For me, it is freedom, freedom from everything: when I write, I'm not a woman. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Moroccan. I can reinvent myself, and I can reinvent the world.
Leila SlimaniRead
I remember that the first time I looked at my son, of course I felt love. But I think the first feeling was not love: it was fear. Someone is needing me. If something happens to him, what am I going to do? Maybe I won't survive if something happens to him? The fear was as big as the love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the complex emotions of a parent, where love is intertwined with fear for the child's well-being.
In this poignant quote, Leila Slimani reflects on the dual emotions that accompany parenthood. While love for a child is profound and immediate, it is often accompanied by an instinctive fear of losing them or being unable to protect them. This fear underscores the depth of parental love, revealing that the two emotions can coexist, highlighting the vulnerabilities that come with caring for another human being.
Themes
LoveFearParentingEmotionVulnerability
In practice
Example use cases
A parent might share this quote during a discussion on the challenges of raising children.
More from Leila Slimani
All quotes →Authorities in Rabat believe that if we create a Moroccan character, even in a work of fiction, we are responsible for the image of Moroccan women.
Leila SlimaniRead
One of the big mistakes of the Moroccan elite and the elite in the Muslim world was to be afraid of the conservatives. They are fighting for their ideas. Why shouldn't we fight for our ideas?
Leila SlimaniRead
I, too, am interested in identity and Islam, which is what people expect of us. But one must not write what is expected. It's important for North African writers to show they have other things to say.
Leila SlimaniRead
In Morocco, there is an insistence on authority. Children are not encouraged to speak up in front of their parents. My parents were not like this. I was the kind of girl who could tell her father, 'No, what you are saying is totally untrue, and I don't agree with you.'
Leila SlimaniRead
It's very important to say that French doesn't belong to France and to French people. Now you have very wonderful poets and writers in French who are not French or Algerian - who are from Senegal, from Haiti, from Canada, a lot of parts of the world.
Leila SlimaniRead
Similar quotes
My mother, she killed me, My father, he ate me, My sister Marlene, Gathered all my bones, Tied them in a silken scarf, Laid them beneath the juniper tree, Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
Jacob GrimmRead
He is her glory. Any woman could say it. For every one of them, God is in her child. Mothers of great men must have been familiar with this feeling, but then, all women are mothers of great men -- it isn't their fault if life disappoints them later.
Boris PasternakRead
Let me tell you a secret about a father's love,/A secret that my daddy said was just between us.”/He said, “Daddies don't just love their children every now and then./It's a love without end, amen, it's a love without end, amen.
George StraitRead
I want to be around to see my son grow up and to enjoy my grandkids, which means I need to make my health a priority.
Regina KingRead
My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I've had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm's way until they could be their own guides.
Wayne DyerRead
I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you're both breathless. They crash . . . you add a longer tail . . . you patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they'll fly.
Erma BombeckRead