Feminists

"If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life — that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment — that would be the perfect state."

"Thank you of course to Miss Hepburn. The longevity of her career I think is inspiring to everyone. But most importantly and on behalf of everyone I know in The Aviator, thank you to Martin Scorsese. I hope my son will marry your daughter."

"As random and as subjective as this award is, it means a great deal in a year of extraordinary, yet again, extraordinary performances by women ... And perhaps those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences. They are not. Audiences want to see them, and in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people."

"Well, I'm a product of the Australian film industry which by its very nature is independent, sometimes for better sometimes for worse. I suppose the collaborative nature of being independent is what feels natural to me, and when people talk about working in Hollywood I don't quite know what that means. Being part of the Indiana Jones franchise and The Lord of the Rings, that felt more like a departure for me. But in the end, I think the whole notion of the independent spirit is not just about the way a film is financed but about the creative thinking behind it, and sometimes that can exist in the mainstream; those sensibilities can cross over and audiences are interested in, not a homogenous way of storytelling but a diverse way of receiving a narrative."

"I think marriage is all about timing. Getting married is insanity; I mean, it's a risk – who knows if you're going to be together forever? But you both say, 'We're going to take this chance, in the same spirit."

"What interested me was how much of a departure this was in that you have three interesting, across the generations, female characters, literally riding alongside the male characters. Also the emotional and psychological depth of the characters was, for me, a lot richer than I've seen in a western. But never once did it sacrifice the thrill of the chase. So it was a journey into the unknown for me."

"I can be a real pessimist. You know that when you win an Oscar and you walk offstage and your first thought is: "Oh God, I've peaked.""

"It's been an enormous challenge and enormously gratifying. Andrew and I wanted to travel less and the opportunity of living and working in Sydney was irresistible, especially when it came to being able to give our children roots. I also felt drawn to the stimulating kind of environment that the theatre offers in a way that is completely different from film. To direct a company has its own challenges, and there's nothing like the terror and thrill that comes from performing live in front of an audience. So it's been a marvellous experience for both of us."

"I've done a lot of talking over the past six years. My husband and I have been running the Sydney Theatre Company and it's been magic – my kids have been able to see so many of those transient moments between acting and real life behind the scenes. But now that I've given it up I'm looking forward to being a bit quieter. I'm very conscious of that. There have been times when I've heard myself in the past and thought: "Aw, just shut up.""

"Of course one worries about getting older - we're all fearful of death, let's not kid ourselves. I'm simply not panicking as my laugh lines grow deeper. Who wants a face with no history, no sense of humor?"

"It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who'd had children and I think they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is little pin holes of terror... and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move."

"I remember when I came out of drama school I'd seen a lot of actors, brilliant actors who didn't work very often. And when you're starting out, there's more rejection than there is acceptance, and I said to myself, “I’ll give it five years. I don’t think I have a strong enough mettle to deal with the rejections.""

"In my career, I thought I've never wanted to get anywhere in particular. I just wanted to work with interesting people on interesting projects."

"For me, the roles are the secondary part of the whole process to me strangely. It's about who you're being directed by and who the other actors are. Whenever I read a script, I think, 'wow, that's a great story,' and invariably I want to play one of the other characters, and the process of working out how to play the character you're offered is to work out why you aren't playing the other characters in a way. Maybe that's why I play roles of various different sizes. The challenge is not necessarily always the lead role, but in this case [Blue Jasmine] it was all those things combined."

"You know you've made it when you've been moulded in miniature plastic. But you know what children do with Barbie dolls - it's a bit scary, actually."

"No one is ever who they purport to be. And I suppose I'm most interested in the gap between who we project socially and who we really are."

"I'm not very cautious or careful. It's always been more about having a variety of experiences than any planned trajectory... I think that in a way, projects choose you."

"She has this incredible ability to transform herself. Sometimes you're not sure it's her on screen. It's always fascinating; this capacity of being a totally different person, and yet being yourself. She's very inventive; working with her, I can tell right away she's very free."

"I remember going to the Sunset 5 and just thinking, 'Who is that My goodness'. You just don't see people who have that kind of power and ability every day of the week."

"[She] elevated most of our performances. She's exquisite. She's a great friend. She can read a scene like few actors can. I find her to be grace incarnate. I liked that she was playing a dancer. It fit her because of who she is, because of her undeniable elegance."

"That Blanchett could appear in the same Toronto Film Festival playing Elizabeth and Bob Dylan, both splendidly, is a wonder of acting."

"Years from now, when cinephiles are asked to name the movies' golden age, they'll say it was when Cate Blanchett was in them."

"She has the most extraordinary access to her emotions that I've come across in an actor."

"As an actor, you either work off your own personality, and that's what you're peddling, or, like Cate, you draw out from the source material all the many dark, mysterious, and conflicting elements of the character that are going to make it engaging and trilling for the audience."

"When we came to work, I realized of course that Cate has a fierce intelligence, an unbelievable integrity. Her powers of concentration are phenomenal. Above all, she has a great sense of humour which I think is the most important thing to have and she is a phenomenal family person. The fact that she is working on something with an incredible intensity and at the same time can completely switch off and become a member of an incredibly close family with her children and her husband. When I saw her playing Elizabeth, it was one of those rare moments that I forgot I was watching an actress and I believed I was watching a real person who had actually lived and existed in history. I think Cate is the most extraordinary actress and I'm thrilled we did this movie together."

"I wanted to do the part because Cate was playing Sheba. And she knows, because I've said it out loud in front of a lot of people. My admiration for her is absolutely unbounded. And we had a lot of laughs, which is always good."

"I saw Cate in Streetcar Named Desire on Wednesday night. Liv Ullman directed it. I will say right here that it was perhaps the greatest stage performance I have ever seen ... She showed us the unraveling of a fragile woman right before our eyes and did it with not a false moment ... What I so love about both Cate and Andrew [Upton] is they haven't an ounce of pretense, divahood– just brilliant, hardworking, regular people with a growing family."

"That performance was as naked, as raw and extraordinary and astonishing and surprising and scary as anything I've ever seen, and it didn't have anything to do with what clothes she took off, you know what I mean? She took the layers of a person and just peeled them away. I thought I'd seen that play, I thought I knew all the lines by heart, because I've seen it so many times, but I'd never seen the play until I saw that performance."

"[Cosmetic surgery] is idiocy, unless it is to remove a disfigurement. A small breast doesn't have to become big. I prefer to look at a natural woman. A woman should be courageous to become older, not be desperate to look younger than her age. With time, a woman's body is better. As a woman goes to work, has babies, she is strong. She has character. Look at Cate Blanchett."

"[Working with Blanchett again] was one of my motivations for getting involved [with Carol]. I had such an amazing time with her on I'm Not There, and watching that particular performance emerge was an extraordinary experience for me. I think it was for her, too. I was just blown away by what she did and who she is as a person; that's always coupled with my esteem for her. And that just continued to be fleshed out in every possible way on this ... She has incredible knowledge and instincts."

"We only met at a party [during the making of The Lord of the Rings], we weren't on screen together. Well, we were on screen together but we didn't meet. Here [on The Hobbit], we had a whole week, or maybe two. That was a thrill because she's a great screen actor and a very congenial person, for me. She's based in theater. That's her main job at the moment, running a theater. So there wasn't a moment that we didn't have stuff to talk about."

"She is extraordinary, completely committed and very gifted of course. She's also extremely generous, modest and always brings a sense of humour so it was just a pleasure to work with her."

"Cate. I think Cate is kind of everybody's benchmark with everything she does. She does incredible work and always has."

"At the moment, I'm obsessed with Cate Blanchett. I would love to act with her. We are costars in How to Train Your Dragon, but we don't ever get to work together, which is so sad. I would be anything with her onscreen. I would do anything. If she's reading this, she should know I will do whatever to act with her. She's so alive and present in every single moment, and not for one second do you feel like she's acting; you just feel like she's living the character and being in the moment. The acting is undetectable, and that is so exhilarating, and I feel like it would be so intoxicating to be an actor around her."

"Certainly some actors I'm just amazed by the amount of work that they do, and I think, “My God.” I feel quite humbled ... Cate Blanchett. She was in Los Angeles and we were doing a round table and I was just amazed. I just looked her up again on Google to see what she's done. And she runs a family, she runs a theater, she's done all these incredible films around the world, she just never stops and she's so attractive and she's so present. She's like superwoman."

"The hero [of a narrative] must be male, regardless of the gender of the text-image, because the obstacle, whatever its personification, is morphologically female....The hero, the mythical subject, is constructed as human being and as male; he is the active principle of culture, the establisher of distinction, the creator of differences. Female is what is not susceptible to transformation, to life or death; she (it) is an element of plot-space, a topos, a resistance, matrix and matter.""

"For us, democracy is a question of human dignity. This includes the political liberties, the right to freely express our views, the right to criticize and to influence opinion. It embraces the right to health and work, to education and social security."

"Former Prime minister Tage Erlander spoke on radio a year ago about the people's home and about how he visited his senile mother at a residential hospital outside of Karlstad. When he came to visit her she told him; I'm so happy here. Everyone is so nice to me and I get good care and nice food. But who is paying for all this? Is it you Tage? And Erlander said; no I'm not paying, you're paying for this yourself mother. You have paid for this your entire life. You have grown up in this society, you have taken care of the family all these years, you have been a good citizen. And you have the right to be taken care of when you get old and infirm, not because of charity, not because you have a thick wallet, but because you are a Swedish citizen. This is your society, our society. You have the same right to this as anyone else. That is the welfare state and it is our greatest pride!"

"Apartheid cannot be reformed. It has to be eliminated."

"Human beings will find a balanced situation when they do good things not because God says it, but because they feel like doing them."

"They build their democratic institutions with pedantic conscientiousness."

"The bourgeoisie seemed to live in the illusion that an effort for peace presupposed an almost unreserved support for the American position. The hallmark of a balanced bourgeois critique seems to be that it should be heard as little as possible. Preferably be almost silent. That it is surrounded by so many reservations that it loses every meaning and that it is guaranteed not to affect any business."

"Yet, alongside Western weaknesses, there were also serious problems for the Soviet system, while the American position was less bleak, in both absolute and relative terms, than the successive electoral defeats of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in presidential elections in 1976 and 1980 might suggest. Moreover, the failure of the Communists to benefit substantially from the changes in Portugal, Spain and Greece was matched by Communist weakness elsewhere in Western Europe. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, French President from 1974 to 1981, and Helmut Schmidt, German Chancellor from 1974 to 1982, combined to act as a very strong stabilising force and to relaunch the EEC project. Within the Socialist International, the so-called Socialist Triangle of Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, and Bruno Kreisky, Austrian Chancellor, was dominant. In Italy, the Communist Party, the most powerful in Western Europe, adopted a ‘Euro-Communism’ that was opposed to Soviet direction. Enrico Berlinguer, who became Party Secretary in 1973, a key figure, was committed to the existing democratic system and pursued what was termed the ‘historic compromise’ with the established Christian Democrat-dominated political system. A pact was negotiated in 1976, with the Communist Party agreeing not to try to overthrow the Christian Democratic government. Euro-Communism was a term coined in 1975 by Western European Communist leaders keen to demonstrate their democratic credentials. More generally in Western Europe, the declining position of heavy industries was a challenge to the trade unions that were central to left-wing political parties, and notably to the Communists."

"They defend rapists. Mamata di says ‘sometimes boys become naughty.’ Mulayam ji says ‘sometimes boys make mistakes’."

"I was born in a Muslim family and Muslim women suffer under Islam."

"Do you really think a God who created the universe, billions of galaxies, stars, billions of planets- would promise to reward some little things in a pale blue dot (i.e Earth) for repeatedly saying that he is the greatest and kindest and for fasting? Such a great creator can't be so narcissist!"

"Religion is against women's rights and women's freedom. In all societies women are oppressed by all religions."

"The Islam religion and their scriptures are out of place and out of time. It still follows the 7th century laws and is hopeless. The need of the hour is not reformation but revolution."

"Every ban and censorship hurt. But banishment hurts the most. Banishment took away the ground from beneath my feet. What I need now most is a firm footing to stand up somewhere to fight for the freedom of expression. I was banished from both East and West Bengal."

"Many of my books are banned in Bangladesh. My book was banned in West Bengal too. Its government not only banned my book, it forced me to leave the state too. The new government ban­ned the release of my book Nir­basan in 2012 and a few months ago forced a TV channel called Akash Ath to stop telecast of a mega serial I wrote. The serial was about women’s struggle and how three sisters living in Calcutta fight aga­inst patriarchal oppression to live their lives with dignity and honour. She (Mamata Banerjee) ban­ned me to app­ease some misogynist mullahs."

"Politicians are all on the same platform when it comes down to me. I think it’s because they think that if they can satisfy the Muslim fundamentalists they will get votes. I believe I am a victim of votebank politics. This also shows that how weak the democracy is and politicians ask votes by banning a writer ... Even though I am not staying there, she (Banerjee) has not allowed my book ‘Nirbasan’ to be published. Also, she has stopped the broadcast of a TV serial scripted by me after Muslim fundamentalists objected to it. She is not allowing me to enter the state… This is a dangerous opposition ... I wrote to Mamata Banerjee. But there was no response to that… No I am not going to write to her again. I do not think she will consider my request. I feel very hopeless because I expected something positive. I think when it comes down to me, she has similar vision like that of the Left leaders.... I do not consider India as a foreign country. The history of this country is my history. It’s the country of my forefathers. I love this country and in Kolkata, I feel at home because I can relate that place to my homeland. ... I have sacrificed my freedom and have been sacrificing for a big cause… All these (problems) are because of my writings. I could have stopped writing against fundamentalists and possibly the bans would have been removed and I had got back my freedom and allowed to enter my motherland again. But I will never do that. ... I have spoken of humanism and equal rights for women and secularism stating that religion and nation should be treated separately. One should not get confused with nation and religion. Rules should be made based on equality, and not on religion. ... I know that only by writing I will not be able to change an entire society. The laws need to be changed. Equal rights cannot be established in a short time, it requires a long time and huge efforts ... I have got many awards but the best is when people come forward and tell me that my writings have help them change their vision,... I do not think I would have been treated in the same manner if I was born there (Europe). I am a writer, not an activist... I write with a pen and if you have any problem why do not you pick up a pen to protest.... The surprising thing in this part of the world is that they have picked up arms against me because I have expressed my views. I have never enforced my thoughts on anybody ever, then why they are trying to kill me. I am not a supporter of violence."

"“The producer and director were developing my story to a mega series. They had shot around 100 episodes after which the ban was imposed. The Muslim fanatics in Bengal, supported by the ruling Trinamool Congress played havoc when the serial was to be aired. The chief minister was instrumental in imposing the ban. It is interesting to see that the same person (Mamata Bangerjee) is now advocating for freedom of expression and calling it super emergency,” “This is sheer double standard..... If some people do not like a representation of art, there are other ways to counter it. I never support violent attack on artistic freedom. I also do not support the trend of issuing fatwa. But, there are politicians, who support or protest on the basis of religion. Why are rules being tweaked for one particular community in Bengal? Why did Mamata Banerjee’s government never allow me to work there, allow my books to be published? Freedom of expression, the most important character of a democracy, is always under attack for vested political interest. Nobody criticises things neutrally,”"

"I have told the story of a progressive, educated, Hindu family of this country in Lajja. The family falls victim to communal violence, where a rationalist and atheist young man gradually transforms into a staunch Hindu, becomes a fundamentalist and gets destroyed in the process. The state destroys him, the government destroys him and gradually mushrooming religious fanaticism destroys him. He is defeated. Many young men in this country are transforming from human beings to Hindus. They are being repeatedly victimized by the state, in educational institutions, workplaces, business and trade, all because of religious discrimination. They are being labelled second-class citizens. Why should I not speak the truth? The truth will always be valued. The ones who make a truth controversial, the fault lies with them and not with the truth. And the ones who blame the truth support the actions of the miscreants. The Hindus getting into trouble here is a bad excuse. Those who like to stay silent for the sake of convenience are responsible for eroding human strength and courage. They are cowards and exploiters. They are the biggest threats to all minority communities. They believe if you point out a wrong it will lead to trouble. The same argument works for the Muslims there."

"Lajja is a humanist appeal so that unpleasant things don’t happen any more. So that people can manage to coexist in mutual respect and to help religion truly embrace humanity."

"[Women in Islamic countries] are exposed to male domination as a rule rather than as an exception... If anyone protests... as I have done, you are sure to be branded as a witch... What I demand is freedom for women from male domination and a uniform code... It that can be construed as blasphemy, I cannot help it."

"Writer-activist Taslima Nasreen reminded the world with her article ‘A sign of hope — Bengali Muslims are finally protesting Mamata’s appeasement politics’ in the Print , on 29 June 2009, that even during the rule of the Left, minority appeasement was a given: ‘Imam Barkati of the Tipu Sultan mosque had issued a fatwa against me in broad daylight at a public meeting in Dharamtala (on 10 June 2006), in the heart of the city of Kolkata. He had put a price on my head – for anyone who would murder me. There had been many police officers at that meeting that day, but let alone arresting the imam, no one even questioned why he did something that was ostensibly against the laws of the country. Rather, I remember the police providing him with security and then CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and his ministers showering him with favours.’"

