When mom and dad went to war the only prisoners they took were the children
Interpretation
This quote highlights how familial conflict can affect children deeply, illustrating their vulnerability in such situations.
Pat Conroy's quote emphasizes the devastating impact of parental conflicts, especially during times of war, on children's emotional and psychological well-being. It suggests that while parents may engage in battles, the true victims are often their offspring, who bear the emotional burdens and suffer the consequences of their parents' choices and struggles.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the impact of war on families.
It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters.
A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.
Every woman I had ever met who walked through the world appraised and classified by an extraordinary physicality had also received the keys to an unbearable solitude. It was the coefficient of their beauty, the price they had to pay.
Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.
I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood.
The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
I did make a choice when I got away from baseball to be there to get my kids off to college.
If you have children, you know you're responsible for somebody. You realize you are being imitated; your belief systems and priorities have a direct influence on these children, who are like flowers in a garden.
My dad has always taught me these words: care and share. That's why we put on clinics. The only thing I can do is try to give back. If it works, it works.
When you leave them in the morning, they stick their nose in the door crack and stand there like a portrait until you turn the key eight hours later.
To be a good mother, a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow.
I thought of all the magazine article I'd read on mothers who worked and constantly felt guilty about leaving their children with someone else. I had trained myself to read pieces like that and silently say to myself, 'See how lucky you are?' But it had been gnawing at the inside, that part that didn't fit, that I never let myself even think about. After all, wasn't it a worse kind of guilt to be with your child and to know that you wanted to be anywhere but there?
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