"From the beginning, I wanted to live my own life, and patiently I shored up that desire against wind and tide"
About this Quote
A quiet kind of defiance lives in Maillart's phrasing: not the cinematic rupture of running away, but the slow engineering of independence. "From the beginning" plants the urge to self-direction as something primal, not a late-life epiphany or a fashionable pose. It also carries a subtle rebuke to the expectations that typically script a woman's life in the early 20th century: if she wanted to live her own life from the start, then someone else was clearly trying to author it for her.
The sentence turns on the word "patiently". Maillart doesn't romanticize rebellion; she professionalizes it. Desire becomes a project you reinforce over time, which is why the maritime imagery matters. To "shore up" is practical, even unglamorous, the kind of work you do to keep a structure from collapsing. Pair that with "wind and tide" and the opposition stops being a single villain and becomes an entire climate: family pressure, gendered norms, economic reality, the seductions of safety. Nature itself becomes the metaphor for social force, suggesting resistance that is constant, impersonal, and exhausting.
As a writer and travel figure who built a life defined by motion and self-invention, Maillart is also telling on the hidden labor behind a "free spirit" persona. The subtext is that autonomy isn't an identity you claim; it's something you fortify, day after day, against erosion. It's a line that refuses both victimhood and bravado, making self-determination feel less like a slogan and more like a long, weathered craft.
The sentence turns on the word "patiently". Maillart doesn't romanticize rebellion; she professionalizes it. Desire becomes a project you reinforce over time, which is why the maritime imagery matters. To "shore up" is practical, even unglamorous, the kind of work you do to keep a structure from collapsing. Pair that with "wind and tide" and the opposition stops being a single villain and becomes an entire climate: family pressure, gendered norms, economic reality, the seductions of safety. Nature itself becomes the metaphor for social force, suggesting resistance that is constant, impersonal, and exhausting.
As a writer and travel figure who built a life defined by motion and self-invention, Maillart is also telling on the hidden labor behind a "free spirit" persona. The subtext is that autonomy isn't an identity you claim; it's something you fortify, day after day, against erosion. It's a line that refuses both victimhood and bravado, making self-determination feel less like a slogan and more like a long, weathered craft.
Quote Details
| Topic | Perseverance |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Ella
Add to List
