We see it in the body, that if you just give the body enough rest and comfort, it has remarkable self-healing capacities. Well, so does the spirit.
Gail SheehyRead
I was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can't she just shut up and be happy?'
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle for women's rights and the societal expectations placed on women during a specific time period.
Gail Sheehy's quote highlights the resistance faced by women who sought independence and self-expression in a time when societal norms dictated that they should be content with traditional roles. It emphasizes the backlash against women's desires for autonomy, illustrating a broader commentary on the social climate surrounding gender equality and personal fulfillment.
Themes
WomenDivorceHappinessIndependenceSociety
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club discussion, to highlight the themes of gender and societal expectations.
More from Gail Sheehy
All quotes →No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in.
Gail SheehyRead
A seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experiences. Like a complex wine, she can be alternately sweet, tart, sparkling, mellow. She is both maternal and playful. Assured, alluring, and resourceful.
Gail SheehyRead
This is something caregivers have to understand: You have to ask for help. You have to realize that you deserve to ask for help. Because you need to keep on working on your own life.
Gail SheehyRead
I found that female pathfinders generally integrate characteristics commonly associated with being women - like the capacity to be intimate - with 'male' ones like ambition and courage.
Gail SheehyRead
Being a pathfinder is to be willing to risk failure and still go on.
Gail SheehyRead
Similar quotes
From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year...death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.
Graham GreeneRead
God, Most High, is the very one who Himself affirms His unity by the tongue of whatever of His creatures He wishes. If He Himself affirms His unity by my tongue, it is He and His affair. Otherwise, brother, I have nothing to do with affirming God's Unity.
Mansur Al-HallajRead
When I was in Holland, the idea was, all cultures are equal and all are to be preserved. My idea was, no, all humans are equal, but not all cultures are equal.
Ayaan Hirsi AliRead
I have a different idea of a universal. It is of a universal rich with all that is particular, rich with all the particulars there are, the deepening of each particular, the coexistence of them all.
Aime CesaireRead
The torrent of centuries rolling over the human race, has continually brought new perfections, the cause of which, ever active though unseen, is found in the demands made by our senses, which always in their turns demand to be occupied.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-SavarinRead
Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.
PlutarchRead