"Facebook banned me.I'm not allowed to post/comment for 7days. My posts,fb claimed, didn't follow their community standard.Actually fb banned me because of jihadis report. My posts don't follow Jihadis' community standard.When did fb & jihadis community standards become the same?"

"Facebook has banned me for writing Islamists destroyed Bangladeshi Hindu houses & temples believing that Hindus placed Quran on Hanuman's thigh."

"It is disgraceful that the Hindus in my country were hunted by the Muslims after the destruction of the Babri Masjid. All of us who love Bangladesh should feel ashamed that such a terrible thing ‘could happen in our beautiful country. The riots that took place in 1992 in Bangladesh are the responsibility of us all, and we are all to blame."

"Lajja was published in February 1993 in Bangladesh and sold over 60,000 copies before it was banned by the government five months later—their excuse was that it was disturbing the communal peace. In September that year a fatwa was issued against me by a fundamentalist organization and a reward was offered for my death, There have been marches on the streets of Dhaka by communalists clamouring for my life. But none of these things have shaken my determination to continue the battle against religious persecution, genocide and communalism."

"‘Riots break out in all countries. Aren’t there riots in India? Aren’t people dying there? Have you kept track of the number of people who've died?” “If it were riots I'd understand, Baba. These aren’t riots. It is simply a case of Muslims killing Hindus.’"

"A mute question thumped inside Suranjan’s heart. It was almost dawn and through the cracks in the window, sunlight streamed in. Sudhamoy said, ‘Come, let us go away.’ Suranjan could not conceal his surprise. ‘Where will we go, Baba?’ he asked. Sudhamoy said, ‘India.’ And his voice cracked as the shame swept over him. But he had said it, he had forced it out, he had compelled himself to say that they would go; and he had realized that that was the way it would have to be because the strong mountain that he had built within himself was crumbling day by day."

"With its extreme dependence on foreign aid, Bangladesh is understandably concerned about not offending Western sensibilities too much., Its government did not insist on implementing the prison sentence pronounced by a court against feminist author Taslima Nasrin for her 1994 book Shame, much less the death sentence pronounced by individual Muftis. Instead it preferred to send her into exile and be rid of the whole controversy. Her latest book, Wild Wind, is the object of yet another ban by the Islamist-leaning government of Khaleda Zia, the reason given being that it “destroys the socio-political amity of the country” and “contains anti-Islamic statements.”"

"In the reviews of Taslima Nasreen's book Lajja, practically all commentators have ignored her description of the atrocities on Hindus. Many of them falsely attributed the death sentence pronounced against her by a Mufti to her feminism, when in fact it was her drawing attention to the plight of the infidel Hindus which earned her the deadly wrath of the Islamic fanatics. These commentators demonstrated on a world-wide sclae the determined denial to the Hindus of even their martyrs."

"We have praised Taslima for speaking for Muslim women who do not have many spokesmen in the Muslim world. But her real glory is that she has also spoken for the persecuted Hindus in her country - for whom no one speaks, not even the Hindus."

"A news item from Dhaka says that "A radical Muslim priest has offered love and marriage to Bangladesh's most controversial feminist writer, Taslima Nasreen, in order to bring her to the faith". "She will be my third wife," said Mr. Rahim Baksh, an Islamic cleric in Cox's Bazar town in southeastern Bangladesh."

"Taslima Nasreen is known as a heretic in orthodox Islamic circles. She has been a vocal advocate of human rights, especially the rights of the women in Islam. However, she has paid dearly for speaking out the truth. There are still many fatwas against her calling for her killing. She is living a life of self-exile outside her native country of Bangladesh since 1994."

"Now then, I hasten to repeat that these practices [S&M] are certainly not usual or universal among us, but rather are variants practiced by a minority that is not representative of all gay people, although they do make up an identifiable sector that I don't want to leave out (as do many politically correct gay people, who like to give the impression that gay men only sodomize each other on Versace cushions by candlelights to Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach's Suites for Cello.)"

"This pioneer of sexology [Krafft-Ebing] even came to question whether homosexuality might be innate (and people began to forgive us for living, as if it would matter to anyone if being an Atlético de Madrid fan was innate or not.)"

"I suppose not many people dress up with insults to go out. We, the homosexuals, have no other choice. Insults are for us almost an epistemological variable: we have learned to know our fellow beings -for, as much as it surprises us, they are our fellow beings- through their insults, and they, on the other hand, have learned to know us in spite of the exhausting job -a hard duty impossed by society- of insulting us."

"There are two moments in the life of any fag that you can never forget: your first kiss with another man and your first argument with a heterosexual friend that doesn't get the difference between being a homosexual and wanting to be a woman. On first sight I can't calibrate which will be repeated more times during our sexually emancipated lifetime. Lucky enough, I can tell which we all prefer to be repeated: the argument with the heterosexual friend... if it ends in a long , wet, passionate kiss."

"Inside any vigorexic queen, any muscle queen, any macho queen, any aloof queen, any of us, ultra-masculine gays, there's a flaming faggot fighting to come out. When we finally let her blossom, she'll be so busy chatting with the other internalized flaming faggots, that we'll finally be able to sexually enjoy the boring sexual macho that we all also carry inside us. Versatility, darlings, that's the recipe for success in bed (well, having a bed can also help)."

"Bourgays are the doom of queer revolution."

"I hate being referred to as a comedian. Being a homosexual and a comedian is like being a pig and P.R. of the slaughterhouse: absurd. I'd rather consider myself a satirist. According to Thesaurus: a humorist who uses ridicule and irony and sarcasm... but i also puke a lot in the face of frustration; so then again i must be a supermodel."

"I seem to have always one little window looking but into life."

"Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned."

"Sweet empty sky of June without a stain, Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain, That each dark copse and hollow overfills:"

"The children of the prophets of the Lord, Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate. Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state, The West refused them, and the East abhorred. No anchorage the known world could afford."

"Then Nature shaped a poet's heart — a lyre From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows Drew trembling music."

"No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define — what is a bird."

"No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead."

"Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains, — The exiles by the streams of Babylon."

"The funeral and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall."

"A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber of five centuries."

"Lo — a black line of birds in wavering thread Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!"

"Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles."

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

"The Jewish problem is as old as history and assumes in each age a new form. All the magnanimity, patience, charity, and humanity, which the Jews have manifested in return for centuries of persecution, have been thus far inadequate to eradicate the profound antipathy engendered by fanaticism and ready to break out in one or another shape at any moment of popular excitement."

"Another founding mother was the American Emma Lazarus, who was affected as much by her country's civil war as by the Russian pogroms in the late nineteenth century...Lazarus perceived herself as a Sephardic Jew, but she didn't want to isolate herself from the contemporary American literary community. When her friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson failed to include her poems in his anthology Parnassus (1874), which included works by prominent and promising national poets, Lazarus wrote him an angry letter. "I cannot resist the impulse of expressing to you my extreme disappointment at finding you have so far modified the enthusiastic estimate you held of my literary labors as to refuse me a place in the large & miscellaneous collection of poems you have just edited," she wrote. And so, she wondered why "I find myself treated with absolute contempt in the very quarter where I had been encouraged to build my fondest hopes." Her letter to Emerson might be read in at least two ways: as a woman's angry response to the "arbitrary" exclusion by a prominent male critic and essayist from "a fair share of immortality"; and as the response by a Jew, as a member of an ethnic and religious minority, who felt that she had been discriminated against. It is interesting, therefore, to note that Lazarus sought to introduce American readers to figures such as Bar Kokhba, the Jewish soldier who led the final revolt against the Romans in Palestine in 132-35 CE, and to Rashi, the twelfth-century biblical and talmudic commentator from Troyes, France. She also wrote a poem about the Touro Synagogue, the famous Sephardic house of worship that was established in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1763. In addition to translating into English the poetry of the popular German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, Lazarus also translated poems by Ibn Gabirol, Halevi, and Ibn Ezra, thus building a bridge between Sephardic life in the United States and the medieval Hebrew past."

"I believe all the devils in hell are against us but we will triumph eventually because we have the Devil on our side."

"Any crime committed against the Ngo family cannot be hidden under the label of suicide. I affirm that suicide has always been considered incompatible with our religion."

"Let them burn and we shall clap our hands."

"If one has no courage to denounce, if one bows to madness and stupidity, how can one ever hope to cope with the other wrongs of humanity exploited in the same fashion by Communists?"

"I may shock some by saying 'I would beat such provocateurs ten times more if they wore monks robes,' and 'I would clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show, for one can not be responsible for the madness of others."

"Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need any enemies."

"Crouching down inside a deep ravine, Those angry cries pass quickly by, he can't be seen. So many ways spent hiding in so many undone plans; Forgetting what it's like to fight when no one understands."

