75 Quotes by Mary Pipher

We live in a world filled with language. Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us, the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or invite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.

People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America...

Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.

All feelings are acceptable, but all behavior isn’t.

I think history is inextricably linked to identity. If you don’t know your history, if you don’t know your family, who are you?

Intelligent resistance keeps the true self alive.

Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it’s teeming with energy and fraught with danger.

Girls developed eating disorders when our culture developed a standard of beauty that they couldn’t obtain by being healthy. When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin.

I’m a perfectly good carrot that everyone is trying to turn into a rose. As a carrot, I have good color and a nice leafy top. When I’m carved into a rose, I turn brown and wither.