My Beloved World Quotes
"You cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire."
"The challenges I have faced are not uncommon, but neither have they kept me from uncommon achievements."
"It's essential to reflect on the path that has brought me to this juncture and to count the blessings that have made me who I am."
"Every rule is bound by context, and a personal memoir requires a different style than a legal opinion."
"Memory by nature is selective and colored by emotion."
"I have tried to tell a good story, balancing the needs of a clear and focused telling with an abundance of feeling."
"The proper measure of success is not how much you've closed the distance to some far-off goal but the quality of what you've done today."
"I have always felt that the support I've drawn from those closest to me has made the decisive difference between success and failure."
"Sometimes the people closest to us are those we know the least."
"The world branched out before me in a thousand new directions, pretty much as the salesman had promised."
"It was not guilt that she felt at all. It was sadness and fear."
"That year of my father's death had been incredibly hard on her."
"Achievement was all very well, but it was the process, not the goal, that was most important."
"I had to learn to speak persuasively and confidently in front of an audience."
"I realized how hard my mother’s life had been."
"When people’s dignity shatters in front of you, it leaves a hole that any feeling heart naturally wants to fill."
"I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view."
"My mother was eager to get us into a safer place because the Bronxdale projects were headed downhill fast."
"The very idea of eating out in a restaurant, of spending a dollar for eggs and toast, was deeply upsetting to her."
"Surveillance was maintained, and Mami ducked the blame."
"The differences were plain enough, and yet I saw that they were as nothing compared with what we had in common."
"As I lay in bed at night, the sky outside my window reflecting the city’s dim glow, I thought about Abuelita’s fierce loyalty to blood."
"I remember wondering what made her so intriguing."
"If you can’t do it, Mami, then we can’t either."
"I was ready to leave and try elsewhere, but she said, 'Espera… Sonia, wait, maybe they can order it.'"
"Sonia, I don’t care if you have to cut off your hands, get that gesture out of your goddamn repertoire!"
"I’ve since come to recognize a personal tendency."
"I had no idea how circumscribed my life had been, confined to a community that was essentially a village in the shadow of a great metropolis with so much to offer, of which I’d tasted almost nothing."
"In writing, however, one’s words stand naked on the page."
"I was enough of a realist not to fret about having missed summer camp, or travel abroad, or a casual familiarity with the language of wealth."
"If you happened to visit Princeton on a weekend, the cafeteria food in the commons was a crapshoot."
"The first year that I face the challenges of any new environment has always been a time of fevered insecurity, a reflexive terror that I’ll fall flat on my face."
"I couldn’t shake the feeling of having been admitted because of some clerical oversight."
"They didn’t want to let women in the door, and now that we’re here, they don’t know what to do with us."
"Quiet pragmatism, of course, lacks the romance of vocal militancy. But I felt myself more a mediator than a crusader."
"A respectful dialogue with one’s opponent almost invariably goes further than a harangue outside his or her window."
"If you want to change someone’s mind, you must understand what need shapes his or her opinion."
"To prevail, you must first listen—that eternal lesson of Forensics Club!"
"There were no actual villains, just inertia."
"Always, my first question was, what’s the goal? And then, who must be persuaded if it is to be accomplished?"
"The greater purpose of these groups had not been self-exile or special pleading. It had been to foster a connection between the old Princeton and the new."
"I wasn’t going to take Felice’s money, but I did take her advice."
"For me the most agreeable and effective instruction has come from observing the nuances and complexity of live action, the complete package of knowledge, experience, and judgment that is another human being."
"The true measure of a person is not in their starting point, but in their journey and the distance they've covered."
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts and actions based on values rather than personal gain."
"Affirmative action opens doors; hard work and determination walk through them."
"Doubting the worth of minority students' achievements is a new face of prejudice."
"Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one."
"The pursuit of justice is a journey, not a destination."
"True strength lies in our ability to balance fairness with compassion."
"The most profound changes are often ushered in through the quietest whispers."
"Assuming the corruption of everyone in law enforcement was a self-fulfilling prophecy, whose effect was only to sabotage the system, ensuring that justice could not be done."
"I competed with myself. But if ambition only feeds the ego and self-regard, what does it avail?"
"As long as I was learning, there was no chance of boredom."
"If you're going to become a partner, you'll have to dress the part."
"I’ve always believed people can change; very few are carved in stone or beyond redemption."
"I threw myself into it with my best single-mindedness."
"The language of cause and effect would be misleading here, the implied exchange of one thing for another not relevant."
"Gifts, Abuelita showed us, were for sharing with others."
"Our humanity makes us each a part of something greater than ourselves."
"Even with the most conscientious monitoring, blood sugar can swing suddenly in a way that is a threat to one’s life not in the future but in the immediate present."
"One remedy for heartache I concocted on my own was learning how to dance."
"I may never have a natural rhythm, but I know that the knees make the hips move."
"I still can’t sing to save my life—a slight hearing impairment doesn’t help matters."
"Exercise of all kinds has been a joyous discovery."
"The guilt of endangering the health of a loved one is by far the best motivation I’ve discovered."
"FERRARI WAS a client of mine, and I was invited to take one of the original Testarossas for a spin."
"I was fearless, even as I thrilled to the feeling of such vast power under perfect mechanical control."
"SOMETIMES, no matter how long we’ve carried a dream or prepared its way, we meet the prospect of its fulfillment with disbelief."
"I finally learned how to swim, too. Okay, maybe not with athletic grace, but I can swim twenty laps without stopping."
"I’m not intimidated by challenges. My whole life has been one."