Unassailable Aunts

"Aunt Margaret told me that if I lived my life as a nonreader, I could experience seventy or eighty years of the world, but if I read, I could enjoy three thousand years of the world's most enlightening thoughts and stories. "


--Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia


Reading Pipher's reflections on extended family brought to mind Miss C's spectacular Aunts, as well as my own incredible and incredibly diverse Aunts. 


More gems from Aunt Margaret to her young niece,


You need to read all of Pearl S. Buck, though her later books were inferior to her earlier ones.


You should live in Paris, Rome, or New York in your twenties.


Never trust anyone who uses the word 'frankly.'


And


He had an interesting life, but he is not an interesting person.


About unnecessary pennypinchers, Aunt Margaret quoted Oscar Wilde:


He knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing.


Pipher's lesson from this Aunt:


"I learned from her that no one's ideas were unassailable.  I heard her assail my father's and my uncle's opinions almost daily. "


All quotes are from Pipher's memoir Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World.