...life is all about chances. You might be safer not taking any. But playing it totally safe means you're only existing. Not living. I want to live.
Interpretation
Life requires taking risks; playing it safe limits our experience and fulfillment.
In this quote, Ellen Hopkins emphasizes the importance of taking chances in life. While it may seem safer to avoid risks, such an approach leads to mere existence rather than a vibrant, fulfilling life. To truly live, one must embrace opportunities and challenges that come their way, as these experiences shape who we are and how we connect with the world around us.
In practice
When motivating students to take academic risks in their projects.
Not Exactly True That skin hate is dead. There will never be color blindness in a culture of fear. But when you live afraid of your neighbor, the monster you should most walk in terror of thrives. It starts as a little thing, small enough to burrow into your pores, take up excruciating residence in the dark recesses of your brain. Its name is paranoia, and it spreads like an oil spill, there in the shadows, chokes your humanity. Threatens your soul.
I need to capture my sprite with trembling hands. Except I could crush her. Wonder how many small things of beauty - flowers, seashells, dragonflies - have met such a demise. Wonder how much fragile love has collapsed beneath the weight of confession.
They think old people are lame. But they're not. They're awesome, & I know exactly why I think so. It's because they've lived entire lifetimes. Loved. Laughed. Surrendered. Stumbled. Weathered, beaten, still they don't crumble, not even as they inch toward death.
I haven't cried since Mom died. I mean, after something like that, what's left to cry about, right? But I let myself cry now. Loss is loss. Doesn't take death to create it. (266)
One Time, One Day between Davie and Roberta , I asked my mom why she persisted, kept on having baby after baby, She looked at me, at a spot between my eyes, blinking like I had suddenly fallen crazy. She paused before answering as if to confide would legitimize my fears. She drew a deep breath, leaned against the chair. I touched her hand and I thought she might cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role. I decided if it was my role, I'd rather disappear.
When I was little, my friends would gush over wedding gowns and honeymoons. But I saw too many people flush decades together down the toilet over money or kids or meaningless flings. My own parents chose to stay married, which I think is rather funny, since they show about as much affection for each other as pit bulls in a ring. Tying the knot means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.
Everyone who is taken by death asks for more time, while everyone who still has time makes excuses for procrastination.
I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.
Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.
When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.
Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch Life from the side lines. For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day's work an achievement for eternity.
It is that unoccupied space which makes a room habitable, as it is our leisure hours which make life endurable.
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