Motherhood Once Removed Quotes

We mothers can testify that it is impossible to completely control a child. It's like trying to steer a cat. Toni sorenson ~ Toni Sorenson

I understood and appreciated the miracle of birth, but I did not understand motherhood, nor did I appreciate the oveselling of it. To me it was a choice, one of many options. To others it was what women did. We were supposed to breed. It had been decided for us. Society expected it. Religion demanded it. ~ Judy Morgan

By some miracle the cairn remained untouched by the flames, solid as the day I'd built it, a tiny oasis amid the burn scar. I removed the cap rock. I placed the bone inside. I felt the enormity of his loss once more. The pain of it never does fade entirely, never will - no doubt it disfigured me in ways that will endure for what remains of my life - but at last I found a place to put it where it wouldn't eat me alive. My devotion to his memory led me there, the place I venerate above all others on earth, my little voodoo shrine to the lost and the damned, as wild and remote as the country of grief itself. ~ Philip Connors

Black lung is a legal term for a preventable, occupational lung disease. It is more formally known as coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP), and is caused by prolonged exposure to coal dust. Once coal dust is inhaled into the body it cannot be removed or discharged. It progressively builds up in the lungs and can lead to inflammation, fibrosis, even necrosis. There are two forms of the disease: "simple CWP" and "complicated CWP" (or progressive massive fibrosis). ~ John Grisham

Either Stone Age man was a technological wizard, who carefully removed his technological achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny, or our population dwindled from a once astronomical size to the mere three billions of today. ~ Heinz Von Foerster

Tests showed cancer of the larynx and the doctor advised an operation immediately. I was informed that my larynx had to be removed completely. I heard about Dr Breuss and went to see him ... he prescribed the juice treatment ... By the time I had completed this juice treatment I felt fit and once again had a good appetite. Despite my 72 years I felt my old self again. ~ Jurgen Neukirch

Love's cruel notion. - Every great love brings with it the cruel idea of killing
the object of that love, so that he may be removed once and for all from
the wicked game of change: for love dreads change more than it does
destruction. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

was an eighth cousin of Churchill, and a sixth cousin, once removed, of FDR - and three of World War II's great leaders were thus linked by American intermarriages. ~ William Manchester

(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer. ~ Jodi Picoult

A blemish may be removed from a diamond by careful polishing, but evil words once spoken cannot be effaced. ~ Confucius

A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under
only local anesthesia, while the surgeon delicately explored his exposed cortex, makingsure that the parts tentatively to be removed were not absolutely vital by stimulating
them electrically and asking the patient what he experienced. Some stimulations provoked visual flashes or hand-raisings, others a sort of buzzing sensation, but one spot
produced a delighted response from the patient: "It's 'Outta Get Me' by Guns N' Roses.
my favorite heavy metal band!"

I asked the neurosurgeon If he had asked the patient to sing or hum along with the music, since it would be fascinating to learn how "high fidelity" the provoked memory
was, would it be in exactly the same key and tempo as the record?
Such a song (unliken"Silent Night") has one canonical version. so we could simply have superimposed a recording of the patients humming with the standard record and compared the results.
Unfortunately, even though a tape recorder had been running during the operation, thesurgeon hadn't asked the patient to sing along. 'Why not?" I asked, and he replied: "I hate rock music!'

Later in the conversation the neurosurgeon happened to remark that he was going to have to operate again on the same young man. and I expressed the hope that he would
just check to see if he could r ~ Wilder Penfield

Protection From Illness

Sheikh Ali bin Idrees Yaqoobi (r.a) states that once his spiritual guide, Sheikh Ali bin Haiti (r.a) took him to al-Ghawth al-A'zam (r.a) and presented him in the court of the great Saint. Sheikh Ali bin Idrees (r.a) states: "Al-Ghawth al-A'zam Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) was wearing a shawl during this time. He removed the shawl and placed it over me and said, 'From now on, you will be protected from all illnesses'. From that day on until now, and I am 65 years old, I have never been ill ~ Hazrat Shaykh Sayyid Abdul Kadir Jilani

Contemporary writers use animal-transformation themes to explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, culture, and the process of transformation...just as storytellers have done, all over the world, for many centuries past. One distinct change marks modern retellings, however, reflecting our changed relationship to animals and nature. In a society in which most of us will never encounter true danger in the woods, the big white bear who comes knocking at the door [in fairy tales] is not such a frightening prospective husband now; instead, he's exotic, almost appealing.

