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Quotes from Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South — Shirley Abbott

born 1934 United States

← All quotes by Shirley Abbott

5 quotes

People just showed up and were always made welcome. To stay less than an hour was an insult, and there was always a meal.

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (1984)

Within our family there was no such thing as a person who did not matter. Second cousins thrice removed mattered.

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (1984)

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (1984)

If I grew up in the simple-minded belief that women were as strong and intelligent as men, it was because I came from a society that had once believed it.

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (1984)

The frontier will nevertheless survive in the attitudes a few of us inherited from it. One of those attitudes—to me a beatitude—is the conviction that the past matters, that history weighs on us and refuses to be forgotten by us, and that the worst poverty women—or men—can suffer is to be bereft of their past.

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (1984)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Shirley Abbott (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.