Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made. Ellen Goodman More Quotes by Ellen Goodman More Quotes From Ellen Goodman She goes in with a prejudice and comes out with a statistic. Ellen Goodman statistics prejudice 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 education children school The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves. Ellen Goodman confidence encouraging hate In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right. Ellen Goodman tension journalism firsts Age is an accumulation of life and loss. Adulthood is a series of lines crossed. Ellen Goodman lines age loss 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 lists exercise joy Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers. Ellen Goodman global-warming climate-change holocaust We owned what we learned back there; the experience and the growth are grafted into our lives. Ellen Goodman our-lives growth instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions. Ellen Goodman reactions opinion real 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 vocabulary caring rights 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-taking photography home 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 independence government people 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 choices hero want Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue. Ellen Goodman welfare victim compassion 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 loss time believe 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 kids children way 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 cancer smoking people 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 heroic may past 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 change games feelings When speech is divorced from speaker and word from meaning, what is left is just ritual, language as ritual. Ellen Goodman ritual speech language
