To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do ...we have from the past? Art and thought. That's what lasts. That's what continues to feed people and given them an idea of something better. A better state of one's feelings or simply the idea of a silence in one's self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to me is the same.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So what if people say terrible things? Whatever they call me, I say, "Yes, and my name is Mary." I refuse to be afraid. And I do t...his out of an obligation not to the community but to myself. Nobody should have a say in who I am.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilize...d history until the fame of its grassy meadows and fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of CONCORD from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass-ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peacable lives on its banks.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will... be slaves on earth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For me being a poet is a job rather than an activity. I feel I have a function in society, neither more nor less meaningful than a...ny other simple job. I feel it is part of my work to make poetry more accessible to people who have had their rights withdrawn from them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Marriage accustomed one to the good things, so one came to take them for granted, but magnified the bad things, so they came to fe...el as painful as a grain in one's eye. An open window, a forgotten quart of milk, a TV set left blaring, socks on the bathroom floor could become occasions for incredible rage. And something happened sexually in marriage--the swearing to forsake all others, despite its slight observance, had a profound effect. Some people felt trapped by it, impelled to assert what they called freedom. Some accepted it like a rein, and in the effort to avoid pain in the form of hopeless desire, cut off occasions of desire, avoided having long talks at parties with attractive members of the opposite sex. In time, all feeling for the opposite sex was cut off, and intercourse limited to the barest politenesses.... But something happened to you when you did that, a kind of death seeped up from the genitals to the rest of the body, till it showed in the eyes, the gestures, in a certain lifelessness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...I believe it is woman's right to have a voice in all the laws and regulations by which she is to be governed; whether in Church... or State; and that the present arrangements of society, on these points, are a violation of human rights, a rank usurpation of power, a violent seizure and confiscation of what is sacredly and inalienably hers--and thus inflicting upon woman outrageous wrongs, working mischief incalculable in the social circle, and in its influence on the world producing only evil, and that continually.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »