Quotes & Sayings About Becoming A Mother

Becoming a mother is the best thing that's happened to me. — Paula Patton

But I'll tell you something: We had a big family discussion about it recently, my two sisters and I, and I pointed out that we all have the same genes as our mother and we're all susceptible to becoming alcoholics. — Payne Stewart

Real Womanhood isn't a function of becoming a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father. — Ann Voskamp

My mother was the one who totally got behind me as far as, do things and ask questions later. My father would say, "I don't care how dirty you are up there, just be funny." Because they knew me offstage. They knew I was a good guy. They knew my whole plan of becoming the most exciting comedian, visually, ever. A real rock-and-roll stand-up comic. — Andrew Dice Clay

When the moment of departure arrived, Catherine and Peter accompanied Johanna on the short first stage of her journey, from Tsarskoe Selo to nearby Krasnoe Selo. The next morning, Johanna left before dawn without saying goodbye; Catherine assumed that it was "not to make me any sadder." Waking up and finding her mother's room empty, she was distraught. Her mother had vanished - from Russia and from her life. Since Catherine's birth, Johanna had always been present, to guide, prompt, correct, and scold. She might have failed as a diplomatic agent; she certainly had not become a brilliant figure on the European stage; but she had not been unsuccessful as a mother. Her daughter, born a minor German princess, was now an imperial grand duchess on a path to becoming an empress. — Robert K. Massie

My God ... how magnificent of a man do you have to be to go through what you went through, doing it alone, nobody to ease the way, the pain, no mother, no brother no sister, all by yourself enduring that and fight your way to becoming all that you are. It isn't amazing. It's a darned miracle. — Kristen Ashley

In choosing, moreover, for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had already lost an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight, whose first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely. What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a little prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's heart: What he played in his mother's heart he knew not yet. — John Galsworthy

In weeks that followed, I refined this vision until it was very specific. I was going to go for the Mr. Universe title; I was going to break records in power lifting; I was going to Hollywood; I was going to be like Reg Park. The vision became so clear in my mind that I felt like it had to happen. There was no alternative; it was this or nothing. My mother noticed right away that something was different. I was coming home with a big smile. I told her that I was training, and she could see I found joy in becoming stronger. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

the despair displayed by young children on loss of their mother is a normal response to frustration of their absolute need for her presence ... children usually manage to survive, it is true, but at the cost of developing a defensive attitude to emotional detachment, and by becoming self-absorbed and self-reliant to an unusual degree. Typically, they are left with lasting doubts about their capacity to elicit care and affection. — Anthony Stevens

I love being middle-aged in general. I'm more at peace with myself now. I still have tormented times, but they are few and far between. You don't feel you have to be the centre of your world when you get older. Becoming a mother had been a turning point which stopped me from being the centre of my world. — Alison Moyet

My mother gave me a pair of diamond earrings when I was 13. It symbolised becoming a teenager. I also remember getting a collection of costume jewellery from my grandmother when I was in high school. — Erin Wasson

When I was little, I thought about becoming a lawyer like my parents, and my mother would always tell me, "You can do anything you want - except be a lawyer." — Alexandra Daddario

Becoming a mother has helped make me a tougher, stronger writer. — Jessica Hagedorn

My most amazing discovery was becoming a mother. It changed everything. I can't imagine my life without these little beings. — Deborra-Lee Furness

Before becoming a mother I had a hundred theories on how to bring up children. Now I have seven children and only one theory: love them, especially when they least deserve to be loved. — Kate Samperi

When I began doing theatre in high school I saw that I could get laughs from people but I didn't really connect that to going on and becoming a comedian. I was interested in acting and while I was at Boston College I was part of an improv group, Mother's Fleabag, which had a long history and has been known as one of the best college improvisation groups in the U.S. — Amy Poehler

It is a little considered fact that simply in the process of becoming a mother, one does not automatically become a saint. — Eugenia Price

Becoming a mother has helped me to realize who I am aside from my career. — Christina Aguilera

They may already know too much about their mother and father
nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis? — Richard Ford

Killenkusi was a Machi59 priestess. Her daughter Kinturay had to choose between succeeding her or becoming a spy; she chose the latter and her love for the Irishman; this opportunity afforded her the hope of having a child who, like Lautaro and mixed-race Alejo, would be raised among the Spaniards, and like them might one day lead the hosts of those who wished to push the conquistadors back beyond the Maule River, because Admapu law prohibited the Araucanians from fighting outside of Yekmonchi. Her hope was realized and in the spring60 of the year 1777, in the place called Palpal, an Araucanian woman endured the pain of childbirth in a standing position because tradition decreed that a strong child could not be born of a weak mother. The son arrived and became the Liberator of Chile. — Roberto Bolano

Becoming a mother was the single defining event of my life. It felt like the whole world shifted. — Debra Messing

Perry said today that his mother said "Girls look for infinite security; boys look for a mate. Both look for different things." I am at odds. dislike being a girl, because as such I must come to realize that I cannot be a man. In other words, I must pour my energies through the direction and force of my mate. My only free act is choosing or refusing that mate. And yet, it is as I feared: I am becoming adjusted and accustomed to that idea. And if I could be your companion I would laugh at those previous fears. I like what you heighten in me. And I am amazed that I, so proud and distainful of custom, could consider marriage an honorable and vital estate. But under certain circumstances I do justly consider it that. — Sylvia Plath

The idea of becoming a mother at sixteen was the scariest thing that she'd ever thought of. — Valenciya Lyons

Becoming a grandmother has felt like being a mother. — Jade Jagger

Becoming a mother has made me even more aware and more passionate about nutrition and wellness. So much so that I am now a certified health coach practitioner. — Miranda Kerr

Professionalism in tennis ... only resulted in making billionaires out of rude children, producing an onslaught of moody defectors, and a lot of guys with hair that looks as if bats slept in it ... Meanwhile, my head swims with the thought that I have watched tennis progress from Don Budge and Alice Marble to Farrah Fawcett becoming John McEnroe's mother-in-law. — Dan Jenkins

She'd grown up hearing about epic battles between Guardians and demons, of legendary Wardens and their brave fight to keep the nocturnis at bay. To her, it all had the air of fairy tales, history through the lens of the Brothers Grimm. She listened to the tales the same way she listened to Beowulf, and had the same expectation of ever featuring in one of those famous battles as of facing Grendel's mother in a Scandinavian swamp.
Yet here she was, not just fighting the forces of evil but somehow tied to her very own Guardian, acting for all intents and purposes like the Warden she had once dreamed of becoming. — Christine Warren

Learning the lessons of the past allows you to walk boldly in the light without running the risk of stumbling in the darkness. This is the way it's supposed to work. This is God's plan: father and mother, grandfather and grandmother teaching their children; children learning from them and then becoming a more righteous generation through their own personal experiences and opportunities. Learning the lessons of the past allows you to build personal testimony on a solid bedrock of obedience, faith, and the witness of the Spirit. — M. Russell Ballard

When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I'd go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor. — Al Pacino

Long ago you were a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she awoke to give you birth. — Kahlil Gibran

He's a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach him how to be human. So he's existed much like an animal, without language. He thinks in images, not word."
"How strange," Lanaya, sounding amazed.
Ryter shakes his head sadly. "Not strange, I'm afaraid. His condition is all too common in the latches. And becoming more common every day. — Rodman Philbrick

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you're just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. — Pam Brown

Since becoming a mother, I'd say it's more so affected my general outlook on things. I'm less worried about everything. Less scared to make those numbers that people think are standard or less scared to create something that maybe I don't think people are going to like, because it's all about if I like it. I need to be happy. — Lights

Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is. — Sarah Zettel

It's impossible to imagine my mother like that. I cannot imagine her softened, thawed, decayed, becoming sweeter as she spoils. I imagine her trapped in a mirror instead. A permanent image of her locked into a rectangle of hard brightness, open-eyed. — Laura Kasischke

Becoming a mother doesn't always change every aspect of your personality. — Anna Torv

On becoming a mother, I sort of feel like every kid is my kid. I really do get that sense in a much more profound way that we all are a global community and we all have to band to try and give the children of our this generation whatever tools we can to go out into this world and try and make it a better place. — Sarah McLachlan

I grew up in a Hindu household but went to a Roman Catholic school. I grew up with a mother who said, 'I'll arrange a marriage for you at 18,' but she also said that we could achieve anything we put our minds to an encourage us to dream of becoming prime minister or president. — Indra Nooyi

Over time, the grueling job of a mother requires one to learn everything from patience to clinical psychology.

When you are "in the fire," it is sometimes hard to recognize the value of what you are learning. But the da-to-day refining process--the problem solving, crisis resolution, mental stretching, mess clean-ups, sleep deprivation, and loving more than you thought possible truly makes you into a smart, aware, beautiful refined individual.

The great secret is appreciating the refined person you are becoming through your trials. — Linda Eyre

I have two young children, and I will say that motherhood is its own peak, just like in the process of writing: one climbs and is continuously moving with each book. Becoming a mother is the greatest connection I've ever felt to being spiritual. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Sunset was only thirty minutes gone when some pissant vampire waylaid Deacon on his way to Theriault's. One of those younger shits who wrote poetry to Mother Darkness and thought becoming a vampire would make him sparkle. — Meljean Brook

At least initially, the relationship took on a nineteenth-century epistolatory quality. The only way they could stay in touch was by letter. In 1991, while South Korea was becoming the world's largest exporter of mobile telephones, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. But even writing a letter was not a simple undertaking. Writing paper was scarce. People would write in the margins of newspapers. The paper in the state stores was made of corn husk and would crumble easily if you scratched too hard. Mi-ran had to beg her mother for the money to buy a few sheets of imported paper. Rough drafts were out of the question; paper was too precious. The distance from Pyongyang to Chongjin was only 250 miles, but letters took up to a month to be delivered. — Barbara Demick

Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. — Charlotte Gray

Once becoming a mother, a woman might be radicalized in her feminism. She had a greater stake in saving the earth from male politicians. She had a greater stake in education and health, in the environment, in all social policy. She finally understood the way our society makes children and mothers the lowers of priorities.
...
I was hardly mellowed by the maternal transformation. If anything, my feminism grew more fierce. — Erica Jong

I really felt the growth of myself as a human being, as a person [becoming a mother]. — Jennifer Lopez

Mrs. Clutterthorpe, I can hardly think of any fate worse than becoming the mother of six. Unless perhaps it were plague, and even then I am persuaded a few disfiguring buboes and possible death would be preferable to motherhood. — Deanna Raybourn

My mother could never have said she loved fall, but as she walked down the steps with her suitcase in hand toward the red Monte Carlo her husband had been waiting in for nearly an hour, she could have said that she respected its place as a mediator between two extremes. Fall came and went, while winter was endured and summer was revered. Fall was the repose that made both possible and bearable, and now here she was was with her husband next to her, heading headlong into an early-fall afternoon with only the vaguest ideas of who they were becoming and what came next. — Dinaw Mengestu

One of the main problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. — Douglas Adams

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read. — Judy Blume

So far it has been assumed that the only pregnancies which are aborted are accidental ones and the only foetuses destroyed those whose mothers could not bear the thought of their becoming children. In a just world this would be the case, but the world is far from just. Too many women are forced to abort by poverty, by their menfolk, by their parents. Poverty has many faces; it may be the poverty of the young, the unmarried, the student, the unemployed, the female or a combination of these. — Germaine Greer

On becoming a mother, I had forever left that solitary state of girlhood behind, and if I sometimes pined to be alone with Augustine as we used to be in our first love, a quick glance at my sleeping son's face soon banished such foolish thoughts. It was as if Augustine and I had been in a beautiful bubble but when my body split open in childbirth, the shimmering membrane broke and we were delivered to the world. — Suzanne M. Wolfe

Becoming a mother hasn't necessarily changed how I shoot, but it certainly has made me more sensitive, and it certainly makes it much harder for me to photograph dying children. — Lynsey Addario

What kind of choice is it, really, when motherhood forces you into a delicate balancing act
not just between work and family, as the equation is typically phrased, but between your premotherhood and postmotherhood identities? What kind of choice is it when you have to choose between becoming a mother and remaining yourself? — Judith Warner

It felt natural. That is what I remember most about becoming a father halfway through my 20s. As if Mother Nature was giving me the big thumbs up. — Tony Parsons

Huzzah! Free Trade and Sailors' Rights! But instead American ships are captured and sailors impressed by the thousands into the British Navy, becoming slaves to the lash, while the United States has virtually no navy to back them up. Baltimore native, Nathan Jeffries, son of an American hero, Captain William Jeffries, and his Quaker wife, Amy, is haunted by the memories of his fiancee, his best friend, his enemy's woman and his betrayal. Chesapeake Bay is no refuge aboard his father's brig Bucephalus;facing his worst fears, he is chased and captured by armed privateer schooner Scourge. In a violent world at war, Nathan must break his most solemn promise to his mother. For Nathan and the young United States, 1812 would severely challenge rights of passage. — Bert J. Hubinger

The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother. — Douglas Adams

I think nobody alive today is a more powerful agent of conversion than someone like Mother Teresa. You can refute arguments but not her life. When she came to the National Prayer Breakfast and lectured President Clinton about abortion, he had nothing to say to her. He can't argue with a saint. It's too bad there isn't an easier way, because becoming a saint is not the easiest thing in the world. It's much easier to become an apologist or a philosopher or a theologian. — Peter Kreeft

She turned to him with wide, shocked eyes. "Why did he..."
His lips twitched. No coarse language in front of the infants limited the ability to discuss the fountain of baby piss that had just arced halfway across the room.
"Twasn't you, darling. It's one of their favorite bath-time games.
"Something about the cool air on their naked...berries," he substituted at the last second....
"Do I have piddle in my hair?" she whispered, her eyes sparkling with laughter above her flushed cheeks.
"Not much," he assured her with a straight face. "You look almost becoming."...
"Decades from now, when our children ask how I fell in love with their mother, I'll say 'twas her sweet, gentle compliments during bath-time, and her fleetness of foot whilst dodging a flow of --- — Erica Ridley

All that evening he talked to the Candle of Arras, in a low confidential tone. When you get down to it, he thought, there's not much difference between politics and sex; it's all about
power. He didn't suppose he was the first person in the world to make this observation. It's a question of seduction, and how fast and cheap you can effect it: if Camille, he thought, approximates to one of those little milliners who can't make ends meet - in other words, an absolute pushover - then Robespierre is a Carmelite, mind set on becoming Mother Superior. You can't corrupt her; you can wave your cock under her nose, and she's neither shocked nor interested: why should she be, when she hasn't the remotest idea
what it's for? — Hilary Mantel

When I was contemplating medical school after graduating from Knox, several people suggested that nursing was a more suitable profession for women. My own mother discouraged me from becoming a doctor. But this is not why I became a nurse instead! — Mary Pope Osborne

I feel sexier than ever after becoming a mother. — Lights

Oh, nice one, honey. Yes. Clever. That's becoming quite a familiar quotation in its own right, isn't it? Maybe I should just add it to the next edition. 'Mother was right.' Author: Mrs. Bartlett, world-renowned nag. Year: 1859. Attribution: A short play entitled Every Goddamn Weekend! — John Bartlett

My mother was asked to be a model when she was younger, but my father had not let her, so she was quite keen on me becoming a model. I just went off without telling my dad. I took off to Paris and never came back, but when I became a success and started making money, he was very proud of me. — Jerry Hall

In becoming archaeologists of the world of our mothers, we are trying to retrieve the female past and to invent a future. — Louise Bernikow

Becoming a mother has been the best experience of my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. — Karisma Kapoor

I am scared of becoming a mother. — Liv Tyler

Walter Mischel says the worst-case scenario for a kid from eighteen to twenty-four months of age is "the child is busy and the child is happy, and the mother comes along with a forkful of spinach...
"The mothers who really foul it up are the ones who are coming in when the child is busy and doesn't want or need them, and are not there when the child is eager to have them. So becoming alert to that is absolutely critical. — Pamela Druckerman

I've always dreamed of becoming a mother. I thought I would get married and do it all the traditional way, but life kept going on, my career kept me busy - and I had not stopped to become a mommy. — Kym Whitley

I spent a lot of time in the clouds. Becoming a mother has really helped me put my feet on the ground and given me a very powerful sense of self and a powerful sense of priority in life. — Evangeline Lilly

My father respected and admired my mother and was a person who was always standing by my side, encouraging me to do more and believed in my capacity. So in that sense, my own experience was very good in becoming an empowered woman. From early on, I carried that strong message: 'You can do it.' So I never had any doubt that women can do a lot. — Michelle Bachelet

I don't know if there's any change more significant that a human being can make than that of a woman becoming a mother. There's no change more dramatic. — Eric Dane

Becoming a mother has been the most amazing experience-in an instant you become strong. You have to be a little bit wiser; it's the most important job you have in the world. — Katie Holmes

There's no doubt that becoming a mother was the greatest thing I'll ever do. — Kim Basinger

No, you look like the beauty you are, and you know it. You have that gift, which our mother had, of growing older and becoming more lovely. Your features have changed from being merely those of a pretty girl to being those of a beautiful woman with a face like a carving. When you are laughing and dancing with Edward, you could pass for twenty, but when you are still and thoughtful, you are as lovely as the statues they are carving in Italy. No wonder women loathe you. — Philippa Gregory

Anorexia is such a self-consuming, selfish disease. It's all about you. Becoming a mother, all of a sudden it wasn't about me anymore. — Tracey Gold

Women should know the truth. They can take it; they are adults, not children. If a mother opts for formula rather than breastfeeding, there is good evidence that her baby will score lower on IQ tests and will have a higher risk of many illnesses including some cancers, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea and ear infections. She should know that her own risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer will be higher, as well as her daughter's risk of breast cancer. The mother increases her own risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and becoming overweight by "choosing" formula feeding. There is accumulating evidence that the risk of mental illness (alcoholism, ADHD, schizophrenia) is increased by not breastfeeding. A recent study suggested that even behaviour problems in adolescents are more likely if the child was formula fed. The longer the child is breastfed, the lower the risk both for the child and the mother. — Jack Newman

This is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; — Jamaica Kincaid

She [my mother] tapped my hand lightly with her fingers and, looking out the window, said, "You know, I've missed having a mother. It's a gaping hole. I think having a mother is one of the great things in life--one of the only things that can save you. I'm always looking for my mother and, frankly, Kitten, it's becoming exhausting, so I thought I'd ask you if you would be my mother. You just have that way about you. You're not really what anyone would call a typical daughter, but I think you have exactly what it takes to be a mother. Don't you think it's a good idea? — Kate Mulgrew

There were a lot of little triggers that made me realize that life is now; life is happening while we're preoccupied with stupidities. Of course, growing. Of course, becoming a mother and understanding life from another perspective. — Thalia

This month is fit for little.
The dead ripen in the grapeleaves.
A red tongue is among us.
Mother, keep out of my barnyard,
I am becoming another.
Dog-head, devourer:
Feed me the berries of dark.
The lids won't shut. Time
Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun
its endless glitter.
I must swallow it all.
Lady, who are those others in the moons' vat-
Sleepdrunk, their limbs at odds?
In this light the blood is black.
Tell me my name. — Sylvia Plath

