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Bruce Feiler Quotes

Powerful Bruce Feiler for Daily Growth

When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.

- Bruce Feiler

Life, Happy, Hardship, Chapter

The older I get, the more I realize that religion is not going to be easily marginalized by one of its wannabe successors - science, capitalism, consumerism.

- Bruce Feiler

Religion, More, Going, Marginalized

I'd say my best memory was climbing Mt. Fuji, and the worst memory was... trying to fit my feet into the free giveaway slippers at Japanese schools.

- Bruce Feiler

Memory, Feet, Say, Slippers

There's a reason the Exodus story has inspired so many Americans. It's a narrative of hope.

- Bruce Feiler

Reason, Inspired, Narrative, Exodus

One of the core ideas of the Bible is that meaning can be found in history. The sheer act of telling and retelling stories helps us to understand God's role in the world as well as our own position in a long line of ancestors who have wrestled with similar issues to the ones we wrestle with every day.

- Bruce Feiler

Role, Line, Telling, Long Line

Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause.

- Bruce Feiler

World, Turtle, Take, Behold

I definitely subscribe to the idea that 9/11, to use an overused phrase, was a wake-up call. There was a year-long national teach-in on Islam - everyone read books and suddenly talked about Islam, and that was very productive. But there's no doubt that moment has passed.

- Bruce Feiler

Idea, Very, Use, Overused

The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family's positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

- Bruce Feiler

Line, Bounce, Generations, Odds

I grew up as a fifth-generation Jew in the American South, at the confluence of two great storytelling traditions. After graduating from Yale in the 1980s, I moved to Japan. For young adventure seekers like myself, the white-hot Japanese miracle held a similar appeal as Russia in 1920s or Paris in the 1950s.

- Bruce Feiler

Storytelling, 1920s, South, Traditions

Celebrate your family's bleakest moments and how your relatives overcame them. In doing so, you will encounter darkness, but you'll give your children the confidence that they, too, shall overcome.

- Bruce Feiler

Celebrate, Doing, Give, Relatives

The way to tell a really big story, I think, is to tell a really small story.

- Bruce Feiler

Small, Think, Big, Big Story

I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast.

- Bruce Feiler

College, Joining, Fare, Northeast

I was surprised how relevant the Moses story was to contemporary American debates - from our ongoing debate about values, to our role as champions of freedom, to our place as a country that welcome immigrants.

- Bruce Feiler

Champions, Country, Role, Debates

I say the same thing that I've said for decades now, which is: don't go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand.

- Bruce Feiler

Over, Same Thing, Which, Decades

Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn't mean simply 'talking through problems,' as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves.

- Bruce Feiler

Through, Telling, Means, Decades

Abraham is the shared ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He stands at the heart of these three faiths. And yet you know almost nothing about him.

- Bruce Feiler

Christianity, Shared, Almost, Abraham

When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.

- Bruce Feiler

Thought, Been, Generations, Everyday

I was so naive about writing, I went to the public library and checked out the only volume they had on the topic - an academic treatise about publishing from the WWII era.

- Bruce Feiler

Out, About, Had, Public Library

Knowing more about family history is the single biggest predictor of a child's emotional well-being. Grandparents can play a special role in this process, too.

- Bruce Feiler

Process, Play, Well-Being, Predictor

All couples have been told to schedule regular one-on-one time. 'Date night' is the default answer to most problems in modern marriages. And research backs this up.

- Bruce Feiler

Date, Been, One-On-One, Regular

Even Superman's name reflects his creators' biblical knowledge.

- Bruce Feiler

Creators, His, Even, Reflects

One question hovers over all of us who choose to spend our lives writing: why keep doing this in a world where so many forces are aligned against us?

- Bruce Feiler

Doing, Why, Against, Aligned

The simplest consequence of walking on crutches is that you walk slower. Every step must be a necessary one. When you hurry, you get where you're going, but you get there alone. When you go slow, you get where you're going, but you get there with a community you've built along the way.

- Bruce Feiler

Alone, Along, Slower, Crutches

My name is Bruce Feiler, and I'm an explainaholic. I first heard this word used to describe Isaac Asimov, and I knew instantly that I suffered from the same condition. It's the incurable desire to tell, shape, share, occasionally exaggerate, often elongate, and inevitably bungle a good story.

- Bruce Feiler

Tell, Used, Good Story, Exaggerate

Let your kids pick their punishments. Our instinct as parents is to order our kids around. It's easier, and we're usually right! But it rarely works.

- Bruce Feiler

Instinct, Your, Works, Order

Moses is our true founding father.

- Bruce Feiler

Father, True, Moses, Founding

Moses became America's true founding father because he evangelized action; he justified risk. He gave ordinary people the courage to live with uncertainty.

- Bruce Feiler

Father, Became, Justified, Founding

Here's a confession: I hate parenting books. I hate the ones that are earnest and repetitive.

- Bruce Feiler

Here, Confession, Books, Earnest

I'm a fifth generation Jew from the South, and I would say that I felt this connection to my religion, but it wasn't a spiritual connection.

- Bruce Feiler

Generation, South, Felt, Fifth

Superman's original name was Kal-El, or Swift God. His father's name was Jor-El. Superman was clearly drawn as a modern-day god.

- Bruce Feiler

Original, Modern-Day, His, Swift

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