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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
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Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.
Joyce Maynard
I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.
Joyce Maynard
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
I believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves.
Joyce Maynard
For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.
Joyce Maynard
A person who deserves my loyalty receives it.
Joyce Maynard
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
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
Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones.
Joyce Maynard
My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer?
Joyce Maynard
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
Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity.
Joyce Maynard
I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level.
Joyce Maynard
Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.
Joyce Maynard
It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects.
Joyce Maynard
I continued to protect him with my silence.
Joyce Maynard
The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell.
Joyce Maynard
Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love.
Joyce Maynard
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
Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals.
Joyce Maynard
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
The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.
Joyce Maynard
To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.
Joyce Maynard
I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?
Joyce Maynard
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
Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home.
Joyce Maynard
Although Salinger had long since cut me out of his life completely and made it plain that he had nothing but contempt for me, the thought of becoming the object of his wrath was more than I felt ready to take on.
Joyce Maynard
A good home must be made, not bought. In the end, it's not track lighting or a sun room that brings light into a kitchen.
Joyce Maynard
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
I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way, but for me, part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.
Joyce Maynard
I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.
Joyce Maynard
I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that.
Joyce Maynard
The big dramas that fascinate me are the quiet ones that happen behind closed doors in so-called ordinary families.
Joyce Maynard
There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets.
Joyce Maynard
Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.
Joyce Maynard
When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.
Joyce Maynard
You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know.
Joyce Maynard
A good home must be made not bought.
Joyce Maynard
Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.
Carol Bellamy
Bambi has a profound effect on children because it's about losing your mother.
Christine Baranski
I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.
Lara Flynn Boyle
We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.
Mary Wesley
Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.
J. B. Priestley
For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.
Carol Bellamy
I'm not up on today's television for children, because it's mostly cartoons that don't seem to interest me.
William Jackson
When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.
Michael Jackson
We have three cats. It's like having children, but there is no tuition involved.
Ron Reagan
Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.
Margaret Mead