George Eliot Quotes

When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you're expected move again only you don't remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself.

As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me.

I would much rather be known as the mother of a great son than the author of a great book or the painter of a great masterpiece.

For a mother the project of raising a boy is the most fulfilling project she can hope for. She can watch him, as a child, play the games she was not allowed to play; she can invest in him her ideas, aspirations, ambitions, and values - or whatever she has left of them; she can watch her son, who came from her flesh and whose life was sustained by her work and devotion, embody her in the world. So while the project of raising a boy is fraught with ambivalence and leads inevitably to bitterness, it is the only project that allows a woman to be - to be through her son, to live through her son.

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.

So much of my sense of who I am is tied to mothering. When they left home, I fell into a huge, empty, black hole. Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space.

When I started on the 'Burnett' show, I was just out of high school, and when we went off the air, I was 28 years old, married with two kids. At that point I felt I really wanted to be mommy to my children. But I found that after a year and a half, I really missed the part of myself that was an actress.

A woman's relationship with her son is psychological, emotional, even physical.

Becoming a mother has helped me to realize who I am aside from my career.

If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom," she's going to call me "Point B."

I am a proud mother - that's another reason I love doing any kind of animation. When my son was growing up, if he was watching something animated and I was in it, that was way cooler to him than seeing me in a movie.

Raising boys has made me a more generous woman than I really am. Undoubtedly, there are other routes to learning the wishes and dreams of the presumably opposite sex, but I know of none more direct, or more highly motivating, than being the mother of sons.

Only now that my son was gone did I realize how much I'd been living for him. When I woke up in the morning it was because he existed, and when I ordered food it was because he existed, and when I wrote my book it was because he existed to read it.

The biggest change for me as a mom was realizing I needed to put someone else before me. Now the hardest part about the empty nest is learning to put myself first. I know that I have raised my sons to be big, strong, independent men who love God, themselves and care for others. I have to learn to let them have space and learn without me.

Nothing could have prepared me for the realization that I was a mother ... when I knew I was still in a state of uncreation myself.

As her sons have seen her: the mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-provoking; a marble brow, a huge breast, an avid cave; between her legs snakes, swamp-grass, or teeth; on her lap a helpless infant or a martyred son. She exists for one purpose: to bear and nourish the son.

But a mother-son relationship is not a coequal one, is it? He is lonely with only you just as you are lonely with only him.

[After the twins' birth,] I spent two years doing nothing. I was a wife and a mom. But you need that time to grow. You can't be afraid of, 'Oh, I'm out of the public, then I'm going to have to make a comeback.' It's ridiculous. No.

I had already made a decision early on that I would be a plain girl with tons of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier. If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be. I decided early on it was not going to be my looks. I have spent a lifetime coming to terms with this idea and I would say I am about 15 to 20 percent there.Decide what your currency is early. Let go of what you will never have. People who do this are happier and sexier.

But I think half the battle is figuring out what works for you, and I am much better at being a mother than I ever would have been as a lawyer. I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if there are other women who figure out where they are supposed to be by going nowhere." - My Sister's Keeper

Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

Why, Jon, why?" his mother asked. "Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can't you leave low flying to the pelicans, the alhatross? Why don't you eat? Son, you're bone and feathers!" "I don't mind being bone and feathers mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can't, that's all. I just want to know.

We have to steer our true life’s course. Whatever your calling is in life! The whole purpose of being here is to figure out what that is as soon as possible, so you go about the business of being on track, of not being owned by what your mother said, what society said, whatever people think a woman is supposed to be when you can exceed other people’s expectations and be defined by your own!

I have to do the work of self-love and affirmation, and say, "I am a woman, I am a person of color, I am the granddaughter of immigrants, I am also the descendant of slaves, I am a mother, I am an entrepreneur, I am an artist, and I'm joyful." And maybe in seeing my joy, you can finish your sentence with, "And I am joyful too."

In the '50s you had to wear pink ribbons if you were a girl, and you were supposed to become a hairdresser or a secretary. I couldn't stomach it. Later on, when I fell in love with my husband and had children, that's when my mother's earthiness or sense of femaleness kicked in.