My father died when I was 7. I was his favorite child, and he was my beloved father. I brought him along with me all through my life. Every elderly man has a bit of my father in him for me.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the enduring impact of a parent's love and influence throughout one's life.
P. L. Travers poignantly expresses the profound connection she shares with her father, who passed away when she was young. The quote highlights the idea that the love and lessons imparted by a parent resonate throughout a person's life, shaping their perceptions and interactions with others, emphasizing that every elder embodies a part of her father's legacy.
In practice
Sharing this quote at a family gathering to honor a deceased loved one.
Could it be ... that the hero is one who is willing to set out, take the first step, shoulder something? Perhaps the hero is one who puts his foot upon a path not knowing what he may expect from life but in some way feeling in his bones that life expects something of him.
Don't you know that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?
Every child needs to have for itself not only its loving parents and siblings and friends of its own age, but a grown-up friend.
For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.
I came into this environment where there was so much love, so much positive energy. I never heard my parents say, 'We have adopted kids.' The minute my sister Linda and I landed in Sweden, we were their kids.
[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It's huge and scary-it's an act of infinite optimism.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.
Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness.
Kids are born into the situation they're born into, and obviously, they have no control over that. And we, as adults, it's up to us to take care of kids - that's part of your moral responsibility. I always tell people, 'There's two groups we should take care of - old people and young people.'
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