quote · Legacy record
When my mother would tell me that she wanted me to have something because she as a child had never had it, I wanted, or I partly wanted, to give it back. All my life I continued to feel that bliss for me would have to imply my mother's deprivation or sacrifice. I don't think it would have occurred to her what a double emotion I felt. I could hardly bear my pleasure for the guilt. There is no wonder that a passion for independence sprang up in me at the earliest age. It took me a long time to manage the independence, (but) I have never managed to handle the guilt. In the act and the course of writing stories, these are the two springs, one bright, one dark, that feed the stream.
When my mother would tell me that she wanted me to have something because she as a child had never had it, I wanted, or I partly wanted, to give it back. All my life I continued to feel that bliss for me would have to imply my mother's deprivation or sacrifice. I don't think it would have occurred to her what a double emotion I felt. I could hardly bear my pleasure for the guilt. There is no wonder that a passion for independence sprang up in me at the earliest age. It took me a long time to manage the independence, (but) I have never managed to handle the guilt. In the act and the course of writing stories, these are the two springs, one bright, one dark, that feed the stream.
Approximate author period: c. 1955 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Eudora Welty
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1955 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1909 to 2001; Wikidata Q259364, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q259364 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 299781; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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