Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease they'll bend to his light.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the complex dynamics between fathers and daughters, highlighting possessiveness and the natural yearning for independence.
Barbara Kingsolver's quote delves into the fraught connection between fathers and their daughters, illustrating how an abusive or controlling relationship can manifest metaphorically as a struggle against male dominance. The imagery of nurturing a daughter while simultaneously imposing harmful expectations showcases the tension between protection and possession, revealing the profound impact such relationships can have on a girl's growth and autonomy. Ultimately, it emphasizes the painful journey of seeking light and acceptance in the face of oppressive love.
Themes
FathersDaughtersRelationshipsPossessionAbuseGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about father-daughter relationships at a parenting seminar.
More from Barbara Kingsolver
All quotes →Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
Barbara KingsolverRead
I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
Barbara KingsolverRead
I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Similar quotes
There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
I am part of what she thinks is her illness, a symptom of which she thinks she has been cured. She, on the other hand, is what I was looking for.
Louise ErdrichRead
If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It's normal. It's normal.
Pope FrancisRead
Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationship: it means being present with love-for ourselves and for all life, including animals, fish, birds, and trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions, no matter how much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what we have to give this world and one another.
Ram DassRead
A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George EliotRead
But on the way home tonight, you wish you'd picked him up, held him a bit. Just held him, very close to your heart, his cheek by the hollow of your shoulder, full of sleep. As it it were you who could, somehow, save him. For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as. For the moment, anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are.
Thomas PynchonRead