It has begun to occur to me that life is a stage I'm going through. Ellen Goodman More Quotes by Ellen Goodman More Quotes From Ellen Goodman The average parent may, for example, plant an artist or fertilize a ballet dancer and end up with a certified public accountant. We cannot train children along chicken wire to make them grow in the right direction. Tying them to stakes is frowned upon, even in Massachusetts. Ellen Goodman artistaveragechildren She goes in with a prejudice and comes out with a statistic. Ellen Goodman statisticsprejudice If there's a single message passed down from each generation of American parents to their children, it is a two-word line: Better Yourself. And if there's a temple of self-betterment in each town, it is the local school. We have worshipped there for some time. Ellen Goodman educationchildrenschool The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves. Ellen Goodman confidenceencouraginghate In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right. Ellen Goodman tensionjournalismfirsts Age is an accumulation of life and loss. Adulthood is a series of lines crossed. Ellen Goodman linesageloss How come pleasure never makes it on to... a dutiful list of do's and don'ts? Doesn't joy also get soft and flabby if you neglect to exercise it? Ellen Goodman listsexercisejoy Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers. Ellen Goodman global-warmingclimate-changeholocaust We owned what we learned back there; the experience and the growth are grafted into our lives. Ellen Goodman our-livesgrowth instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions. Ellen Goodman reactionsopinionreal Pro-choice supporters are often heard using the cool language of the courts and the vocabulary of rights. Americans who are deeply ambivalent about abortion often miss the sound of caring. Ellen Goodman vocabularycaringrights We have become a nation of Kodachrome, Nikon, Instamatic addicts. But we haven't yet developed a clear idea of the ethics of picture-taking. ... Where do we get the right to bring other people home in a canister? Where did we lose the right to control our image? Ellen Goodman picture-takingphotographyhome All in all, I am not surprised that the people who want to unravel the social contract start with young adults. Those who are urged to feel afraid, very afraid, have both the greatest sense of independence and the most finely honed skepticism about government. Ellen Goodman independencegovernmentpeople We continually want to unmask our heroes as if there were more to be learned from their nakedness than from their choice of clothing. Ellen Goodman choicesherowant Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue. Ellen Goodman welfarevictimcompassion The great myth of our work-intense era is 'quality time.' We believe we can make up for the loss of days or hours, especially with each other, by concentrated minutes. But ultimately there is no way to do one-minute mothering. There is no way to pay attention in a hurry. Ellen Goodman losstimebelieve I suppose we make kids the repository of our highest ideals because children are powerless. In that way we can have ideals and ignore them at the same time. Ellen Goodman kidschildrenway The same people who tell us that smoking doesn't cause cancer are now telling us that advertising cigarettes doesn't cause smoking. Ellen Goodman cancersmokingpeople We may never know why Joe Ellis fabricated a heroic past. But we know that the life he embellished has deeply diminished the life he'd earned. Ellen Goodman heroicmaypast The truth is that we can overhaul our surroundings, renovate our environment, talk a new game, join a new club, far more easily than we can change the way we respond emotionally. It is easier to change behavior than feelings about that behavior. Ellen Goodman changegamesfeelings
