"My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill"
About this Quote
The emotional voltage sits in the mother’s ordinary ambition. She “would tell me that I would go to McGill” isn’t a command; it’s an incantation of belonging. Campus isn’t just scenery, it’s a symbol of access. A child being wheeled through institutional space suggests proximity without membership: you can touch the edges of prestige before you’re allowed inside. In immigrant and working-class lore especially, that kind of repeated naming can function like scaffolding, building a self that can inhabit a place that might otherwise feel reserved for “other people.”
Marcus’s phrasing also preserves the gentle contingency of life. He doesn’t say she “knew” he’d go. He says she told him. That distinction matters: it frames success as something cultivated by expectation and environment rather than solely by innate brilliance. Coming from a scientist, it reads almost like an early lesson in causality: inputs, reinforcement, and the slow construction of outcomes that, later, look inevitable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mother |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Marcus, Rudolph A. (2026, January 17). My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-mother-used-to-wheel-me-about-the-campus-when-78002/
Chicago Style
Marcus, Rudolph A. "My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-mother-used-to-wheel-me-about-the-campus-when-78002/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-mother-used-to-wheel-me-about-the-campus-when-78002/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
