I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.

The line uses a small, domestic observation—an infant or young child crying in sleep—to make a larger point about emotion. It suggests that grief, fear, or need can be involuntary and bodily, not always mediated by conscious thought. By attributing the lesson to “my own daughter,” the speaker frames vulnerability as something learned through caregiving: witnessing a child’s unguarded distress reveals how deep feeling can persist even when the mind is “off duty.” The quote can also be read as a metaphor for adult sorrow—how people may appear composed or “asleep” to their pain, yet still leak it in ways they cannot fully control.