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Quote by Jeff VanderMeer

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Hummingbird Salamander

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Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer is an American writer known for his science fiction and fantasy novels. His works often explore themes of ecology, identity, and the relationship between humans and nature. Born on July 7, 1968, VanderMeer's writing career began in the 1990s. more

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“One goes forth to search for the blooming bushes of childhood and finds autumnal creeper growing rampant where one left behind blooming roses. Fortunate is he who is able to take delight in the blaze of color of the leaves when he has overcome his disappointment. However, many set forth in search of roses and forget that winter has set in. It is those people whose souls bleed when they search for their childhood. The wind has caused the rose to shed its petals, and those people grasp at thorns. (p.16,17)”

NatureChildhoodNostalgiaLgbtqFlowers
Book:Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years
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“A Gathering of Frogs by Stewart Stafford Through the fence with friends, And into the back field frontier, Past the growing pile of lumber, Shivers for the Halloween bonfire. Down the slope to a boundary hedge, Rusty bathtub lying like a crime scene, And into the deepening marsh beyond, For the ritual kidnapping of frogspawn. Frogs leap through reeds and tall grass, The bulbous jelly of many eyes located, Scooped surgically into a container, Up to our fort to study our live plunder. Tongues of smoke from our twig fire, On the derelict path between estates, Crisps consumed in the darkening chill, Then, satiated, a walk home for dinner. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

KidsChildhoodAdventureMemoryFrogsChildhood MemoriesChildhood FriendsChildhood MemoryFrogMarsh
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Adolescents can divert this hatred from their parents if they are given a clear-cut enemy whom they are permitted to hate freely and with impunity. This may be why so many young painters and writers volunteered for the front in World War I. The hope of freeing themselves from the constraints imposed by their family enabled them to take pleasure in marching to the music of a military band. One of heroin’s roles is to replace this function, with the difference that in the case of drugs the destructive rage is directed against one’s own body and self.”

WarChildhoodDestructionSelf DestructionPedagogy
Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
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“Adolescents can divert this hatred from their parents if they are given a clear-cut enemy whom they are permitted to hate freely and with impunity. This may be why so many young painters and writers volunteered for the front in World War I. The hope of freeing themselves from the constraints imposed by their family enabled them to take pleasure in marching to the music of a military band.”

WarChildhoodDestructionPedagogy
Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
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“Streets were quieter then. Dogs had the run of the town and children played outdoors. The side streets were for Simon Says and Green Light and Giant Step and other games. We set up our own carnivals. We told fortunes and sold coin purses that we made. But the buses on Wisteria Drive meant no one played outside my house. Even the dogs were wary except for one who only had three legs and still chased cars.”

ChildhoodSmall TownsStreet LifeSixties
Book:American Girl: Memories That Made Me
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“It is often said that a secure childhood makes the best foundation for a happy life. In marked contrast to her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Stuart enjoyed an exceptionally cosseted youth. It is left to the judgement of history to decide whether it did, in fact, adequately prepare her for the extreme stresses with which the course of her later life confronted her.”

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Book:Mary Queen of Scots
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“To drive the point home, Tocqueville stressed the need for individual initiatives in democracy. Tocqueville had shown in his central theoretical part that democracy had severed the aristocratic chain and, with it, social hierarchies. But in concluding, he saw a multitude of atomized individuals lacking in energy and initiative. He blamed widespread popular indolence on the supervisory grip of the state on citizens' lives that amounted to soft despotism. Democratic men submitted to the authority of 'an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably.”

ChildhoodParental Authority
Book:The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville
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