The Resolute Woman

Category: character

  • Stand out

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    resolutewoman
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    In his book On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder lists “Stand out” as one of his 20 lessons from the 20th century. “Someone has to,” he explains. “It is easy to follow. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But, without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set…

  • The truth

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    resolutewoman
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    “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom,” says Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian and the author of On Tyranny. “If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding…

  • The best we can

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    resolutewoman
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    “The truth?” writes Frederik Backman in his book Anxious People. “The truth about all of this? The truth is that this was a story about many different things, but most of all about the idiots. Because we’re doing the best we can, we really are. We’re trying to be grown-up and love each other and…

  • We learn to pretend

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    resolutewoman
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    “There is such an unbelievable amount that we’re all supposed to be able to cope with these days,” says Frederik Backman in his book Anxious People. “You’re supposed to have a job, and somewhere to live, and a family, and you’re supposed to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to your…

  • Truth and facts

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    “There is no truth, we all know that,” says Robert Caro, Pulitzer Prize winning author. “No one truth. No objective truth. No simple truth or no one simple truth either. But there are facts. Hard facts. Objective facts. Verifiable facts. And the more facts you come up with, the closer you come to whatever truth…

  • People who are difficult

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    “I don’t enjoy normal, high functioning people,” Frederik Backman, the author of a new book called Anxious People, said recently during an Arts & Letters Live virtual presentation. “When I meet other people who are normal and happy and content, I don’t like them. I like people who are difficult, who march to the beat…

  • The best of times, the worst of times

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    resolutewoman
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    “Keep the faith. You can make it across the moat,” Margaret Atwood writes in the May 4, 2020, issue of Time magazine. “You can enjoy this time, albeit at a pace somewhat less frenzied than when things were ‘normal.’ Many are questioning the pace—What was the hurry?—and deciding to live differently. “It’s the best of…

  • Think

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    “Evil comes from a failure to think,” Hannah Arendt wrote in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. “It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there.…

  • The dignity of the poor

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    “I had to get my camera to register the things about people that were more important than how poor they were—their pride, their strength, their spirit,” photographer Dorothea Lange once said. Lange’s photos, including the iconic Migrant Mother, “humanized the consequences of the Great Depression.” I saw some of her photos recently in an exhibit…

  • We’re all in this together

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    resolutewoman
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    “Here in America, we don’t let our differences tear us apart,” Michelle Obama once said. “Not here. Because we know that our greatness comes from when we appreciate each other’s strengths, when we learn from each other, when we lean on each other, because, in this country, it’s never been each person for himself or…