#ties

Aside from wanting to write cracking good books that turn children into lifelong readers, I really want to create stories that enable kids to LOOK at the world around them. To see it for what it is, with wide open, wondering eyes. Our mass media is so horribly skewed. It presents this idea of 'normalcy' which excludes and marginalises so many for an idea of commercial viability which is really nothing but blinkered prejudice. People who are black and Asian and Middle Eastern and Hispanic, people who are gay or transgendered or genderqueer, people who have disabilities, disfigurements or illnesses - all have this vision of a world which does not include them shoved down their throats almost 24-7, and they're told 'No one wants to see stories about people like you. Films and TV shows about people like you won't make money. Stories about straight, white, cisgendered, able-bodied people are universal and everyone likes them. You are small and useless and unattractive and you don't matter.' My worry is that this warped version of 'normal' eventually forms those very same blinkers on children's eyes, depriving them of their ability to see anyone who isn't the same as them, preventing them from developing the ability to empathise with and appreciate and take joy in the lives and experiences of people who are different from them. If Shadows on the Moon - or anything I write - causes a young person to look at their own life, or the life of another, and think, 'Maybe being different is cool' I will die a happy writer. -Guest blog - what diversity means to me ↗

— Zoë Marriott

#minorities #writing #experience

Travel gives me the opportunity to walk through the sectors of cities where one can clearly see the passage of time. ↗

— Jerzy Kosinski

#clearly #gives #me #opportunity #passage

China is going to be one of Avon's largest market opportunities. It has a large geographic expanse, with hundreds of thousands of women in small villages really striving to make an earnings opportunity for themselves. ↗

— Andrea Jung

#china #earnings #expanse #geographic #going

The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax, are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition. ↗

— Marilyn Hacker

#both #connotation #fascinating #gained #how

Gather in your resources, rally all your faculties, marshal all your energies, focus all your capacities upon mastery of at least one field of endeavor. ↗

— John Haggai

#endeavor #energies #faculties #field #focus

The appalling crackdown that we witnessed in Hama and other Syrian cities on 30 and 31 July only erode the regime's legitimacy and increase resentment. In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions. ↗

— William Hague

#appalling #cities #continue #end #erode

Obviously, the greater the length of a war the higher is likely to be the number of casualties in it on either side. ↗

— Douglas Haig

#either #greater #higher #length #likely

I know I did the right thing by taking time off to raise my son. But it also came at a price. I turned down many opportunities over the years because I didn't want to leave him for long periods of time. And in Hollywood, as in any business, the calls stop coming when you don't answer. ↗

— Arsenio Hall

#answer #any #because #business #calls

Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest - then we can all die laughing. ↗

— Lily Tomlin

#fittest #instead #laughing #should #survival

I try to keep a balance. I actually believe that children want normal parents, they don't want celebrities or important parents or anything different from all the other parents. ↗

— Linda Hamilton

#anything #balance #believe #celebrities #children