QuoteProject
I don’t think I will get married,” Polly said as she stood up. “I’m going to train to be a hero instead.
Diana Wynne Jones
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Choosing personal development over traditional paths can lead to meaningful contributions to society.

In this quote, Polly asserts her intention to prioritize her own journey of self-discovery and heroism over societal expectations like marriage. This highlights the importance of personal choices that align with one's values and aspirations, encouraging individuals to pursue their own definitions of success and fulfillment.

Themes

HeroTrainingPersonal GrowthIndependenceChoice

In practice

Example use cases

During a graduation speech to inspire the graduates to follow their passions.

More from Diana Wynne Jones

It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.
Diana Wynne JonesRead
Imagination doesn’t just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them, or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful. Head teachers would call this escapism, but they would be entirely wrong. I would call fantasy the most serious, and the most useful, branch of writing there is. And this is why I don’t, and never would, write Real Books.
Diana Wynne JonesRead

Similar quotes

People say, on the raft, you must have hallucinated. Baloney. We were sharper after 47 days than the day we started because our minds were empty of all the war and contamination; we had clean minds to fill with good thoughts. Every day we'd exercise our minds.
Louis ZamperiniRead
Moon In the Window I wish I could say I was the kind of child who watched the moon from her window, would turn toward it and wonder. I never wondered. I read. Dark signs that crawled toward the edge of the page. It took me years to grow a heart from paper and glue. All I had was a flashlight, bright as the moon, a white hole blazing beneath the sheets.
Dorianne LauxRead
Yes,I'm afraid you're right. Trial and error isn't a bad way to learn how to build an aircraft,but it can be a disastrous way to learn how to build a civilization.
Daniel QuinnRead
Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders. And from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said, ‘Knowledge is love and light and vision.
Helen KellerRead
An ounce of heart knowledge is worth a ton of head learning.
Charles SpurgeonRead
You are protected. But if you don't take risks, God will retreat and become only a subject of philosophical speculation.
Paulo CoelhoRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.