Whereas once wilderness was threatening to civilization, now it's been tamed and cultivated; the dangers of the animal world have a nostalgic quality, removed as they are from our daily existence. This removal gives "the wild" a different kind of power; it's something we long for rather than fear. The shape-shifter, the were-creature, the stag-headed god from the heart of the woods--they come from a place we'd almost forgotten: the untracked forests of the past; the primeval forests of the mythic imagination; the forests of our childhood fantasies: untouched, unspoiled, limitless.

Likewise, tales of Animal Brides and Bridegrooms are steeped in an ancient magic and yet powerfully relevant to our lives today. They remind us of the wild within us...and also within our lovers and spouses, the part of them we can never quite know. They represent the Others who live beside us--cat and mouse and coy ~ Terri Windling

I'll remind you of that someday , Maura says. when you're married to a man who once looked into your eyes and promised to forsake all others. I'll remind of that after you've just had his baby and you have postpartum depression and feel as fat as cow and you are pumping milk into a plastic containers in the middle of the night while he's running around with some twenty-two-years old named Lissette. I'll remind you of that.
Maura to Jess. ~ Emily Giffin

Spartacus," I called, "how's it hanging?" Probably not too well. Once you're dead, had your organs removed, and are resurrected as an undead mummified cat, your testicles probably looked like old raisins that had rolled under the couch. Raisins didn't tend to ... hang. ~ Rob Thurman

When they'd gone the old man turned around to watch the sun's slow descent. The Boat of Millions of Years, he thought; the boat of the dying sungod Ra, tacking down the western sky to the source of the dark river that runs through the underworld from west to east, through the twelve hours of the night, at the far eastern end of which the boat will tomorrow reappear, bearing a once again youthful, newly reignited sun.
Or, he thought bitterly, removed from us by a distance the universe shouldn't even be able to encompass, it's a vast motionless globe of burning gas, around which this little ball of a planet rolls like a pellet of dung propelled by a kephera beetle.
Take your pick, he told himself as he started slowly down the hill ... But be willing to die for your choice. ~ Tim Powers

A few months ago on a school morning, as I attempted to etch a straight midline part on the back of my wiggling daughter's soon-to-be-ponytailed blond head, I reminded her that it was chilly outside and she needed to grab a sweater.

"No, mama."

"Excuse me?"

"No, I don't want to wear that sweater, it makes me look fat."

"What?!" My comb clattered to the bathroom floor. "Fat?! What do you know about fat? You're 5 years old! You are definitely not fat. God made you just right. Now get your sweater."

She scampered off, and I wearily leaned against the counter and let out a long, sad sigh. It has begun. I thought I had a few more years before my twin daughters picked up the modern day f-word. I have admittedly had my own seasons of unwarranted, psychotic Slim-Fasting and have looked erroneously to the scale to give me a measurement of myself. But these departures from my character were in my 20s, before the balancing hand of motherhood met the grounding grip of running. Once I learned what it meant to push myself, I lost all taste for depriving myself. I want to grow into more of a woman, not find ways to whittle myself down to less.

The way I see it, the only way to run counter to our toxic image-centric society is to literally run by example. I can't tell my daughters that beauty is an incidental side effect of living your passion rather than an adherence to socially prescribed standards. I can't tell my son how t ~ Kristin Armstrong

Men never fail to dwell on maternity as a disqualification for the possession of many civil and political rights. Suggest the idea of women having a voice in making laws and administering the Government in the halls of legislation, in Congress, or the British Parliament, and men will declaim at once on the disabilities of maternity in a sneering contemptuous way, as if the office of motherhood was undignified and did not comport with the highest public offices in church and state. It is vain that we point them to Queen Victoria, who has carefully reared a large family, while considering and signing ... ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

We won't have come expecting gunfire. A shooter. As many times as it happens, as we see it happen on our screens, we still walk around in our lives thinking: No, not us, that happens to them, the people on the other side of the screen, the victims, their families, we don't know those people, we don't even know people who know those people, we're once and twice removed from most of what we see on the other side of the screen, especially that awful man, always a man, we watch and feel the horror, the unbelievable act, for a day, for two whole days, for a week, we post and click links and like and don't like and repost and then, and then it's like it didn't happen, we move on, the next thing comes. We get used to everything to the point that we even get used to getting used to everything. Or we only think we're used to it until the shooter, until we meet him in real life, when he's there with us, the shots will come from everywhere, inside, outside, past, future, now, and we won't know right away where the shooter is, the bodies will drop, the depths of the booms will make our hearts skip beats, the rush of panic and spark and sweat on our skin, nothing will be more real than the moment we know in our bones the end is near. ~ Tommy Orange

