Julie

“Out of love and desire to protect our children's self-esteem, we have bulldozed every uncomfortable bump and obstacle out of the way, clearing the manicured path we hoped would lead to success and happiness. Unfortunately, in doing so we have deprived our children of the most important lessons of childhood. The setbacks, mistakes, miscalculations, and failures we have shoved out of our children's way are the very experiences that teach them how to be resourceful, persistent, innovative and resilient citizens of this world.”
― Jessica Lahey, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed

“It would have been helpful if there was a Mayo Clinic chapter about the topic of "leaving." Man, I would have read that chapter over and over -- leaving your wailing baby in the morning without wanting to slit your wrists; leaving your desk even though you are only a half hour away from completing something that would feel so good to wrap up; leaving the building so no one notices that you are actually leaving. I was much more interested in honing that skill than learning how to puree apples and carrots to freeze in ice-cube trays (not that I ever did that either). As long as I was a full-time working mother with a clock to punch or a train to catch -- as I would be for eight more years -- I never figured out how to leave with grace or with so-called conviction.”
― Jenny Rosenstrach

“High on their posthumous pedestals, the dead become hard to see. Grief, deference, and the homogenizing effects of adulation blur the details, flatten the bumps, sand off the sharp corners.”
― Anne Fadiman, The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories

“But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South