In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies.
And she, the new mother of a daughter, felt a fierceness come over her that seized at her heart, that made her feel as if her bones were turned to steel, as if she could turn herself into a weapon to keep this daughter of hers from having to be hurt by the world outside the ring of her arms.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes a mother's fierce protective instinct for her child against external dangers.
In this quote, the author explores the profound transformation that occurs in a mother's heart and strength upon the birth of her child. The mother feels an overwhelming sense of fierceness and protection, akin to being armed for battle, showcasing the deep bond and instinctual drive to shield her daughter from the potential harms of the outside world. This sentiment reflects the lengths to which a parent will go to ensure the safety and well-being of their child, illustrating the power of maternal love and ferocity.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a parenting seminar to illustrate the protective nature of mothers.
More from Lauren Groff
All quotes →Sometimes immense things, like war and death and aging, are best seen from the corner of the eye and written of only obliquely, with tremendous lightness.
I seem to long for community and mistrust it in equal measure, and so I spend most of my days carefully constructing various communities in stories and seeing if they fly.
Similar quotes
Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts. The scriptures tell us that "Only by pride cometh contention".
The hardest thing that I had to do every day as a working single parent was child care, to have to leave my child with people that I did not know and hope everything was OK, that was the most painful part of every day.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
Your children are spiritual beings who come through you, not for you.
In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.
We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.