There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.
Lying is done with words, and also with silence.
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.
You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.
When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.
I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn’t know that, and I have no carbons.
No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees, sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air, dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding, our animal passion rooted in the city.
Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.
If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.