My father was English. He date-raped my mother so she's hated English men ever since. You know my boyfriend's English, and I'm, uh, I'm half-English, which she's never been real happy about. If she finds out I'm dating someone English, she'll ah, think I' turning my back on her and becoming a foreigner.'
Cathy, that's the stupidest reason I've ever heard. — Jeaniene Frost

On Becoming a 'Lady': What every mother wants her daughter to be. — Marlene Dietrich

Women becoming, consequently, weakerthan they ought to behave not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affectioneither destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity. — Mary Wollstonecraft

How many nights and sunrises came to caress our hearts. Then, as often happens, I see I'm just lonely in living the poetry of these moments, and I'm throwing away my magic. I can find refuge in my songs, they surround me like a mother, but then I realize that this hug is becoming a cage, I'm prisoner in my dreams, and I wonder: "may I be condemned to dream forever?" ... I wish I could watch again beauty of the moon, creating a big heart made of shells on the beach, as a castaway's signal ... hoping to be seen by someone who's flying up there ... and loudly saying .. "Hey .. I'm here ! please help me to escape — Alice James Books

If I want to read S.J. Perelman's Chicken Inspector No. 23 for the third time instead of some anguished, politically correct saga of a girl growing up in a trailer park in Kingman, Arizona, with an alcoholic mother who makes her straighten her naturally curly hair and won't let her date a Navajo boy or pursue her goal of becoming (naturally) a writer, I will. And I will laugh like a lunatic while doing it. — Mel White

Food, the stoking-up process, the keeping alive of an individual flame, the process that begins before birth and is continued after it by the mother, and finally taken over by the individual himself, who goes on day after day putting an assortment of objects into a hole in his face without becoming surprised or bored. — E. M. Forster

On a deeper level, if our sons are learning they are obscene, disgusting, and untrustworthy, is this the best preparation for fatherhood? And is it the best preparation for becoming a mother
to feel this way about her son? — Warren Farrell

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment. — Mark Twain

The feminist story, she reminded me, is a counternarrative, a narrative of disobedience, a chronicle of battle, nto of surrender. Women who do not fit the mold are too often maneuvered, manipulated, and mangled into some culturally safe archetype. The makers of history transformed perpetua intoa cold, unfeeling mother - a villan of sorts. But who is to say that becoming a mother didn't also push Perpetua to become a martyr, didn't cause her to passionatley uphold her religious ideals because she wanted to offer her son the greatest gift she could - an ideal? Maybe, in the end, Perpetua's maternal instincts were precisely what gave her the strength to confront the burliest Roman gladiator and the to lie down with dignity? — Stephanie Staal

O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Watching my stepfather and mother working in the industry - acting and composing - and seeing firsthand how difficult it is to achieve a successful career in the theater, I thought it might be safer to go to art school with the aim of becoming a painter. — Juliet Rylance

From the women in this book, I realized that I had been broken open by becoming a mother, and it was time to build myself back up, and discover the new version of who I was becoming. I think I may be recognizing myself again, if only in short glimpses from a reflection in the glass window. By researching this book, I was inspired by the theory of metta, which is described in some Buddhist circles as mother love. Similar notions of mother love may be found in Christianity, as seen through the stories and sculptures of Mary embracing Jesus. Metta is unlike any other type of love. Because it is metta, it brings out the very best and the very worst in us. Metta is forever - there is no "happily ever after," and there is no finish line. — Christine Woodcock

Enjoy the pregnancy, not racing ahead and relishing the moment. I think people see pregnancy as something to get over with, but every stage of becoming a mother is really special. — Olivia Wilde

At 41 and a half weeks pregnant, I started to have second thoughts about becoming a mother. — Jenny Mollen