Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we sposed to choke our natural self into the weird..., lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. Because, in other words, the powerful don't play; they mean to keep that power, and those who are the powerless (you and me) better shape up--mimic/ape/suck--in the very image of the powerful, or the powerful will destroy you--you and our children.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I know that each stage is not going to last forever. I used to think that when he was little. Whenever he was in a bad stage I tho...ught that he was going to be like that for the rest of his life and that I'd better do something to shape him up. When he was in a good state, I thought he was going to be a perfect child and I would never have to worry; he was always going to stay that way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Draw up the dew. Swell with pacific violence. Take shape in silence. Grow as the clouds grew.... Beautiful brood the cornlands, and you are heavy; Leafy the boughs--they also hide big fruit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
She is watching her country lose its evoked master shape watching it lose... And gain get back its houses and peoples watching it bring up Its local lights single homes lamps on barn roofsLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had let preadolescence creep up on me without paying much attention--and I seriously underestimated this insidious phase of chil...d development. You hear about it, but you're not a true believer until it jumps out at you in the shape of your own, until recently quite companionable child.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Contramasculinity: the apparent selflessness of the female, who allows every man who comes her way to shape her; her lack of resis...tance, her limitlessness, that softness and pliancy which basically never take seriously the shape the man gives her. She is always capable of being molded to new shapes: this is what a man describes as the harlot in her, a basic element of the female character that he can never fathom. One might also call it playacting. Playing at being somebody different, at dressing up. When a man wraps himself in a costume, is he not in fact taking a step in the direction of perversion, femininity, contramasculinity?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mother baseball. I enjoy speculating about its bloody beginnings as a fertility rite. Funny that with all the verbiage about the s...port no one mentions the obvious structural relationship between a baseball stadium and a womb: in design, a stadium is both a circle and a "Y," two notorious female symbols. The curved and sloping shape of the stands is like a plush endometrium in which we fans cozy up to watch a lone batter square off against the universe.... I especially like to think about that when announcers describe players' bats as fast, corked, dead, quiet, live, or as loaded barrels--and pitches as high hard ones.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The "universal moments" of child rearing are in fact nothing less than a confrontation with the most basic problems of living in s...ociety: a facing through one's children of all the conflicts inherent in human relationships, a clarification of issues that were unresolved in one's own growing up. The experience of child rearing not only can strengthen one as an individual but also presents the opportunity to shape human relationships of the future.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children are born as individuals. If we fail to see that, if we see them as clay to be molded in any shape we like, the tougher on...es will fight back and end up spiteful and wild, while the less strong will lose that uniqueness they were born with.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I call it our collective inheritance of isolation. We inherit isolation in the bones of our lives. It is passed on to us as sure a...s the shape of our noses and the length of our legs. When we are young, we are taught to keep to ourselves for reasons we may not yet understand. As we grow up we become the "men who never cry" and the "women who never complain." We become another generation of people expected not to bother others with our problems.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »