William Maxwell Quote
Mother, listen to me. Now's your chance, do you hear? I know that when I start to talk about what I really think and want and believe, something comes over you, some terrible fit of impatience, so that your knees twitch and you can't even sit still long enough to hear what I have to say. You listen to other people. Anybody but your own daughter you have all the patience in the world with. I've watched you. You know just what to say and what not to say. With everybody but me you're wonderful. I wish I had a mirror. I wish I could show you what you look like right now, your face flushed and set, and that expression of grim endurance. Why do you have to endure your own daughter? I get furious at you but I don't endure you. What is it you want me to be? Do you want me to be domestic, like Cousin Martha, and worry about meals and whether the cook is in a bad temper and whether my husband is looking at some other woman? I haven't any husband to be jealous of, and I haven't any house, either. So I can't very well be domestic, can I? Or worry about the temper of the cook who doesn't exist? Do you want me to be afraid of you the way the Beach girls are afraid of their mother, so that when you're around all the life and hope goes out of me, and everybody thinks what a pity it is that such a charming delightful woman should have a dull daughter? Well I won't be dull for anybody, not even you. I'm not dull so why should I pretend to be? Or easy going, or self-controlled or anything else...What you are thinking now I know. I can read it in your face. We've been over this a thousand times, you're saying, so why do we have to go over it again? But we haven't been over it a thousand times. I've never really talked to you the way I'm talking now, never in my whole life. Always before I've spared you, spared your feelings, and this time I'm not going to. I don't see any reason to spare your feelings. You're a grown woman and you had enough courage to leave my father and to come back to him, which I wouldn't have been able to do. I'd have died first.
Mother, listen to me. Now's your chance, do you hear? I know that when I start to talk about what I really think and want and believe, something comes over you, some terrible fit of impatience, so that your knees twitch and you can't even sit still long enough to hear what I have to say. You listen to other people. Anybody but your own daughter you have all the patience in the world with. I've watched you. You know just what to say and what not to say. With everybody but me you're wonderful. I wish I had a mirror. I wish I could show you what you look like right now, your face flushed and set, and that expression of grim endurance. Why do you have to endure your own daughter? I get furious at you but I don't endure you. What is it you want me to be? Do you want me to be domestic, like Cousin Martha, and worry about meals and whether the cook is in a bad temper and whether my husband is looking at some other woman? I haven't any husband to be jealous of, and I haven't any house, either. So I can't very well be domestic, can I? Or worry about the temper of the cook who doesn't exist? Do you want me to be afraid of you the way the Beach girls are afraid of their mother, so that when you're around all the life and hope goes out of me, and everybody thinks what a pity it is that such a charming delightful woman should have a dull daughter? Well I won't be dull for anybody, not even you. I'm not dull so why should I pretend to be? Or easy going, or self-controlled or anything else...What you are thinking now I know. I can read it in your face. We've been over this a thousand times, you're saying, so why do we have to go over it again? But we haven't been over it a thousand times. I've never really talked to you the way I'm talking now, never in my whole life. Always before I've spared you, spared your feelings, and this time I'm not going to. I don't see any reason to spare your feelings. You're a grown woman and you had enough courage to leave my father and to come back to him, which I wouldn't have been able to do. I'd have died first.