Quotes by Mary Catherine Bateson

About Mary Catherine Bateson:

Mary Catherine Bateson is an American writer and cultural anthropologist.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Since few people arrive at retirement with an understanding that this transition will involve a rethinking of who they are, an interim pattern has emerged, in which travel offers a way of fulfilling deferred daydreams of adventure while the next stag...

Mary Catherine Bateson

It's all about being in control of myself as an older woman who lives alone, and it's all about how I am going to do what I have to do to be as strong as I can be and be confident that I can do what I need to do as an older person. [p. 62]

Mary Catherine Bateson

... --an entire cohort with something new to offer to the world as years of experience combined with continuing health. [p. 52]

Mary Catherine Bateson

As people grow older, some of the ways they have contributed in the past may no longer be possible, but the challenge to society is not only to provide help and care where these are needed but also to offer the opportunity to contribute and care for ...

Mary Catherine Bateson

Moving is both liberating and debilitating. Undertaken too late, it is a very stressful process, one that sometimes seems to catapult people into frail old age, and undertaken too soon, it may preempt other possibilities. [p. 38]

Mary Catherine Bateson

Sorting gets harder as time goes on--it requires a sort of ruthless decisiveness, while indecision results in endless dithering. Five moves, they say, equal a fire. But those who haven't moved may begin to need a fire. [p. 38]

Mary Catherine Bateson

After all, most of us have lived lives based on commitments made without any way of knowing where they would lead. The uncertainty is an essential element in commitment, the acceptance of consequences an essential element in fidelity. [p. 80]

Mary Catherine Bateson

... as we age we have not only to readdress earlier developmental crises but also somehow to find the way to three affirmations that may seem to conflict. ... We have to affirm our own life. We have to affirm our own death. And we have to affirm love...

Mary Catherine Bateson

The critical question about regret is whether experience led to growth and new learning. Some people seem to keep on making the same mistakes, while others at least make new ones. Regret and remorse can be either paralyzing or inspiring. [p. 199]

Mary Catherine Bateson

Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.

Mary Catherine Bateson

The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy.

Mary Catherine Bateson

There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

Mary Catherine Bateson

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a really nice man who wishes she were not.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.

Mary Catherine Bateson

The family is changing, not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.

Mary Catherine Bateson

The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Author Bio

  • NameMary Catherine Bateson
  • DescriptionAmerican anthropologist
  • BornDecember 8, 1939
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAnthropologist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship