Koren Zailckas Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“I think what I learned in research is that as Americans, we're very distrustful of anger. We're not sure if we should repress it. The idea that anger is supposed to be controlled is American, and we try to keep it out of our homes.”

“My parents always swore that in my childhood they had to let me win at board games. If, by the lucky stroke of the plastic wheel, my father would accidentally beat me at Candy Land, I would fly into fits of bawling that I'm told would last for hours. If I couldn't triumph, I didn't want to play.”

“What makes a narcissistic mother so scary? Her absolute power and controlling influence. A narcissistic mother is your only 'friend,' at least until you're old enough to go to school.”

“Why is Kris Jenner a powerhouse? Because some part of us confuses fame and infamy, too. If she really bothered us half as much as we claim she does, we'd look away and stop feeding her empire.”

“I think when you're 14 years old, I think you're sort of looking for markers that prove you're an adult and you're independent of your parents.”

“America, ever the narcissistic mother, prefers baby bumps to children and expectant mothers to full-fledged bum-and-nose-wiping ones.”

“Having a child doesn't make a woman a mother any more than owning a paintbrush makes her Frida Kahlo.”

“It's no wonder the narcissistic mother will always have a place in literature: she's a freak of nature.”

“When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again.”

“We are taught to believe it's bad to be angry, or at least it's not good. That's not the case all throughout the world. People are more open and not embarrassed about it. For instance in Paris, people believe Americans have a really unhealthy relation with anger. They think it's essential to get angry.”