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" What makes a narcissistic mother so scary? Her absolute power and controlling influence. A narcissistic mother is your only 'friend,' at least until you're old enough to go to school. "

Koren Zailckas

Influence

School

Power

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" I have been a ballerina, a cheerleader and a sorority girl. I was the girliest girl alive. "

" My parents always swore that in my childhood they had to let me win at board games. If, by the lucky stroke of the plastic wheel, my father would accidentally beat me at Candy Land, I would fly into fits of bawling that I'm told would last for hours. If I couldn't triumph, I didn't want to play. "

Koren Zailckas

Father

Win

" Having a child doesn't make a woman a mother any more than owning a paintbrush makes her Frida Kahlo. "

Koren Zailckas

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Woman

" We are taught to believe it's bad to be angry, or at least it's not good. That's not the case all throughout the world. People are more open and not embarrassed about it. For instance in Paris, people believe Americans have a really unhealthy relation with anger. They think it's essential to get angry. "

" I do think anger is so difficult for women. Girls think it undermines their femininity; it's not very ladylike. "

" America, ever the narcissistic mother, prefers baby bumps to children and expectant mothers to full-fledged bum-and-nose-wiping ones. "

" I would never make up a character who didn't exist or an event that didn't transpire. If you're a real writer, you have other tools in your toolbox to build drama. "

Koren Zailckas

Tools

Drama

" In my early to mid-20s, a fear of confrontation made it difficult for me to end relationships in a mature or even quasi-sane way. Instead, I would hang on resentfully, praying that my doomed beau would end things first and spare me the displeasure. To add hindrance to hang-up, the men I chose were usually just as stoic as I was. "

Koren Zailckas

Men

Relationships

" It's no wonder the narcissistic mother will always have a place in literature: she's a freak of nature. "

" I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. "

Koren Zailckas

Always

Know

" I think, for one, we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change. "

" Reading Poe was like a near-death experience, the kind that makes you feel fragile and free in its wake. I felt almost as though I'd scared myself alive. "

" I think what I learned in research is that as Americans, we're very distrustful of anger. We're not sure if we should repress it. The idea that anger is supposed to be controlled is American, and we try to keep it out of our homes. "

" If mothers are our first teachers, then having a narcissistic one teaches us that human closeness is terrifying, and the world is a heartless, inconsistent place. "

" When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again. "

" I think statistics go in one ear and out the other. All of us respond to stories more than numbers. "

" Since I've quit drinking, I'm not sure I've found the good life, but I've certainly uncovered a better one. "

" My short stature may have something to do with my tendency to shout when enraged. How else is anyone going to hear me way down here? "

Koren Zailckas

Here

Way

" Why is Kris Jenner a powerhouse? Because some part of us confuses fame and infamy, too. If she really bothered us half as much as we claim she does, we'd look away and stop feeding her empire. "

" As long as we depend on other women for self-esteem, using them as bad examples or fantasy versions - special, powerful - of ourselves, they remain stuck in a narcissistic version of themselves, too. "

" I think when you're 14 years old, I think you're sort of looking for markers that prove you're an adult and you're independent of your parents. "