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When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.
Louise Erdrich
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The process of growing and learning intertwines with the stories we create from our experiences.

This quote by Louise Erdrich reflects on the journey of personal development and understanding through life experiences. It suggests that, much like scattered words that need to be assembled into coherent sentences, our experiences shape our identity and narratives over time, ultimately creating a meaningful story of who we are.

Themes

ExperienceGrowthIdentityStorytellingLife

In practice

Example use cases

Use this quote during a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of experiences in shaping one's future.

More from Louise Erdrich

It's impossible to write about Native life without humor-that's how people maintain sanity.
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It was just enough to sit there without words.
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Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.
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The world tips away when we look into our children's faces.
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...which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider's, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?
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Her mind was present because she was always gone. Her hands were filled because they grasped the meaning of empty. Life was simple. Her husband returned and she served him with indifferent patience this time. When he asked what had happened to her heat for him, she gestured to the west. The sun was setting. The sky was a body of fire.
Louise ErdrichRead

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