Vickie

“In the United States, people interpret these things as eccentricity or – if taken to an extreme – madness,’ my mother said mildly. ‘Here, they are the mark of a witch. Of the two interpretations, I have to admit I prefer the second. A witch has some power. A madwoman is just a nut.”
― Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman

“Realise that this mis-statement should be corrected at once, but omit to do so, and later find myself involved in entirely unintentional web of falsehood. Should like to work out how far morally to blame for this state of things, but have not time.”
― E M Delafield, Diary of a Provincial Lady

“We find the Mayan pantheon peculiar. By our standards, suicide and human sacrifice are unacceptable. We tend not to notice the peculiarities of our own culture. We accept the thousands of children who wear braces to correct their teeth, yet we consider the Maya odd for filing teeth to beautify them. Each culture defines its own idiosyncracies and then forgets that it has done so.”
― Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman

“My mother, like the female birds of many species, had developed a drab protective coloration that let her blend into the background, invisible as long as she remained silent. She counseled me to adopt the same strategy, to be quiet and meek, but I could never manage it. I always felt like a fledgling cuckoo bird, hatched from an egg laid in an alien nest, a chick too big, too loud, too rambunctious for its adopted parents. When I graduated from high school, my father suggested that I take a job clerking at the local drugstore. I packed my bags and left.”
― Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman