I believe that some of the strongest stories we can have begin with very simple archetypes...The great mother, or the great father, for example. And you work your way from that, slowly, to more complexity. The idea of this guy who wants to be with the woman he loves – you can say the same of the movie Gladiator, for instance. If you strip everything down to the basics, it's just about Maximus wanting to go back to his wife and every other thing stopping him. Even Homer's Odyssey; he just wants to go back and the entire universe is conspiring against that ambition.
Chigozie ObiomaRelated topics
ambition begin believe complexity conspiring entire everything example father gladiator great guy idea instance mother odyssey say simple stopping strip thing universe wanting way wife woman work movie basicsRelated quotes
For a mother the project of raising a boy is the most fulfilling project she can hope for. She can watch him, as a child, play the games she was not allowed to play; she can invest in him her ideas, aspirations, ambitions, and values - or whatever she has left of them; she can watch her son, who came from her flesh and whose life was sustained by her work and devotion, embody her in the world. So while the project of raising a boy is fraught with ambivalence and leads inevitably to bitterness, it is the only project that allows a woman to be - to be through her son, to live through her son.
Andrea Dworkin
I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, - for I have had a little experience in that business, - that there is a desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country, - and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.
Henry David Thoreau
It considers not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our ideas of others - so that a completely phony, non-human replica of a dead wife can inspire the same feelings that the wife herself once did. That is a peculiarity of humans: We feel the same emotions for our ideas as we do for the real world, which is why we can cry while reading a book, or fall in love with movie stars. Our idea of humanity bewitches us, while humanity itself stays safely sealed away into its billions of separate containers, or "people."
Roger Ebert
Women had to work like slaves in the art world, but a lot of men got to the top through their charm. And it hurt them. To be young and pretty didn't help a woman in the art world, because the social scene, and the buying scene, was in the hands of women – women who had money. They wanted male artists who would come alone and be their charming guests. Rothko could be very charming. It was a court. And the artist buffoons came to the court to entertain, to charm. Now it has changed, now the younger men are in – older women and younger men.
Louise Bourgeois
Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle.
Alexis de Tocqueville