Men are moral beings in their untrammelled nature. If constraint and coercion can once be removed they will be happy and if they are happy they will also be good ... ~ Barry Unsworth

Researchers studying emerging viruses have noticed an interesting phenomenon. As more human beings are born, there is a consistent spread of human habitation into once undeveloped ecoranges. The previously existing environment is removed, houses are built, people move in. The former populations of plants and animals are displaced. However, one of the major things that has been overlooked is that viruses have also lived in those regions for a very long time - in a healthy symbiotic balance with their hosts, both plant and animal. It is possible to think of them as an invisible herd or pack species, spread with the same kind of density throughout those ecoranges just as deer or birds are. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner

If I had known what it meant to love, I wouldn't have had children, because once we love, we love forever, like Uncle Two's wife, Step-aunt Two, who can't stop loving her gambler son, the son who is burning up the family fortune like a pyromaniac. ~ Kim Thuy

Once the creator was removed from the creation, divinity became only a remote abstraction, a social weapon in the hands of the religious institutions. This split in public values produced or was accompanied by, as it was bound to be, an equally artificial and ugly division in people's lives, so that a man, while pursuing Heaven with the sublime appetite he thought of as his soul, could turn his heart against his neighbors and his hands against the world ...
Though Heaven is certainly more important than the earth if all they say about it is true, it is still morally incidental to it and dependent on it, and I can only imagine it and desire it in terms of what I know of the earth.
(pg. 23, "A Native Hill") ~ Wendell Berry

While science continually uncovers new mysteries, it has removed much of what was once regarded as deeply mysterious. Although we certainly do not know the exact nature of every component of the universe, the basic principles of physics seem to apply out to the farthest horizon visible to us today. ~ Victor J. Stenger

I do not know what dust is, I do not know where it comes from, I only know that it settles on things. I cannot see it in the air, or watch it fall. Sometimes Im home all day but I never see it sliding about looking for a place to rest when my back is turned. Does it wait til I go out? Or, does it happen in the night when I sleep? Dust is not fussy about the places it chooses, though it seems to prefer still objects. Sometimes, out of kindness, I let it lie for weeks. On some places it will lie forever. However, dust holds no grudges and once removed it will always return, in a friendly way. ~ Ivor Cutler

But very early they understood that playing was somewhat suspect, allowed through indulgence, a trivial pastime soon outgrown, and only about twice removed from sin. Pleasure was only once-removed. ~ Jetta Carleton

I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down - the Goddess is offended ... As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you. All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. ~ Tori Amos

I ask people of the world and children of light to start reflecting the stories of their souls to vibrate wisdom around the earth. Pick up a paintbrush or microphone. Press the inks of your pens to paper or tap words onto your screens, and start sharing what you know and have learned with the masses. Turn your personal painting into a piece of the earth's puzzle so that our unified assemblage of thoughts, experiences and lessons reveal common truths that cannot be denied. Imagine the changes that could happen if everyone suddenly stopped acting like someone else, became true to themselves, and celebrated the beauty of their uniqueness? Only after people have willingly removed their masks and costumes, and have begun pouring light from their hearts to reveal their vulnerability, dreams and pains, will we be able to see that beneath the surface we are all the same. After all, how can the world collectively fight for Truth, if soldiers in its army are void of truth? We must first all be true by putting truth in our words and actions. And to do so, everyone must learn to think and react with their conscience. Imagine what Truth could do to neutralize the clutches of evil once this black and white world suddenly became embraced by a strong rainbow of loud powerful voices. We could put color back into every home, every school, every industry, every nation, and every garden on earth where flowers have been crushed by corruption. ~ Suzy Kassem

