I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much.
Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.
I think it's important for those of us in a position of responsibility to be firm in sharing our experiences, to understand that the babies out of wedlock is a very difficult chore for mom and baby alike... I believe we ought to say there is a different alternative than the culture that is proposed by people like Miss Wolf in society... And, you know, hopefully, condoms will work, but it hasn't worked.
I had these little babies [my twins] and it gave me something so spectacular, such a feeling - I was so turned on and so excited by them that I wrote a poem. I had it on scraps of paper and the maid threw it out.
As soon as you lay down, that's when the most bizarre things start coming out of her mouth. 'Goodnight, baby.' 'Do you think we were together in a past life?' 'Yeah, and I died of sleep deprivation. Go to bed.' 'Don't you feel like we're soul...'
Maybe crying is a means of cleaning yourself out emotionally. Or maybe it's your last resort; the only way to express yourself when words fail, the same as when you were a baby and had no words.
There is always in the healthy mind an obscure prompting that religion teaches us rather to dig than to climb; that if we could once understand the common clay of earth we should understand everything. Similarly, we have the sentiment that if we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse. This is the great truth which has always lain at the back of baby-worship, and which will support it to the end.
Other people are joyous, like on the feast of the ox, like on the way up to the terrace in the spring. I alone am inert, giving no sign, like a newborn baby who has not learned to smile.
When people truly open their minds, and contemplate the way in which the universe is ordered and governed, they are amazed-overwhelmed by a sense of the miraculous. When people contemplate with open minds the germination of a single seed, they are equally overwhelmed-yet numerous babies are born every day, and no-one marvels. If only people opened their minds, they would see that the birth of a baby, in which a new life is created, is a greater miracle than restoring life.
It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence.
Pregnancy takes a huge physical toll on your body. I have many friends who have had babies and many of them require medical help and attention, emergency Cesarean sections and forceps. If you think that people just have a kid and it's no big deal, that's not true. It's one of the most dangerous things for a woman to do. If you take away access to accessible medical women in America, you're going to bump up the death rate.
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
So, I'm lying on the couch and Laura walks in and I say, 'Free at last,' and she says 'You're free all right, you're free to do the dishes.' So I say, 'You're talking to the former president, baby,' and she said, 'consider this your new domestic policy agenda.'
A woman has the greatest opportunity to provide the best outcome for a baby and its potentialities. Not only by having a conscious and definite will to form the child accordingly to the highest ideal she can conceive, but first and foremost having the aspiration to work on herself.