Quote

We each have a litany of holiday rituals and everyday habits that we hold on to, and we often greet radical innovation with the enthusiasm of a baby meeting a new sitter. We defend against it and - not always, but often enough - reject it. Slowly we adjust, but only if we have to.

Ellen Goodman

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Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Everyday
Habits
Sitter
Habit
Defend
Greet
Baby
Meeting
Rituals
Hold
Slowly
Adjust
Often
Enthusiasm
Reject
Enough
Radical
Ritual
Always
Meetings
Rejects
Innovation
Holiday
Litany

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we have made an extraordinary transition. From moral absolutes to moral relativism. ... Moral problems become medical ones and yesterday's sinners become today's patients.
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We may never know why Joe Ellis fabricated a heroic past. But we know that the life he embellished has deeply diminished the life he'd earned.
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Parents remain our touchstones, fellow travelers, even after death. They are both missing and present.
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You can believe in women's rights without believing that every woman is right.
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I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.
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Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.
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In today's amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often.
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In the biotech revolution, it is the human body, not iron or steel or plastic, that's at the source. Are the biocapitalists going to be allowed to dig without consent into our genetic codes, then market them?
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Forty is ... an age at which people have histories and options. At thirty, they had perhaps less history. At fifty, perhaps fewer options.
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We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
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Today Washington is our Hollywood, the Senate our Warner Bros., the White House our Beverly Hills. People who never read a line of a movie magazine deal with the lives of leaders as if they were Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
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The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.
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I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.
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When you live alone, you can be sure that the person who squeezed the toothpaste tube in the middle wasn't committing a hostile act.
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What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.
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I think most of us become self-critical as soon as we become self-conscious.
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Women have gained access to the institutions, but not enough power to overhaul them.
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Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor.
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I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.
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It has begun to occur to me that life is a stage I'm going through.
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