When I grew older and awkward, when my parents divorced and life had gone all to hell, Demetrie stood me at the wardrobe mirror and told me over and over, 'You are beautiful. You are smart. You are important.' It was an incredible gift to give a child who thinks nothing of herself.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of affirmation and self-esteem during tough times.
In this quote, Kathryn Stockett reflects on the powerful effect of positive reinforcement on a child's self-image, especially during challenging life circumstances such as her parents' divorce. Demetrie’s repeated affirmations instill a sense of beauty, intelligence, and significance in the young narrator, countering her feelings of worthlessness and providing her with a crucial emotional foundation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the impact of supportive relationships.
I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.
Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.
I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming - and it come in ever white child's life - when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites. ... I pray that wasn't her moment, Pray I still got time.
...out of the blue, he kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body-my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light.
Criticism is easier to take when you realize that the only people who aren’t criticized are those who don’t take risks.
I'm not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special except dare to think. And to dare to go with the truth. And to dare to really love completely.
Had it pleas'd heaven_x000D_ _x000D_ To try me with affliction * * *_x000D_ _x000D_ I should have found in some place of my soul_x000D_ _x000D_ A drop of patience.
I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.
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