My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the sacrifices and accomplishments of a mother who achieved education but put her dreams on hold for her family.
Twyla Tharp's quote reflects on her mother's pioneering achievement as the first woman in their county to earn a college degree, illustrating the balance between personal ambition and familial responsibilities. Despite her desire to pursue a career as a concert pianist, her mother's commitment to her family during wartime led her to transition into teaching, embodying the often-unseen sacrifices made by women in pursuit of both education and family life.
In practice
This quote can be used during a Mother's Day speech to honor the sacrifices mothers make.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
My mother sang with me in her stomach; I sang with Bobbi Kris in my stomach. I believe the child starts to develop within, and whatever you read, whatever you think, whatever you do affects the child.
How beautiful is the family that recites the Rosary every evening.
As we go through life, even through very rough waters, a father's instinctive impulse to cling tightly to his wife or to his children may not be the best way to accomplish his objective. Instead, if he will lovingly cling to the Savior and the iron rod of the gospel, his family will want to cling to him and to the Savior.
I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage.
My mother seemed to undermine so much of what I did, subtly belittling my choices and my activities in light of her greater, more important ones.
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
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