Changing Quotes - page 58
The truth is, I've always been quietly proud of my real age. Why wouldn't I want to celebrate every crease in my brow, all that hard-earned wisdom that lives between the folds? If my first manager, Warren Coleman, hadn't been so insistent that I age myself down-he feared, and perhaps rightfully so, that an industry rife with female age discrimination would count me out of a lot of roles-I may have just omitted my age, rather than changing it. It's nobody's business. But when the Kennedy Center honor came around, I felt it was important to set the public record straight. Months before I learned I was to receive the award, I'd celebrated my ninetieth birthday. During the press blitzkrieg surrounding the Kennedy Center ceremony, I spoke that number aloud with nary a quake in my voice. "When were you born?" one reporter asked me. "December 19, 1924," I answered. For me, it was not a matter to be ashamed of. It was a journey to delight in.
Cicely Tyson
On the boundless plain careering
By an unseen compass steering, Wildly flying, reappearing, -
With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing
In every step a grand pride showing,
Of no servile moment knowing, -Happy as the trees and flowers, In their instinct cradled hours,
Happier in fuller powers, -See the wild herd nobly ranging,
Nature varying, not changing,
Lawful in their lawless ranging.
Margaret Fuller
The process of changing your mind is a tricky one. You start at Position A, which you hold with stern stubbornness, resolving never to give it up. Then you start to question your original resolution. Is it wise to be so stubborn? Perhaps you should consider alternate ideas. You revise your original inflexibility a little, abandoning Position A and adopting Position B, which is very much like it in most ways, with only a few ifs and maybes added. Then, by a gradual series of compromises, private deals, and shifts of purpose, you slide spinelessly through the alphabet until you arrive at Position Z, the total opposite of your original point of view.
Robert Silverberg