Read this stories and pull out imporatant 3 qoutes from each story (6qoute) - Essay Example

1. On Being a Cripple “I am a cripple. I choose this word to me. I choose from among several possibilities, the most common of which are "handicapped" and "disabled." I made the choice a number of years ago, without thinking, unaware of my motives for doing so. Even now, Im not sure what those motives are, but I recognize that they are complex and not entirely flattering. People--crippled or not--wince at the word "cripple," as they do not at "handicapped" or "disabled." Perhaps I want them to wince.

I want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates /gods /viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger”. (p 1)“I wake up in the morning feeling the way most people do at the end of a bad day, and I take it from there. As a result, I spend a lot of time in extremis and, impatient with limitation, I tend to ignore my fatigue until my body breaks down in some way and forces rest. Then I miss picnics, dinner parties, poetry readings, the brief visits of old friends from out of town.

The offspring of a puritanical tradition of exceptional venerability, I cannot view these lapses without shame. My life often seems a series of small failures to do as I ought”. (p 2) “A friend who also has MS startled me once by asking, "Do you ever say to yourself, Why me, Lord?" "No, Michael, I dont," I told him, "because whenever I try, the only response I can think of is Why not?" If I could make a cosmic deal, whom would I put in my place? What in my life would I give up in exchange for sound limbs and a thrilling rush of energy? No one. Nothing.

I might as well do the job myself. Now that Im getting the hang of it”. (p 8)2. The Clan of the One-Breasted Women“It was at that moment I realized the deceit I had been living under. Children growing up in the American Southwest, drinking contaminated milk from contaminated cows, even from the contaminated breasts of their mothers, my mother--members, years later, of the Clan of one-Breasted Women”. (p 2)“But one by one, I watched the women in my family die common, heroic deaths. We sat in waiting rooms hoping for good news, always receiving the bad.

I cared for them, bathed their scarred bodies, and kept their secrets. I watched beautiful women become bald as cisplatin, Cytoxan, and Adriamycin were injected into their veins. I held their foreheads as they vomited green-black bile and I shot them with morphine when the pain became inhuman. In the end, I witnessed their last peaceful breaths, becoming a midwife to the rebirth of their souls. But the price of obedience became too high”. (p 4)“The women moved through the streets as winged messengers, twirling around each other in slow motion, peeking inside homes and watching the easy sleep of men and women.

They were astonished by such stillness and periodically would utter a shrill note or low cry just to verify life”. (p 6)