A Mother (n.) is the first of the Fates: she gives life, gives the first nourishment, and — rubbing her palms to show the boy the earth he is made of — teaches him he owes Nature a death.
A Mother (n.) is warned by her daughter's growth that the time has come to abandon her own claims to sexual satisfaction.
A Mother (n.) may be blamed, in the end, for one thing above all: for not having given birth to her daughter as a boy.
A Mother (n.) is the earth in the ancient oracles: Caesar's dream of lying with his mother foretold his taking possession of the world.
A Mother (n.) carried in by bird-beaked gods in Freud's childhood dream wore a dying grandfather's peaceful face — and only her living face could calm the dreamer.
A Mother (n.) lay behind the doctor's three overdoses for old women: he had once overdosed his own mother, who joked about being poisoned by her son.
A Mother (n.) who satisfies the child's hunger becomes its first love-object and its first protection against anxiety.
The Mother (n.) is the first love-object, and the person finally chosen is almost the same object again.
The Mother (n.) is the first and strongest love-object for both sexes, and the prototype of every later love.
A Mother (n.) who hinders her daughter's sexual life fulfils a normal function sanctioned by society; it is the daughter's business to emancipate herself — and her neurosis answers not to the real mother but to her earliest image of her.