Quote

Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.

Joyce Maynard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Joyce Maynard
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: November 5
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Durham
New Hampshire
Daphne Joyce Maynard
Joy
Years
Like
Ease
Forgotten
Childhood
Perhaps

More quotes by Joyce Maynard

Image
I continued to protect him with my silence.
Joyce Maynard
Image
The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.
Joyce Maynard
Image
At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood.
Joyce Maynard
Image
For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.
Joyce Maynard
Image
There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets.
Joyce Maynard
Image
The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.
Joyce Maynard
Image
I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.
Joyce Maynard
Image
Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother worked at anything besides raising her children.
Joyce Maynard
Image
I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot.
Joyce Maynard
Image
If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself.
Joyce Maynard
Image
One of the sad realities of being a parent is that the same stuff you know is exciting, educational, and enriching in your child'slife is often messy, smelly and exhausting to deal with.
Joyce Maynard
Image
Imagine if you succeeded in making the world perfect for your children what a shock the rest of life would be for them.
Joyce Maynard
Image
Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love.
Joyce Maynard
Image
You lay your hand against his skin and just rib his back. Blow into his ear. Press that baby up against your own skin and walk outside with him, where the night air will sourround him, and moonlight fall on his face. Whistle, maybe. Dance. Hum. Pray. (how to calm a crying baby)
Joyce Maynard
Image
It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.
Joyce Maynard
Image
Wherever it is you make your home, there is always this other place, this other person, calling to you. Come to me. Come back.
Joyce Maynard
Image
I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes.
Joyce Maynard
Image
If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life.
Joyce Maynard
Image
It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.
Joyce Maynard
Image
It's sad but true that if you focus your attention on housework and meal preparation and diapers, raising children does start to look like drudgery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you see yourself as nothing less than your child's nurturer, role model, teacher, spiritual guide, and mentor, your days take on a very different cast.
Joyce Maynard