was just terrified that I might be the closest thing she had to leaving a piece of herself behind.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart