But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all. Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too, just once. ...
Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the...
Sometimes kindness can be delivered in a clumsy way. But it's far more sincere in its clumsiness than those distinguished men you read about in books. Your father was very clumsy.” "Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There's love and em...
I'll say it again - mental illness is a physical illness. You wouldn't consider going up to someone suffering from Alzheimers to yell, "Come on, get with it, you remember where you left your keys?" Let us shout it from the rooftops until everyone get...
When we follow our joy and excitement, being focused on what we love and appreciate, the change always unfolds with a great ease. Whenever we experience any tension in our transformations, it only indicates our resistance to the change. In fact, it i...
No, not at all. I’m an atheist. You could say that I’m agnostic, but that’s just a certain kind of atheist (laughs). An atheist is someone who lacks a belief in a supernatural, and that’s me. I can’t say with absolute certainty that there i...
Men’s economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom. It follows that woman knows a...
When we use these words and we talk about plants having a strategy to do this or wanting this or desiring this, we’re being metaphorical obviously. I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But, this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don’t hav...
Our two peoples are sworn enemies,” he whispered. “You would not do it.” “Call me your enemy no more,” Jan bade him, drawing nearer. “I grow weary of our being enemies. The scars your talons left upon my back this autumn past are old scar...
Just is not by other men of intelligence that an intelligent an is afraid of being thought a fool, so it is not by the great gentleman but by boors and 'bounders' that a man of fashion is afraid of finding his social value underrated. Three-fourths o...
Dead people never seem to address the obvious - the things you'd think they'd be bursting to talk about, and the things all of us not-yet-dead are madly curious about. Such as: 'Hey, where are you now? What do you do all day? What's it feel like bein...
Self-confidence is not the same thing as ego. This is not to say that the two don’t (frequently) dance hand in hand down the street, pushing over old ladies in crosswalks and kicking baby kittens. But they are definitely not the same entity. Ego is...
Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are...
I don't particularly believe all love is doomed. But I guess, one is usually kinda suffering from some aborted love affair or association, rather than being at the peak of one. I think it's fairly obvious that a lot more suffering goes on in the name...
Freedom is a state of mind, I said wondering where I'd heard it before, not a state of being. We are all slaves to gravity and morality and the vicissitudes of nature. Our genes govern us much more than we'd like to think. Our bodies can not know abs...
Men who pride themselves on being shrewd in discovering the weak points, the vanity, the dishonesty, immorality, intrigue, and pettiness of others think they understand character. They know only a part of character. They know only the depths to which...
If you want more people to come to the theatre, don't put the prices at £50. You have to make theatre inclusive, and at the moment the prices are exclusive. Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people ...
Perhaps it was smartest, after all, to collar your memories and isolate them, sedating the irascible ones, banishing the grotesques, systematizing the rest; maybe coaxing a lion into a wheeled cage on occasion and pulling it eminently around town for...
While we are living, our lives are like that of an open book, still being written. Eventually, our book closes for us, and to others, it will be as if we never existed at all. Those of us who write down our life story, will leave a little piece of us...
Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits. ... We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children .... [p. 15]
We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if we're creative. Imaginative people fidget with ideas, including the idea of a relationship. If they're wordsmiths like us, they fidget a lot in words.
