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Stepmothers Quotes

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Stepmothers Quotes

“Because of my secret sense, I have always preferred the stories in the pages of books to those on the screen, but no matter the medium there seemed to be an overriding message: I was lucky to have a mother. Rapunzel was taken away from her mother at birth. Her mother didn't even get to name her and probably wouldn't have chosen the name Rapunzel. Snow White and Gretel had stepmothers who plotted their violent deaths while Cinderella's own stepmother contemplated a slow death for her via the drudgery of housework and the crippling lack of a social life. Girls without their mothers were clearly at risk. Though in most of these stories, the girls eventually did find safety in marriage and lived happily ever after without bickering or marital strife.”

MothersFairy TalesStepmothersPrincessesReality And Fiction
Book:Bitter in the Mouth
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“Her whole childhood, she'd devoured stories of children with dead and missing mothers, often easier to find than stories of children whose mothers were alive and well. The absence of a mother was a promise of adventure; mothers made things too safe, too comforting. Children with mothers didn't need to look outside their homes for affirmation of their supremacy in someone's story. They didn't need to write their own protagonism. Esther remembered Cecily complaining about this when they'd watched The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White, offended by the lack of loving birth mothers and the prevalence of monstrous stepmothers. She'd squeezed Esther tight and smeared her cheek with red kisses and said, 'This evil stepmother loves you very much.' But despite Cecily's love, which Esther had never doubted, she had already identified within herself the same motherless quality that drove Ariel to shore, Cinderella to the ball, Snow White into the forest. Her motherlessness was intrinsic to her sense of self, and her sense of self was all she had these many years alone. What would it mean if her mother was alive? Not only alive, but aware of Esther and watching out for her, passing notes through magic mirrors and protecting her from afar, her own fairy godmother. What would it mean if her mother had not died, but left her?”

MotherSense Of SelfEstherInk Blood Sister ScribeEmma TörzsStepmothersEsther KalotayCecilyMotherlessMotherlessness
Book:Ink Blood Sister Scribe
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“As a little kid, not only is my dad Jo-Jo White, but M. L. Carr is involved in the family, Red Auerbach is my godfather, and my stepmother was an Olympic-caliber sprinter. Athletes were all around. I happened to be a natural athlete. If I wasn't, it might have been hell. But I never got any pressure from my mom and dad to be an athlete.”

IfsLittlesHas BeensMightKidsNaturalWhiteHellHappenedMomDadInvolvedRedPressureMy DadAthleteMy MomLittle KidMight Have BeenMom And DadCaliberBeing A DadStepmothersSprinters
Author:Brian J. White
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“We all recall the cruel stepmother in fairy tales. That archetype is often a necessary element in a fairy tale so that the heroine/hero can become a person of character and power. Stories of heroes and heroines often begin with a wound or loss or injustice and end with heroic acts of restoration.”

PersonsEndsCharacterStoriesLossHeroElementsInjusticeWoundsTalesFairyHeroicFairy TaleRecallsRestorationHeroinesArchetypeStepmothersHeroes And HeroinesHeroic Acts
Book:The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know
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“I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of The Wind in the Willows, which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital.”

BookEndsRememberReadingFatherWindGrewGrew UpDependentExceptionHospitalsHouseholdBoastStepmothersWind In The Willows
Author:John le Carre
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“I've always thought it would be fun to update "Hansel and Gretel." I'd have these white parents in the suburbs with an income of fifty or sixty thousand dollars. Daddy loses his job, and the wicked stepmother says, "We could get along, we could keep our Mastercharge, if you'd just get rid of those shitty kids." Finally the father hires a limo and tells the driver, "Drop 'em off on Lenox Avenue in Harlem at two in the morning." These two little white kids land there. They're menaced. And this supposedly nice black lady says, "Would you like some candy?"”

IfsLittlesTwoWould BeKidsJobsFatherFunParentBlackLosesWhiteMorningNiceLandThousandDollarsIncomeFiftyWickedEmsDriversSixtyCandyDaddyAvenuesSuburbsHarlemUpdatesStepmothersLimosHansel And GretelWicked Stepmothers
Author:Stephen King
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“If a book has a predictable storyline or familiar situations, there's little satisfaction for me in writing it. A woman deciding which man she'll spend her life with? I've read that story a million times, but a stepmother deciding which of her children she'll save in a freak accident? Now that's a challenge.”

IfsMenWritingChildrenLittlesBookStoriesChallengesSituationMillionsSatisfactionAccidentsFamiliarFreakPredictableStorylineStepmothers
Author:Jillian Medoff
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“As a female in a home with a whole bunch of brothers and being very close to my father, without a mother and later having a hostile relationship with my stepmother, there were all kinds of Freudian issues rising from possessing a female body that I had to negotiate with no guidance, and I did this negotiation almost instinctually.”

KindWholeHomeBodyMotherFatherIssuesBrotherFemaleBunchAll KindsGuidanceRisingNegotiationHostilePossessingFemale BodyStepmothers
Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
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“Tell me the story, Pew. . . . It was a woman. You always say that. There's always a woman somewhere, child; a princess, a witch, a stepmother, a mermaid, a fairy godmother, or one as wicked as she is beautiful, or as beautiful as she is good. Is that the complete list? Then there is the woman you love. Who's she? That's another story.”

ChildrenStoriesBeautifulWomenBeautyListsFairyWickedWitchPrincessMermaidGodmotherStepmothersFairy GodmotherShe Is Beautiful
Book:Lighthousekeeping
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“O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments.”

ChildrenArtDoneMotherGivenNatureBecomingBenefitsSlaveryRewardsMotherhoodPunishmentReceivingRuthlessStepmothers
Book:Note Books: Arranged and Rendered Into English, with Introd
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“Jane was my wicked stepmother: she was generous, affectionate and resourceful; she salvaged my schooling and I owe her an unknowable debt for that. One flaw: sometimes, early on, she would tell me things designed to make me think less of my mother, and I would wave her away, saying, Jane, this just backfires and makes me think less of you.”

ThinkingSometimesMotherWaveDebtGenerousWickedFlawsJaneSchoolingAffectionateResourcefulStepmothersBackfireWicked Stepmothers
Author:Martin Amis
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“It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine, that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are.”

WorldWayMayChildrenHas BeensCharacterStoriesLostParentBornBoysSonKingsDramaWasteCastsHearingWickedTwinsExileInheritanceMisguidedSwineEldestStepmothersLost ChildEldest SonYoungest SonWicked Stepmothers
Book:After Virtue
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