Quotes from Jane Tompkins

Look, I know from the outside it doesn't look so bad... I know I had all the advantages. I know my parents loved me. But that makes it worse, don't you see?... The way it is, all the unhappiness seems to be my responsibility, my fault.

If the cup is empty, it can be filled.

In my professional life, by contrast, I became a rebel and a game-changer. In my scholarly work I took controversial positions that exposed me to attack and ridicule, something which I both feared and enjoyed.

Mother Land provides evidence that growth in self-understanding can be achieved at a late stage of life -- Theroux is in his seventies -- evidence that the story is not over yet and that new insight and change can take place until the end.

You want to know what's going on in someone's life? Ask them how they feel first thing in the morning.

I began to listen to myself more... Trusting myself, I discovered, meant giving up control over my decisions. The choice came from me, but not from the part of me that used to decide—the mind that weighed, the mind that projected scenarios, the mind that controlled.

I lived up to the wishes and expectations of people in authority, not because I was forced to, but because I wanted to. I didn't know anything else.