Mary Pipher Quotes

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Adolescence Anorexia Children Culture Daughters Identity Parents

Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.

Mary Pipher

Girl, Self, Pressure

Mary Pipher (2005). “Reviving Ophelia”, p.16, Penguin

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I think anorexia is a metaphor. It is a young woman's statement that she will become what the culture asks of its women, which is that they be thin and nonthreatening. Anorexia signifies that a young woman is so delicate that, like the women of China with their tiny broken feet, she needs a man to shelter and protect her from a world she cannot handle. Anorexic women signal with their bodies "I will take up only a small amount of space. I won't get in the way." They signal "I won't be intimidating or threatening." (Who is afraid of a seventy-pound adult?)

Mary Pipher

Men, Thinking, Feet

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People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America.

Mary Pipher

America, People, Immigration

Mary Pipher (2003). “The Middle of Everywhere”, p.371, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it's teeming with energy and fraught with danger.

Mary Pipher

Childhood, Energy, Borders

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Therapy isn't Radio.We don't need to constantly fill the air with sounds. Sometimes, when its quite, surprising things happen.

Mary Pipher

Air, Sound, Needs

Mary Pipher (2009). “Letters to a Young Therapist: Stories of Hope and Healing: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.49, ReadHowYouWant.com

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Good therapy, gently but firmly, moves people out of denial and compartmentalization. It helps clients to develop richer inner lives and greater self-knowledge. It teaches clients to live harmoniously with others and it enhances Existential consciousness, and allows people to take responsibility for their effects on the world at large. For me , happiness is about appreciating what one has. Practically speaking,this means lowering expectations about what is fair, possible and likely. It means,finding pleasure in the ordinary.

Mary Pipher

Moving, Mean, Responsibility

Mary Pipher (2009). “Letters to a Young Therapist: Stories of Hope and Healing”, p.16, ReadHowYouWant.com

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The fullness of life comes from an identity built on giving and on joy.

Mary Pipher

Fullness Of Life, Giving, Joy

Mary Pipher (2009). “Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World”, p.160, Penguin

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I'm a perfectly good carrot that everyone is trying to turn into a rose. As a carrot, I have good color and a nice leafy top. When I'm carved into a rose, I turn brown and wither.

Mary Pipher

Nice, Perfectly Good, Color

"Reviving Ophelia: Helping You to Understand and Cope With Your Teenage Daughter". Book by Mary Pipher, 1994.

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We live in a world filled with language. Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us, the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or invite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.

Mary Pipher

Beautiful, Team, People

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Real friends require honesty, openness, and even vulnerability. They also require attention and simple acts of kindness.

Mary Pipher

Friendship, Honesty, Kindness

Mary Pipher (2005). “Reviving Ophelia”, p.141, Penguin

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I think history is inextricably linked to identity. If you don't know your history, if you don't know your family, who are you?

Mary Pipher

Thinking, Identity, Our Family

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All feelings are acceptable, but all behavior isn't.

Mary Pipher

Feelings, Behavior, Acceptable

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we are a small, interconnected world; that we are all safe or none of us are; that we are all well cared for or all at risk.

Mary Pipher

Risk, World, Safe

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Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one's decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one's own true gifts. It involves thinking about one's environment and deciding what one will and won't accept.

Mary Pipher

Responsibility, Thinking, Maturity

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Girls have long been evaluated on the basis of appearance and caught in myriad double binds: achieve, but not too much, be polite,but be yourself, be feminine and adult; be aware of our cultural heritage, but don't comment on the sexism. . . . Girls are trained to be less than who they really are. They are trained to be what the culture wants of its young women, not what they themselves want to become.

Mary Pipher

Girl, Being Yourself, Long

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When one of us tells the truth, he makes it easier for all of us to open our hearts to our pain and that of others.

Mary Pipher

Pain, Heart, Telling The Truth

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The two most radical things you can do in America are to slow down, and to talk to each other. If you do these things, you will improve your country.

Mary Pipher

Country, America, Two

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One important reason to stay calm is that calm parents hear more. Low-key, accepting parents are the ones whose children keep talking.

Mary Pipher

Children, Keys, Talking

Mary Pipher (2005). “Reviving Ophelia”, p.259, Penguin

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When Europeans arrived on this continent, they blew it with the Native Americans. They plowed over them, taking as much as they could of their land and valuables, and respecting almost nothing about the native cultures. They lost the wisdom of the indigenous peoples-wisdom about the land and connectedness to the great web of life...We have another chance with all these refugees. People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America.

Mary Pipher

Native American, Land, Web Of Life

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Coming out of the trance of denial is painful. But crises offer us opportunities to rethink our lives. The best thing about despair is that it wakes us up. We can see the world more clearly and open to new possibilities...And we can find new joy in the ordinary.

Mary Pipher

Opportunity, Joy, Despair

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Girls developed eating disorders when our culture developed a standard of beauty that they couldn't obtain by being healthy. When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin.

Mary Pipher

Girl, Anorexia, Healthy

Mary Pipher (2005). “Reviving Ophelia”, p.165, Penguin

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How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, as long as the lightbulb wants to change.

Mary Pipher

Long, Doe, Want

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Telling stories never fails to produce good in the universe.

Mary Pipher

Stories, Failing, Produce

Mary Pipher (2003). “The Middle of Everywhere”, p.159, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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With meditation I found a ledge above the waterfall of my thoughts.

Mary Pipher

Meditation Practice, Ledges, Waterfalls

Mary Pipher (2009). “Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World”, p.121, Penguin

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The protected place in space and time that we once called childhood has grown shorter.

Mary Pipher

Space, Childhood, Time And Space

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Born: October 21, 1947
Occupation: Psychologist
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