Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the strong social bonds and unity among people in Texas.
John Steinbeck's observation about Texas emphasizes the unique sense of community and connection among its residents, suggesting that their relationships and shared identity create a cohesive social fabric that is arguably unmatched in other parts of the United States. This cohesiveness reflects not only geographical ties but also cultural, historical, and emotional bonds that resonate deeply within the Texan identity.
In practice
During a speech about Texas culture, one might quote Steinbeck to emphasize the importance of community bonds.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
We don't want to promote any system that treats the fact that an individual is LGBT as a personality disorder. And anything that perpetuates that perception is harmful - not only to that member of the community but the entire community.
I have a hole where my heart should be, she thought, and nowhere else to go.
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
They wanted black women to conform to the gender norms set by white society. They wanted to be recognized as 'men,' as patriarchs, by other men, including white men. Yet they could not assume this position if black women were not willing to conform to prevailing sexist gender norms. Many black women who has endured white-supremacist patriarchal domination during slavery did not want to be dominated by black men after manumission.
The young girls of color that first encountered the 'me too' movement in community centers and classrooms and church basements were there not only because they needed a safe space, but because they needed their own space.
I think that women of color use social media to make our voices heard with or without the amplification of white women. I also think that, many times, when white women want our support, they use an umbrella of 'women supporting women' and forget that they didn't lend the same kind of support.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.