We would not have been a successful family without my father and stepfather, who were working-class men with better dreams for their children. We just wore them out.
James McbrideRead
When my mother left home, her family sat shivah for her, more because my father was not Jewish than because he was black.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the complexities of family dynamics and cultural identity in the context of loss.
James McBride's quote highlights the intersection of race and religion within family relationships. It captures the emotional weight of a mother leaving her family and the subsequent ritual of mourning that was influenced more by her husband's non-Jewish background than by her own racial identity. This quote reveals how personal and cultural identities shape familial bonds and the reactions to loss.
Themes
FamilyIdentityLossCultureMourning
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about family connections at a cultural diversity event.
More from James Mcbride
All quotes βWriting for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.
James McbrideRead
I felt like a Tinker toy kid building my own self out of one of those toy building sets; for as she laid her life before me, I reassembled the tableau of her words like a picture puzzle, and as I did, so my own life was rebuilt.
James McbrideRead
Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.
James McbrideRead
I'm trying to get Americans to see that we're all pretty much the same. I believe it; I was taught God doesn't have a color. I want to better the planet a little bit.
James McbrideRead
It would be nice if we redefined what we meant by 'war story.' If you're making $15,000 a year living in a certain area of Portland, trying to make it with three kids and no husband, that's a kind of war.
James McbrideRead
Similar quotes
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.
Thomas JeffersonRead
You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they will be a little bigger then they are today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and little feet and pay attention. Relish the charms of the present. Enjoy today mama. It will be over before you know it.
Jen HatmakerRead
When you smell our candles burning, what does it make you think of, my child?" Winterfell, she might have said. I smell snow and smoke and pine needles. I smell the stables. I smell Hodor laughing, and Jon and Robb battling in the yard, and Sansa singing about some stupid lady fair. I smell the crypts where the stone kings sit. I smell hot bread baking. I smell the godswood. I smell my wolf. I smell her fur, almost as if she were still beside me. "I don't smell anything," she said.
George R. R. MartinRead
I don't want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I'd rather work until 6 or 7.
Benjamin CarsonRead
My fatherβs family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
Charles DickensRead
What lingers from the parent's individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.
Virginia SatirRead