If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live.
Jessye NormanRead
Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.
Interpretation
Balancing others' needs with your own is crucial in relationships.
Jessye Norman's quote highlights the inherent challenge of managing personal relationships by emphasizing the necessity of finding a balance between fulfilling others' expectations and taking care of one's own needs. This duality can lead to conflicts, and recognizing this balance is essential for healthier, more sustainable connections.
In practice
In a seminar on emotional intelligence, this quote can highlight the importance of self-awareness in relationships.
If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live.
My parents said to us, practically on a daily basis, that we were as good as anyone else on this earth, and that we would simply have to work harder in order to show that.
I am grateful that my horizons were not narrowed at the outset.
As for my voice, it cannot be categorised - and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range.
It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.
I love singing jazz. I don't like the idea that classical music should be over here and jazz should be someplace else. It's all wonderful, and we should be open to enjoying it all.
The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way.
What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull. But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that- if anywhere- is the only place I will be.
Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses.
Accursed from their birth they be Who seek to find monogamy, Pursuing it from bed to bed— I think they would be better dead.
There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.
Whenever I meet someone, I try to imagine her wearing an invisible sign that says: MAKE ME FEEL IMPORTANT. I respond to this sign immediately, and it works wonders.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.