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"The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn."
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"There was a danger in asking too much of a child, but the danger of asking too little was almost equal."

"Our greatest duty to our children is to love them first. Secondly, it is to teach them. Not to frighten, force, or intimidate our children into submission, but to effectively teach them so that they have the knowledge and tools to govern themselves."

"When you discipline a child you prepare them for a responsible and accountable adulthood."

"A parents wishes for their children shouldn't be to be as good as them but to surpass their own abilities and hopefully lead to a better world."

"Motherhood isn't just about making babies, it's about making lives and molding destinies."

"I ...understand how a parent might hit a child- it's because you can look into their eyes and see a reflection of yourself that you wish you hadn't."

"When my son Nick was five years old, he was sitting at the kitchen bar while I prepared dinner. In typical busy mother fashion, I was multitasking-cooking, cleaning, running the laundry, answering the phone, and attempting to listen to what he had to say."

"If you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won't need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away."

"We pretend that we know our children, because it's easier than admitting the truth--from the minute that cord is cut, they are strangers. It's far easier to tell yourself your daughter is still a little girl than to see her in a bikini and realize she has the curves of a young woman; it's safer to say you're a good parent who has all the right conversations about drugs and sex than to acknowledge there are a thousand things she would never tell you."
Explore more quotes by Joyce Maynard

"Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity."

"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself."

"Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful."

"The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art."

"The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval."

"Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones."

"Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power."
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