Have you found it different having girls in the house?"
He cleared his throat. "Oh, yeah."
"Would you care to elaborate?"
"Nope."
I looked up from my writing. "If you don't elaborate, it's going to be a very short article."
"Look, I've already gotten into it once tonight--"
"Are you implying I'm hard to live with? Is that why you won't comment further? Because you think I'll be offended? I won't be."
"No further comment."
I sighed, tempted to toss the recorder at him.
"Okay, then, we'll move on. What's been the most difficult aspect of living with us?"
There was silence, but it was the kind where you can sense someone wants to speak but doesn't. Jason was so incredibly still, as though he was weighing consequences.
"Not kissing you," he finally said, quietly.
My heart did this little stutter. I just stared at him as the recorder continued to run, searching for sound. My hand was shaking when I reached over and turned it off.
"But you did kiss me, and you said it was a mistake."
"Because getting involved with you is a bad idea, on so many levels."
"Care to share one of those levels?"
"I'm living in your house. Your parents are giving me a roof over my head. Your mom brings home extra takeout. I'm here only for the summer. Then I'm back at school." He reached up, removed the ice pack from around his shoulder, and set it on the table. "And Mac? After we went to Dave and Bubba's, he comes out to the ~ Rachel Hawthorne

That was really the question. Would I be okay without a child?

Each night I sat with [my infant nephew] Connor and forced myself to go down the path of imaginary motherhood, suspicious of myself that this would be something that I would be willing to reject. Every night I expected to have a change of heart and come up with a different, more recognizable answer. But it never happened.

Instead, sitting in the dark and quiet, something quite unexpected occurred. My life, precisely as it was--the product of good and bad decisions--began to come into focus for me. Sitting there, I could see it for the first time as something I'd chosen. Something I'd built intentionally, and not simply a makeshift thing I'd constructed as a for-the-time-being existence until something came along that would make me a whole person in the eyes of the world. Once I began to see it as such, it dawned on me that I had no wish to escape from it. On the contrary: I wanted it. I was choosing my life. I was willing to risk it. ~ Glynnis MacNicol

Plus, I can't look at him the same since I ran into Mrs. Marino at our family reunion. It's not comforting to learn you've made out with your cousin."
"Third cousin once removed," I argued. "It's hardly incest."
"Life is like a box of chocolates, Lisa," Katie noted around a half-chewed carrot stick. "You never know what you're going to get."
Lisa narrowed her eyes, confused. "Did she just quote Forrest Gump at me?"
"It's Matt's fault," I said. "She lost a bet and now anytime his name gets mentioned, she has sixty seconds to drop a relevant movie quote."
"That's insane."
"Yup," Katie piped in, "insanity tuns in my family. Its practically gallops."
"Classic." I high-fived her. ~ Cecily White

A fool falls in love. One who dwells in indifference dwells at a distance from love, from its unexpected currents and the lonesome tumbling that causes a person to fall on her knees, if she falls. And there is never any reason to fall, to become so attached to another that one is driven to say, "I once fell in love,' followed by an ellipsis, '…', a trail leading down a path into - what? Some fatal dream? One grows weak from conflating the future and past, and the ellipsis, '…', always leads into an exposed empty vat, the interior of an urn whose lid has been removed, whose ashes have been spread into water where, in time, everything dissolves, giving way to the past. ~ Claire Donato

Not knowing one's real Self is the greatest of maya (deceit; illusion). Once this ignorance is removed, the illusion departs. ~ Dada Bhagwan

I find no reason to think that aging is genetically determined. Genes do not provide information for the development of the individual beyond growth and the reproductive process in which the genes are transmitted to the next generation. Once past the reproductive stage, the individual has served the purposes of preservation of the species, and then he is on his own. The wrinkled human face is the victim of gravity and of cumulative errors in the reproduction of cells. Since aging is not programed, but is a badly improvised interference with youthful beauty, we have improvised an operation to counteract its effects. Aging is a form of misinformation. If we get the facts right, you will be able to read it in our faces. ("Motherhood") ~ William S. Wilson

She'd once read a description of new motherhood that had struck her, at the time that she was returning to work after maxing out her maternity leave allowance, as a beautiful metaphor for her own days back at the office. It was that mother and baby are like a ball of yarn, and when the mother leaves the baby's side, it's as if the baby grabs hold of the loose end, a tug that both mother and baby feel in their every fiber. As they both move through the hours spent apart, the string unravels more and more, and then just when each is starting to feel diminished, barely even a ball of yarn at all anymore, it's time for the mother to make her way back. Together again, they need only a bit of time to wind the string back up, and then it's as if they had never been apart, right up until they wake up and do it all over again. ~ Jessica Strawser

I had a dozen years to act before starting a family, then found that motherhood dwarfed everything else. Once or twice a year, I take a project that appeals to me for its redeeming social value. ~ Sissy Spacek