Category: character
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Life is how we tell it
Carme, a character in Isabel Allende’s book A Long Petal of the Sea, wrote down her recollections. She wrote them down “as a precaution, in case at some point her memory began to fail her. She embellished the facts, because she was aware that life is how we tell it.” What story do you tell…
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Be yourself?
To be yourself, you have to know yourself. In Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half, Stella asks her teenage daughter Kennedy: “Why can’t you just be yourself?” “Maybe I don’t know who that is,” Kennedy answers. Stella understood, Brit Bennett writes. “That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone.”
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Stuck?
Can you become a different person? Can you change who you are? Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half, is about identity. Jude, one of the characters, says, “She had always known that it was possible to be two different people in one lifetime, or maybe it was only possible for some. Maybe others were just…
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Finding yourself?
How do you find yourself? How do you know who the best you is? Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half, is about identity. One of the characters Stella, the twin who is born Black, but passes into the white world, thinks: “You didn’t just find a self out there waiting—you had to make one. You…
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Who is the best you?
Douglas Abrams and Jane Goodall have a new book—The Book of Hope. In the book Abrams, who is Jewish, remembers a famous Jewish story—a very interesting story for all of us who are still trying to figure out who we are and who we used to be and who we want to be tomorrow. Rabbi…
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Obama optimism
Yes, people can change. Our optimism has to be extended to people — even, or perhaps especially, to those we don’t agree with, said President Obama in an interview about his new book . “Sometimes we put (other people) in a box and we assume that they’re never going to change, and I reject that,”…
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Four reasons for hope
Jane Goodall lists four reasons she has hope—“the amazing human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of young people and the indomitable human spirit.” Goodall is featured on the cover of the October 11/October 18 issue of Time magazine. Inside is an article about her new book The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide…
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The end of Roe vs. Wade?
Roe vs. Wade has essentially been eliminated in Texas, Cecile Richards says. Richards hopes the U.S. Supreme Court justices will take their responsibilities seriously. “I hope that this court understands their responsibility not to their own personal, religious or political views, but to the good of the people of this country,” she stresses. Cecile Richards,…
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RBG made the world a better place
This week, let’s remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died a year ago in September, and continue her work to make the world a better place. RBG once said, “To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself but…
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Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“The news is depressing,” I tell my husband. “Too many bad things are happening.” This week, let us remember the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died a year ago this month. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, who helped make the world a better place, once said, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a…