"You're always waiting on the tide, It's time you decide. I've walked down long roads that seem to have no end at all. You never wanted time to end, To let my life offend."

"In the desert of my dreams I saw you there; And I'm walking towards the water steaming body cold and bare. But your words cut loose the fire and you left my soul to bleed. And the pain that's in your truth's deceiving me, has got me scared. Oh why?"

"Open the doors that lead on in to Eden Don't want no cheap disguise. I follow the signs marked back to the beginning, No more compromise."

"I knew you wanted to tell me; In your voice there was something wrong. But if you would turn your face away from me, You cannot tell me you're so strong. Just let me ask of you one small thing. As we have shared so many tears, With fervor our dreams we planned a whole life long Now are scattered on the wind..."

"Don't tell me I haven't been good to you. Don't tell me I have never been there for you. Don't tell me why Nothing is good enough."

"I will remember you; Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by; Weep not for the memories."

"I'm so tired but I can't sleep, Standin' on the edge of something much too deep. It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word; We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard."

"I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose, Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose. Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night; You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light."

"You come out at night; That's when the energy comes. And the dark side's light, And the vampires roam. You strut your rasta wear And your suicide poem And a cross from a faith That died before Jesus came. You're building a mystery."

"What ravages of spirit conjured This temptuous rage; Created you a monster, Broken by the rule of love."

"Every moment marked With apparitions of your soul. I'm ever swiftly moving Trying to escape this desire."

"In the arms of the angel, Fly away from here. From this dark cold hotel room, And the endlessness you feel. You are pulled from the wreckage Of your silent reverie. You're in the arms of the angel; May you find some comfort here."

"Hearts are worn in these dark ages; You're not alone in this story's pages. Night has fallen amongst the living and the dying, And I try to hold it in, yeah I try to hold it in."

"Love has made me a fool; It set me on fire and watched as I floundered, Unable to speak Except to cry out and wait for your answer. But you come around in your time, Speaking of fabulous places. Create an oasis; Dries up as soon as you're gone. You leave me here burning In this desert without you."

"I will be the answer At the end of the line. I will be there for you, Why take the time? In the burning of uncertainty, I will be your solid ground. I will hold the balance If you can't look down."

"So what are we saying? Our Eden's a failure. A made-up story to fit the picture-perfect world. The one with "I do"s and "I love you." And "we are made for each other." Is forever over now?"

"Is it right that your mother, your sister... should be classed with criminals and lunatics... ? Is it right that while the gambler, the drunkard, and even the wife-beater has a vote, earnest, educated and refined women are denied it?... Is it right... that a mother... should be thought unworthy of a vote that is freely given to the blasphemer, the liar, the seducer,and the profligate?"

"The news is being flashed far and wide, and before our earth has revolved on her axis every civilized community within the reach of the electric wires will have received the tidings that civic freedom has been granted to the women of New Zealand. … It does not seem a great thing to be thankful for, that the gentlemen who confirm the laws which render women liable to taxation and penal servitude have declared us to be "persons"… We are glad and proud to think that even in so conservative a body as the Legislative Council there is a majority of men who are guided by the principles of reason and justice, who desire to see their womenkind treated as reasonable beings, and who have triumphed over prejudice, narrow-mindedness and selfishness."

"In Wellington is every year assembled a National Council of men, which holds a session lasting several months... From that Council women are excluded. … Under these circumstances a National Council which largely represents the thinking and working women of the colony (and which, it may be remarked, costs the country nothing) becomes a necessity. I trust the day is not far distant … when the necessity for men's councils and women's councils, as such, will be swept away."

"All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome."

"We are tired of having a 'sphere' doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is 'unwomanly'. We want to be natural just for a change … we must be ourselves at all risks."

"Jaha, jag har bråttom. Öpp öpp! Håll er borta."

"För mig är det oerhört slående vad politisk stabilitet betyder för ekonomisk utveckling när man ser det kinesiska exemplet."

"Den som är satt i skuld är inte fri."

"Kanske jag blir lite för duktig ibland... Kanske är jag för påläst och kan ibland uppfattas som lite mästrande."

"Jag leder inte världens mest briljanta regering. Statsråden tillhör inte den yppersta intellektuella eliten och särskilt vackra är vi inte heller."

"Jag är feminist, men vill inte driva de här frågorna så hårt att jag skapar motsättningar i samhället."

"Fri rörlighet för arbetskraft vill vi ha, men inte social turism. Där får vi inte vara naiva."

"Bush är underskattad i Europa och han är en skicklig politiker, även om vi inte tycker om hans politik."

"Jag har trots allt läst på kemisk–teknisk linje på gymnasiet, så jag förstår vad det handlar om."

"It is said that heaven does not create one man above or below another man. Any existing distinction between the wise and the stupid, between the rich and the poor, comes down to a matter of education."

"Each individual man and each individual country, according to the principles of natural reason, is free from bondage. Consequently, if there is some threat that might infringe upon a country’s freedom, then that country should not hesitate even to take up arms against all the countries of the world."

"In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane... It refers to the attainment of both material well-being and the elevation of the human spirit, [but] since what produces man’s well-being and refinement is knowledge and virtue, civilization ultimately means the progress of man’s knowledge and virtue."

"Moreover, the argument for national polity, for Christianity, and for Confucianism... are also insufficient to bolster people’s hearts. What, then, will? I say there is one thing: namely, to establish our goal and advance toward civilization... The way in which to preserve this independence cannot be sought anywhere except in civilization."

"Robbery and murder are the worst of human crimes; but in the West there are robbers and murderers. There are those who form cliques to vie for the reins of power and who, when deprived of that power, decry the injustice of it all. Even worse, international diplomacy is really based on the art of deception. Surveying the situation as a whole, all we can say is that there is a general prevalence of good over bad, but we can hardly call the situation perfect. When, several thousand years hence, the levels of knowledge and virtue of the peoples of the world will have made great progress (to the point of becoming utopian), the present condition of the nations of the West will surely seem a pitifully primitive stage. Seen in this light, civilization is an open-ended process. We cannot be satisfied with the present level of attainment of the West."

"Once the wind of Western civilization blows to the East, every blade of grass and every tree in the East follow what the Western wind brings... We do not have time to wait for the en­lightenment of our neighbors so that we can work together toward the development of Asia. It is better for us to leave the ranks of Asian na­tions and cast our lot with civilized nations of the West... We should deal with them exactly as the Westerners do."

"Therefore, to teach them [women] at least an outline of economics and law is the first requirement after giving them a general education. Figuratively speaking, it will be like providing the women of civilized society with a pocket dagger for self-protection."

"Whatever happens in the country, whatever warfare harasses our land, we will never relinquish our hold on Western learning. As long as this school of ours stands, Japan remains a civilized nation of the world."

"I think I have made it clear that I never intended to make enemies. But in an age when anti-foreign sentiment was running high, it was unavoidable that in my position as an advocate of open intercourse and free adoption of Western culture, I should make some adversaries."

"To recount the history of assassination since the beginning of our foreign intercourse — in the beginning, people simply hated the foreigners because all foreigners were "impure" men who should not be permitted to tread the sacred soil of Japan... As I have said before, I felt my life in greatest danger during the twelve or thirteen years around the period of the [Meiji] Restoration."

"The world is large."

"Sometimes I wonder if MacKinnon has simply been driven mad by all the sick things people do to one another. I, too, recoil in pain and incomprehension whenever I hear about the latest psychopath who has shot his mother, machine-gunned his coworkers, raped his daughter, or slashed a prostitute. I notice that such men are more likely to have read the Bible than pornography, but I do not hold either script responsible for their actions."

"Sexual speech, not MacKinnon's speech, is the most repressed and disdained kind of expression in our world, and MacKinnon is no rebel or radical to attack it."

""Natural" is a very dangerous word to use about sexuality ... Our society's notions of normality are completely fake and meta-trendy, since they rely on the changing standards of superstition, religion, Christianity and gender bias to define themselves. Americans, in particular, exhibit very childish reactions to sexual practices that are new to them, much like little kids who are offered a vegetable they haven't seen before: "That's disgusting!" "But darling, you haven't even tried it!" "I don't care, I hate it, I hate it!"

"Take the National Organization for Women — please! They've embarrassed me enough over the years, and now I'm going to give them a taste of their own medicine. They were always so holier-than-thou, systematically getting rid of everyone who wasn't just like them: white, upper-middle class, straight (or closeted), sex-phobic Democratic party apologists. As you can imagine, that's not a huge group anymore — but they still manage to hang onto a name that insists that they represent half the population! Well, it's all over, sweethearts. I'm taking away your library card, I'm stripping badges and I'm not returning phone calls. Calling NOW feminists is like calling the People's Republic of China communist: Marx and Emma Goldman are both rolling in their graves."

"Andrea presented herself as a street fighter intellectual, a bohemian freedom fighter, and someone who wanted to get to the bottom of things. That quote about Malcolm X is apt. Malcolm pointed out “The problem is WHITE PEOPLE.” Dworkin said, “The problem is MEN.” And for all the holes that can be poked in that cloth, there is something about that grain that is absolutely true, when you are the short end of the bolt."

"I’m sorry Andrea Dworkin started a sexual revolution that she ended up repudiating. She never got to see people like me, Carol, and the rest of us little protégées who took her inspiration and flew to a new dimension. She got stuck, and then she got sick, and when you’re famous for one thing, no one wants to see you change unless you reject it all, like a pathetic sinner seeking redemption. She was too stubborn and too old-fashioned for that. Andrea Dworkin never would have admitted that she was a SuperStar. She was the animator of the ultimate porno horror loop, where the Final Girl never gets a chance to slay the monster, she only dies, dies, dies, with the cries of the angry mourners to remember her."

"At that time, there was general agreement among everyone involved in women’s liberation that women should have a defined sexual self-interest."

"Keeping people neurotic and depressed and ignorant and self-doubting is oppressive."

"People who love science fiction really do love sex."

"When AIDS was at its most brutal, frightening, my-God-what-are-we-going-to-do era, that was when vampire stories and stories about blood and trust swept the literary world."

"Familiarity with your lover is what initially makes sex really good."

"Human beings like variety, and they also like partnership... these are scientific values we can point to."

"I had no idea that mothering my own child would be so healing to my own sadness from my childhood."

"I think women need to realize that they would be much better moms if they were well-rested, sexually satisfied, and had some interests going outside their childrearing."

"I'm not going to throw my imagination away. I refuse to lie down to expectation. If I can just hold out till I'm thirty, I'll be incredible."

"Although Freud said happiness is composed of love and work, reality often forces us to choose love or work."

"America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, often afraid of its children, and frequently punitive toward its children."

"If family violence teaches children that might makes right at home, how will we hope to cure the futile impulse to solve worldly conflicts with force?"

"Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children."

"The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy."

"Jewish women in second-wave feminism helped to provide the theoretical underpinnings and models for radical action that were seized on and imitated throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led the way into new arenas of cultural and political understanding in academe, politics, and grassroots organizing. Even a partial honor roll of Jewish women's liberation pioneers must include such figures as Shulamith Firestone, Ellen Willis, Robin Morgan, Alix Kates Shulman, Naomi Weisstein, Heather Booth, Susan Brownmiller, Marilyn Webb, Meredith Tax, Andrea Dworkin, Linda Gordon, Ellen DuBois, Ann Snitow, Marge Piercy, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Vivian Gornick. Despite historians' acknowledgment of the salience of Jewish women in earlier social movements, their prominence within radical feminism failed to attract much attention."

"Science fiction encourages us to explore... all the futures, good and bad, that the human mind can envision."

"The horror genre—which I define as “perfectly horrible things happen to perfectly nice people for no reason at all.”"

"A story with no moral isn't worth writing; a story with no plot isn't worth reading. And if people get your point before they get your story, you are to hire a soapbox instead."

"Often, in writing, granting the basic skill of writing a literate English sentence—which can no longer be taken for granted even in college graduates—all it takes is determination."

"You have the Barbarian viewpoint, I see. Radio, for instance. We use it for emergency needs. The Barbarians used to listen to keep from doing things—I know, they even had radio with pictures, and used to sit and listen and look at other people doing things instead of doing them themselves."

"A trail without beginning has no end."

"If you can’t be inconspicuous, be so damned conspicuous that nobody can miss you. And that in itself is a fair concealment. How many people can accurately describe a street riot?"

"Our world is rotten, but I’ve no confidence that the new world will be better!"

"“From space there was no sign of life.” Moray, the heavy swarthy man who was the official representative of Earth Expeditionary, and in charge of the Colonists, said quietly, “Don’t you mean no signs of a technological civilization, officer? Remember, until a scant four centuries ago, a starship approaching Earth could not have seen any signs of intelligent life there, either.”"

"He said harshly, “You are suggesting that we abandon the effort—and relapse into barbarism?”… “I hope not, captain. It is man’s mind that makes him a barbarian, not his technology. We may have to do without top-level technology, at least for a few generations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t establish a good world here for ourselves and our children, a civilized world. There have been civilizations which have existed for centuries almost without technology. The illusion that man’s culture is only the history of his techno structures is propaganda from the engineers, sir. It has no basis in sociology—or in philosophy.”"

"Anyone who intrigues for power, deserves to get it!"

"Spoiled brat, he thought, she’s had everything her own way all her life, and now at the first hint she might have to give way to some consideration other than her own convenience, she starts making a fuss! Damn her!"

"The trouble is, we’ve all gotten out of the habit of connecting pregnancy and sex, we all have a civilized attitude about it now."

"Every human being needs to believe in the goodness of some power that created him, no matter what he calls it, and some religious or ethical structure. But I don’t think we need sacraments or priesthoods from a world that’s only a memory, and won’t even be that to our children and our children’s children. Ethics, yes. Art, yes. Music, crafts, knowledge, humanity—yes. But not rituals which will quickly dwindle down into superstitions. And certainly not a social code or a set of purely arbitrary behavioral attitudes which have nothing to do with the society we are in now."

"There has to be something wrong with a system that means you can take guilt on and off like an overcoat."

"Hold on to what you know, Camilla. That’s all you can do; it’s known as intellectual integrity. If a thing is impossible, it’s impossible."

"“Good Lord, what’s that unholy racket!” “I forgot you weren’t a Scot, darling, don’t you like the bagpipes?”"

"“To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom,” Viviane said. “Then, when you begin to learn, you will not have to forget all the things you think you know.”"

"It was a long season of mourning and there were times when I wondered if I should mourn all my life and never again be free of it; but at last I could remember without weeping, and recall the days of love without unending sorrow welling up like tears from the very depths of my being. There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever; even in dreams, I never saw again his face, and though I longed for it, I came at last to see that it was just as well, lest I live all the rest of my life in dreams…but at last there came a day when I could look back and know that the time for mourning was ended. (Morgaine)"

"Lancelet said, “And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference…”"

"My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know. She thought she had never loved him so much as at this moment, when she heard the convent door close, hard and final, and felt the wall shutting her in. (Gwenhwyfar)."

""Only men laugh, only men dance, only men weep" - Saying on Darkover, quoted by Lew Alton"

"I can remember depending on people like Eric Frank Russell and J. T. Macintosh to give me a good, comfortable read, to tell me a story. Whether they told me anything I didn't know or hadn't thought about or read someplace else was another matter. Later I read all of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books."

"I make no apologies for being egotistical."

"We (999 out of every 1000) can see nought in sunsets save as signs and tokens whether we may expect rain on the morrow or the contrary, so we will leave such vain and foolish imagining to those poets and painters- poor fools!"

"Hope, sweet, cruel, delusive Hope, whispered in my ear that life was long with much by and by, and in that by and by my dream-life would be real. So on I went with that gleaming lake in the distance beckoning me to come and sail on its silver waters, and Inexperience, conceited, blind Inexperience, failing to show the impassable pit between it and me."

"Summer is fiendish, and life is a curse, I said in my heart. What a great dull hard rock the world was! On it were a few barren narrow ledges, and on these, by exerting ourselves so that the force wears off our finger-nails, it allows us to hang for a year or two, and then hurls us off into outer darkness and oblivion, perhaps to endure worse torture than this."

"Provided a woman is beautiful allowance will be made for all her shortcomings. She can be unchaste, vapid, untruthful, flippant, heartless, and even clever; so long as she is fair to see men will stand by her, and as men, in this world, are "the dog on top", they are the power to truckle to. A plain woman will have nothing forgiven her. Her fate is such that the parents of uncomely female infants should be compelled to put them to death at their birth."

"Ah, the bitter, hopeless heart-hunger of godlessness none but an atheist can understand! Nothing to live for in life--no hope beyond the grave."

"But in all the wide world there was not a soul to hold out a hand to me, and I said bitterly, "There is no good in the world." In softer moods I said, "Ah, the tangle of it! Those who have the heart to help have not the power, and those who have the power have not the heart.""

"Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love! What a warm-hearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and beauty, when fortune smiles! When fortune smiles!"

"It appears that we all labour under delusions."

"If the souls of lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few to which nought but the refined and exquisite sadness of a violin could do justice. Many might be likened unto common pianos, jangling and out of tune, and some to the feeble piping of a penny whistle, and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin-pot."

"Christmas, only distinguished from the fifty-two slow Sundays of the year by plum-pudding, roast turkey, and a few bottles of home-made beer..."

"After all, what is there in vain ambition? King or slave, we all must die, and when death knocks at our door, will it matter whether our life has been great or small, fast or slow, so long as it has been true--true with the truth that will bring rest to the soul?"

"To weary hearts throbbing slowly in hopeless breasts the sweetest thing is rest."

"I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, a part of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, as man was meant to do. I rejoice I was not born a parasite, one of the blood-suckers who loll on velvet and satin, crushed from the proceeds of human sweat and blood and souls."

"I love you, I love you. Bravely you jog along with the rope of class distinction drawing closer, closer, tighter, tighter around you: a few more generations and you will be as enslaved as were ever the moujiks of Russia. I see it and know it, but I cannot help you. My ineffective life will be trod out in the same round of toil- I am only one of yourselves, I am only an unnecessary, little, bush commoner, I am only a- woman!"

"Car en mon cuer porte couvertement Le dueil qui soit qui plus me puet desplaire, Et si me fault, pour les gens faire taire, Rire en plorant et très amerement De triste cuer chanter joyeusement."

"Seulete suy et seulete vueil estre, Seulete m'a mon doulz ami laissiée, Seulete suy, sanz compaignon ne maistre, Seulette suy, dolente et courrouciée."

"Cellui ou celle en qui plus a vertus est le plus hault, ne la haulteur ou abbaisement des gens ne gist mie es corps selon le sexe mais en la perfeccion des meurs et des vertus."

"Si la coustume estoit de mettre les petites filles a l'escole, et que communement on les fist apprendre les sciences comme on fait aux filz, qu'elles apprendroient aussi parfaitement et entenderoient les subtilités de toutes les arz et sciences comme ils font."

"Quantes femmes est il qui usent leur vie au lien de mariage par la durte de leurs maris en plus grant penitence que se elles feussent esclaves entre les sarazins."

"My mother, who disliked me from the bottom of her heart, deliberately did everything, it seemed, that would strengthen and intensify my unbounded passion for freedom and a military life. She wouldn't let me walk in the garden. She wouldn't let me be away from her for even half an hour: I had to sit in her bedroom and make lace. She herself taught me to sew, to knit, and seeing that I had neither the desire nor the ability for this sort of work, that in my hands everything tore or broke, she became angry, lost control of herself, and beat me very painfully on the hands."

"Girls can do anything. We do do anything and we expect to be treated as equals."

"If ordinary means I have suddenly got to produce a household of kids and iron Peter's shirts, I'm sorry, I'm not interested."

"I believe I'm the best person for the job. Obviously I'm a woman, but I've never sought election on the basis of being a woman. I've always sought election as the best person for the job."

"People weren’t used to the prospect of a woman becoming prime minister so there were attacks about my appearance, my voice and even my clothing. But I found that there was little point dwelling on such criticism. I just had to look straight ahead and get on with the task at hand and, by and large, that strategy worked for me. I think women politicians today are more confident in being able to call out such behaviour than I was at a time when it was very rare to have many women in parliament."

"The carrot is a happy and harmonious society, the only stick is shame."

"We have a lot of issues to sort through, most of them because of the pandemic. 11 million girls have not returned to school since 2020 and that’s a problem we should solve. I believe in Women Deliver’s ability to build solidarity and find solutions while sticking to the themes,”"

"For me the most important thing has always been tennis, and that's what I want to get across the image I want to portray is a hard-working tennis player."

"I'll be supporting anyone but England."

"I can cry like Roger. It's just a shame I can't play like him."

"I'm getting closer..."

"I don't play in any tournaments to come second best."

"[H]e speaks up for others when it doesn’t benefit him a jot — female athletes, specifically. No other male athlete (or male sports writer) has defended female athletes as loudly and consistently as Murray, arguing for equal pay for female tennis players and more women's matches on Wimbledon's Centre Court. He repeatedly reminded male commentators of the Williams sisters' existence, such as when John Inverdale claimed in 2016 that Murray was the first person to win two Olympic gold medals for tennis — Murray pointed out that the Williams sisters had four each, albeit not for singles — and then again when an American reporter claimed in 2017 that [[w:Sam Querrey|[Samuel] Querrey]] was the first American to reach a grand slam final since 2009. "Male player," Murray interrupted, referring to Serena Williams's multiple wins in that time. When you're blinded by vanity and greed, you no longer see your own moral compass. Murray never had that problem."

"Women are the ones that bear the greatest burden. We are also the ones who nurture societies."

"Regardless of whom you pray to, during war our experiences as a community and as mothers are the same."

"If any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers."

"We are all responsible. We are all complicit. White T-shirts catch the light. What matters is what we then do with that light. (The peace activists wore white t-shirts during their protests.)"

"We have a saying: “A single straw of a broom can be broken easily, but the straws together are not easily broken.” So here are three things African women can do to support their sisters and daughters:"

":1. Join the support network even if your own community is not plagued with conflict or violence. Most women only take action ::when their own communities are threatened. This must stop if we are to tackle the ills that are plaguing our African ::society. We must ignite the spirit of “Ubuntu”—“I am what I am because of who we all are.”"

":2. Develop a solid and consistent leadership base. The leadership of most African women’s initiatives functions very well ::during times of crisis, but tends to disintegrate after a huge success is scored. Movement leaders, even myself, made our ::own plans for self-advancement. It is time that the leadership of African women’s initiatives plans for succession."

":3. Reach out to the un-converted. My final point comes from my 12-year-old daughter. For her, the feminist message is not ::filtering very well to potential victims, perpetrators, and government leaders. She believes—and I agree—that we speak ::loudest at women’s conferences and other spaces already filled with the converted. But we must speak to everyone, ::everywhere, about the struggles of African"

"All across Africa, even in the midst of the deepest and darkest civil war, women are still proving that we can hold communities together."

"How to describe the excitement of that first meeting...? There were women from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo – almost all the sixteen West African nations. In her quietly brilliant way, Thelma had handwritten an organizer's training manual with exercises that would draw women out, engage them, teach them about conflict and conflict resolution, and even help them understand why they should be involved in addressing these issues at all"

"We are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand, to secure the future of our children. Because we believe, as custodians of society, tomorrow our children will ask us, "Mama, what was your role during the crisis"

"A war of fourteen years doesn't just go away. In the moments we were calm enough to look around, we had to confront the magnitude of what had happened in Liberia. Two hundred and fifty thousand people were dead, a quarter of them children. One in three were displaced, with 350,000 living in internally displaced persons camps and the rest anywhere they could find shelter. One million people, mostly women and children, were at risk of malnutrition, diarrhea, measles and cholera because of contamination in the wells. More than 75 percent of the country's physical infrastructure, our roads, hospitals and schools, had been destroyed"

"A whole generation of young men had no idea who they were without a gun in their hands. Several generations of women were widowed, had been raped, seen their daughters and mothers raped, and their children kill and be killed. Neighbors had turned against neighbors; young people had lost hope, and old people, everything they had painstakingly earned. To a person, we were traumatized."

"The Liberian women peace movement demonstrated to the world that grassroots movements are essential to sustaining peace; that women in leadership positions are effective brokers for peace; and the importance of culturally relevant social justice movements. Liberia's experience is a good example to the world that women—especially African women—can be drivers of peace"

"It could be Jesus, it could be Mohammed, it could be Buddha, but there is no way that you can effect change in people's lives if there is not someone that you can rely on as the "divine intervenor" or the "divine one" that you can call on every day.... God is faithful, whoever you know him to me.... Take a step of faith and God will see to the rest."

"At graduate school, I could feel my mind expand, my comprehension deepen. I realized I now could put a formal name, "strategic peacebuilding," to what I'd done instinctively in Liberia.... Many of the other students at EMU had lived through conflict, and there was relief in being among them.... In Harrisonburg, a small old city in the Shenandoah Valley, far from Liberia and its sorrows and people who expected something from me, I didn't have to be strong. Every now and then – for instance, when I saw a mother with her children – I would burst into tears. No one at EMU thought that was strange. I met an old man who'd lost his entire family in the Rwandan genocide."

"Obviously I think I've been very lucky, to start off with such a good break, and to have a film that not only was a hit but where I didn't have to compromise … in terms of doing a mindless movie — it was also a movie, for me as an actor which was very fulfilling…"

"I wanted to kind of make sure that people know that I'm here to stay, because this is home, and I am born here — I'm not a foreigner in that sense."

"I think the chemistry we have is that we both think very dark when it comes to stories."

"It's all a part of this world where we're all kind of mixing a lot, and… in that way we're all a bit confused about who we are, where we belong, where's home, and … who is important to us…"

"Enter Chanda, the multilingual call girl who can seduce in Hindi, Tamil, English and French. With her bee-stung lips, unusual face and refreshing lack of acting guile, Kalki Koechlin imbues the part with a touching fragility."

"Dev.D is a tryst with milestone cinema, reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann's Shakespeare-shaken-and-stirred in Romeo and Juliet. Kashyap, however, gets even more adventurous and adds a progressive flourish to both the plot and the characters which are played to perfection by the three lead players. If Mahi and Kalki are riveting new finds, assured of a long innings in cinema, then Abhay Deol adds a whole new meaning to the term "Unconventional Hero"."

"The clown company played by Atul Kumar, Kalki Koechlin, Sujay Saple, Neil Bhoopalam, Namit Das and Puja Sarup are outstanding in their role[s]. This is just outstanding casting by the director and The Company Theatre."

"I see art-making, especially that which comes from the margins of the mainstream, as a site of resistance, a way of interrupting and intervening in those historical and cultural fields that continually exclude me, a sort of gathering of forces on the borders. For the dominant hegemonic stance that has worked to silence and subdue gender and ethnic difference has also silenced difference based on sexual preference."

"Attempts to juggle domestic responsibilities with artistic production have often resulted in smaller bodies of work, and often works smaller in scale, than those produced by male contemporaries. Yet art history continues to privilege prodigious output and monumental scale or conception over the selective and the intimate."

"The word "artist" means man unless qualified by the category "woman.""

"The bizarre but all too common transformation of the woman artist from a producer in her own right into a subject for representation forms a leitmotif in the history of art. Confounding subject and object, it undermines the speaking position of the individual woman artist by generalizing her. Denied her individuality, she is displaced from being a producer and becomes instead a sign for male creativity."

"It's just a penis, it's just a bit of flesh, just this one organ, people think makes you superior to another sex."

"Islam is the new black."

"Sarah Maple's exhibition It's A Girl at Aubin Gallery is brilliant."

"We are deeply concerned about the situation in Russia with regards to human rights. There are several examples of this situation, such as the new law requiring NGOs to register as “foreign agents”, the law banning homosexual “propaganda”, problems with the rule of law and arbitrary judicial processes, and court rulings against the opposition."

"There is an alarming increase of violence and harassment against gay people, something that is being legitimized by the regime as they brand homosexuality as something abnormal and dangerous to children."

"I do not take my mandate from the European people."

"Why are vegans made fun of while the inhumane factory farming process regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited for profit?"

"It’s such an honor to be here at the inaugural Time to THRIVE conference. But it’s a little weird, too. Here I am, in this room because of an organization whose work I deeply admire. And I’m surrounded by people who make it their life’s work to make other people’s lives better—profoundly better. Some of you teach young people—people like me. Some of you help young people heal and to find their voice. Some of you listen. Some of you take action. Some of you are young people yourselves…in which case, it’s even weirder for a person like me to be speaking to you."

"It’s weird because here I am, an actress, representing—at least in some sense—an industry that places crushing standards on all of us. Not just young people, but everyone. Standards of beauty. Of a good life. Of success. Standards that, I hate to admit, have affected me. You have ideas planted in your head, thoughts you never had before, that tell you how you have to act, how you have to dress and who you have to be. I have been trying to push back, to be authentic, to follow my heart, but it can be hard."

"But that’s why I’m here. In this room, all of you, all of us, can do so much more together than any one person can do alone. And I hope that thought bolsters you as much as it does me. I hope the workshops you’ll go to over the next few days give you strength. Because I can only imagine that there are days—when you’ve worked longer hours than your boss realizes or cares about, just to help a kid you know can make it. Days where you feel completely alone. Undermined. Or hopeless."

"I know there are people in this room who go to school every day and get treated like shit for no reason. Or you go home and you feel like you can’t tell your parents the whole truth about yourself. Beyond putting yourself in one box or another, you worry about the future. About college or work or even your physical safety. Trying to create that mental picture of your life—of what on earth is going to happen to you—can crush you a little bit every day. It is toxic and painful and deeply unfair."

"Sometimes it’s the little, insignificant stuff that can tear you down. I try not to read gossip as a rule, but the other day a website ran an article with a picture of me wearing sweatpants on the way to the gym. The writer asked, “Why does [this] petite beauty insist upon dressing like a massive man?” *pause* Because I like to be comfortable."

"There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we are all supposed to act, dress and speak. They serve no one. Anyone who defies these so-called 'norms' becomes worthy of comment and scrutiny. The LGBT community knows this all too well. Yet there is courage all around us. The football hero, Michael Sam. The actress, Laverne Cox. The musicians Tegan and Sara Quinn. The family that supports their daughter or son who has come out. And there is courage in this room. All of you."

"I’m inspired to be in this room because every single one of you is here for the same reason. You’re here because you’ve adopted as a core motivation the simple fact that this world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another. If we took just 5 minutes to recognize each other’s beauty, instead of attacking each other for our differences. That’s not hard. It’s really an easier and better way to live. And ultimately, it saves lives."

"Then again, it’s not easy at all. It can be the hardest thing, because loving other people starts with loving ourselves and accepting ourselves. I know many of you have struggled with this. I draw upon your strength and your support, and have, in ways you will never know. I’m here today because I am gay. And because… maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility. I also do it selfishly, because I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my relationships suffered. And I’m standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of all that pain."

"I am young, yes, but what I have learned is that love, the beauty of it, the joy of it and yes, even the pain of it, is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being. And we deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise."

"There are too many kids out there suffering from bullying, rejection, or simply being mistreated because of who they are. Too many dropouts. Too much abuse. Too many homeless. Too many suicides. You can change that and you are changing it. But you never needed me to tell you that. That’s why this was a little bit weird. The only thing I can really say is what I’ve been building up to for the past five minutes. Thank you. Thank for inspiring me. Thank you for giving me hope, and please keep changing the world for people like me. Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you."

"I just feel so fortunate, you know? … I feel so happy. I feel so different from how I felt when I was closeted, and to have experiences where I meet people who have been touched in some way by just getting to be who I am is such an incredible experience ... I'm in a very fortunate place in my life. I'm a very privileged person to get to talk about issues, particularly those that affect people much, much more vulnerable to me … I feel really grateful to be in a position where potentially I can do little things or whatever I possibly can to help anyone any way I can."

"I don’t know [Jussie] personally, I send all of my love — connect the dots, this is what happens"

"I was pressured — forced, in many cases — to always wear dresses and heels for events and photo shoots As if lesbians don’t wear dresses and heels. But I will never let anyone put me in anything I feel uncomfortable in ever again."

"I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot. I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer."

"We know who we are. People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place."

"Ellen had so recently come out, and this is going to sound silly, and hopefully not hurtful, but I don’t think I was aware of how painful it is to be closeted … I have the advantage of being a person who’s never had to hide my sexuality, so I asked her a lot of questions — frank questions — about what that feels like. She said she felt discomfort simply wearing all these dresses, and it was all very eye-opening for me. … It definitely made me more sensitive to the nuances of our movie."

"Elliot Page has given us fantastic characters on-screen, and has been an outspoken advocate for all LGBTQ people He will now be an inspiration to countless trans and non-binary people."

"We’ve been fighting for the right to sing, to think, to criticise. To be musicians and artists, ready to do everything to change our country, no matter the risks. We go on with our musical fight in Russia and our country is dominated by evil man. These men think its illegal to call yourself a feminist and to sing Punk music"

"This man thinks it’s illegal to stand up for the right of the gay and lesbian community."

"This man think that you can’t criticise your government."

"This man thinks that if you sing and dance in an inappropriate way you get two years in prison!"

"Thank you Madonna! Thank you Red Hot Chili Peppers! Thank you Björk! Thank you Green Day! And a gigantic punk feminist thank you to all musicians, activists, to everyone around the world who have stood up together to fight for our right to be free. Start the Pussy Riot! And never stop! The fight for freedom is an endless battle that is bigger than life."

"Pussy Riot – Vladimir Putin Message. This man thinks that if you sing and dance in an inappropriate way you get two years in prison!"

"When we were jailed, Pussy Riot immediately became very popular and widely known, and it turned from just a group to essentially an international movement. Anybody can be Pussy Riot, you just need to put on a mask and stage an active protest of something in your particular country, wherever that may be, that you consider unjust. And we’re not here as the leaders of Pussy Riot or determining what Pussy Riot is and what it does or what it says. We are just two individuals that spent two years in jail for taking part in a Pussy Riot protest action."

"It's not a question of courage, it's a question of your development. Everything interesting begins with conflict."

"Putin's system is much weaker than it seems."

"It was also in May that Putin as inaugurated for his third term as president. We know now that the crackdown that has characterized his third term began with the arrest of Pussy Riot. We also know that the August 2012 trial of Pussy Riot drew the lines in the culture war that Putin has launched."

"It is an honour to be invited to address this conference today. For some time the Australian Defence Organisation has formally observed International Women’s Day. That is altogether appropriate. However, as all of you are no doubt aware, such formalities are rendered much less meaningful unless they are underpinned by tangible progress for women. And that necessarily implies cultural change in environments which have not been as conducive as they must be to women realising their full potential."

"And finally, it is truly fitting that I bring this message to an event held under the auspices of the United Nations. The UN does so much to alleviate suffering and disadvantage amongst women throughout the world, not least in peace building efforts in fractured states and societies, where violence against women and girls is horrific in both its nature and scale."

"Firstly, I must of necessity express some obvious qualifications about my remarks. Foremost, I can never fully imagine, much less experience, the issues faced by any woman. I was born male in an advanced Western nation, to comfortably well off parents. I have never routinely experienced discrimination in my career, nor the apprehension of violence in my personal life. Far too many women regardless of nationality, religion, or class status have known both. Most benefits of masculinity and patriarchy have accrued to me. Nonetheless, I hope those considerable limitations in my perspective can in part be offset by my sincere intent to support women in my organisation to thrive in the absence of both."

"Of course, that is probably an unattainable state of perfection. But I hope to establish my bona fides in striving towards them through what I say today, and through my actions as Chief of the Australian Army."

"I have set tangible goals against which I am willing to be judged. Ultimately, though, true and enduring progress in the status and security of women and girls will only be achieved through the collaborative efforts of women and men. There is a need, in my view, for some men to be reminded by male leaders and champions of change that violence towards women and girls is never acceptable and that their female colleagues deserve their trust and respect."

"That is no easy thing for a General to say in public, and yet I have now said it publicly in Australia many times. It involves Liz Broderick, and it marked a watershed for me. I invariably recount it when I am asked to explain why I have placed so much emphasis on gender issues within the Army and why I committed a large part of my effort as Chief of the Australian Army to championing change."

"I was no longer comforted by the cliché that a ‘few bad apples’ were undermining the great work of the vast majority. Nor was I willing to argue that a widely publicised incident at our Defence Academy - where a sexual encounter between a young female cadet and a colleague was telecast via Skype - was no worse than conduct among young people on civilian campuses."

"We in the ADF occupy a special constitutional role. We train for mastery of military force and are entrusted and sanctioned by the Government to employ extreme violence in support of national interests. Moreover, I am all too aware, that in many conflicts, rape is systematically employed by soldiers against women. Any nexus between an Army such as the one I aspire to lead and sexual assault is absolutely unacceptable. I will take all necessary steps to stamp out any hint of it among my soldiers."

"Our monopoly on violence and the particular place we occupy in our national psyche, demands that we must earn and maintain a high level of trust among our community. They are entitled to expect more of us than other institutions – and we keep telling ourselves that we are special – and custodians of the best of our military heritage. This places a very great burden on us, which warrants zero tolerance towards those who violate that fragile community trust."

"As an aside, my father commanded a battalion during the Vietnam war and I can happily report that whatever our fellow Australians think about any of the operations upon which we have deployed, they do not vent their objections against our soldiers as they did in my dad’s day. This is a welcome development. Indeed, at no time in my thirty four years of service have we been so highly regarded by our fellow citizens. But this is a call to live to our true ideals not to rest on our laurels."

"Sadly, it had become clear in recent years that the tribal culture, through which we sought to build small teams capable of enduring combat, had become distorted, misinterpreted and abused. And the evidence of that was brought home to me in a very personal, poignant and confronting way by Elizabeth Broderick."

"One day early last year she called me and suggested that I needed to hear from some of the women whose experiences she had been collating. I agreed, not reluctantly but certainly with some trepidation. Not long after I was sitting very uncomfortably, and with mounting disbelief, through lengthy face-to-face meetings with three women who had endured appalling physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their fellow soldiers; so much for our pride in looking after our mates. These women had been let down by their leaders and their comrades. They had been robbed of that irreplaceable component of their individual human personal identity – their dignity and self respect. This was not the Army that I had loved and thought I knew."

"My disbelief gave way, in turn, to shame that this had occurred in the institution to which I had devoted my entire life and of which I had been fiercely proud since I was young boy. That was my conversion experience and it had all the qualities of the road to Damascus apart from the fall from the horse."

"I hasten to add that I had already concluded that the ‘bad apple’ theory was a comforting self-delusion. Police forces throughout Australia only started to come to grips with systemic corruption when they came to the same realisation. Cultural problems are just that; they are systemic and ingrained, not the work of a few rogues."

"Such cultural problems generally evolve over time into distortions of what began as an admirable quality in an institution or organisation, but they are hijacked by misguided or malevolent people and become a device to exclude the vulnerable and the different from the dominant group. Often in hyper masculine environments, like armies, the ‘other’ is defined by being weaker physically, not drinking ‘like a man’, being more introverted or intellectual, and of course female."

"In an excellent report compiled by Major General Craig Orme titled Beyond Compliance: Professionalism, Trust and Capability in the Australian Profession of Arms, this aspect of our culture was analysed with insight and frankness. Yes, we do need to bond our soldiers to one another and instil toughness and resilience into them. But when this goal is invoked to degrade and demonise women and minorities it is undermining rather than enhancing capability. We need to define the true meaning of teamwork to embrace a band of brothers and sisters."

"After that searing meeting with those female soldiers I was even more determined that I was going to achieve real change in our culture."

"I will outline some of the specific goals that I have set and describe some of the means we are employing to achieve them, but firstly let me make a couple of things abundantly clear. I am not doing this to win plaudits or to satisfy a personal magnanimous desire. I am doing this out of love for the Australian Army and for the men and women who serve in its ranks. As the Chief of the Army I ultimately set the tone for the organisation and exemplify its values. Those values – Courage, Initiative and Teamwork, allied with respect for our institution and each other are noble when they are lived as intended."

"But in too many cases the team has been defined through exclusion of women. This simply has to stop – both for altruistic and pragmatic reasons. I like to think I am as altruistic as the next person but my motives are essentially pragmatic. Organisations with high levels of what can be termed as ‘social capital’ are more effective, both in their performance and ability to retain their highly skilled personnel much longer."

"In other words, making the most effective use of our female soldiers makes good sense. It enhances our capability. That is a simple truth."

"Indeed, given the demographic changes affecting the Australian workforce over the next few decades, the Army will simply not be able to meet its recruiting targets or maintain its range of skills unless we become fully representative of the community from which we draw."

"In that regard the Anzac legend – as admirable as it is – has become something of a double-edged sword. Many Australians have an idealised image of the Australian soldier as a rough hewn country lad – invariably white – a larrikin who fights best with a hangover and who never salutes officers, especially the Poms. This is a pantomime caricature. Every soldier is Mel Gibson in Gallipoli and frankly it undermines our recruitment from some segments of society and breeds a dangerous complacency about how professional and sophisticated soldiering really is."

"I was angry, that in a crisis, those three women, and many others to whom Liz Broderick had spoken, had not been able to rely on their mates. In other words the very thing that we claim as our defining ethos had been used to exclude and humiliate others. I am resolved to make improvements to our culture one of the fundamental elements of the legacy that I hope to leave the Australian Army."

"So what am I doing? Well I hope that by providing a personal insight into my own journey into greater understanding you will accept my bona fides in this matter. I am deadly serious about this. In an organisation built on a chain of command, senior leaders can make a very real difference when they are determined to implement change, and they are."

"But a top down approach can take you only so far – even in a hierarchical organisation like an Army. I can impress my senior leaders with the need to change and give them clear guidance as to how to proceed but it is vital to get buy in at all levels of the organisation."

"In that regard we are especially blessed by the way we prepare our junior leaders. We possess a superb training system and, through the inculcation of common doctrine, we can socialise concepts and behaviours very effectively. Moreover, our command structure is readily accessible. I can readily reach out to my unit commanding officers and RSMs (Regimental Sergeant Majors) and impress on them the need to implement change. They have more impact on the climate of the Army than any one else. In other words there is no more important element to bring in non-believers with you than enlisting leaders and role models at every level of the Army."

"It is impossible to overstate the significance of this. This is the last citadel for women in our Army. The bias towards officers with an arms corps affiliation in choosing senior leaders has some justification. Close combat is the core business of the Army. But women are already ‘in combat’ due to the changing character of war. Formal recognition of this removes the last defence of those who are resistant to the widest employment of women in the Army, and by extension their promotion to the most senior ranks. It is quite conceivable now that a woman will serve as the Chief of the Army in light of this decision."

"A core function of Army is the application of violence to protect and defend national interests. While violence is an essential part of our business, it is employed in a tightly regulated and controlled manner and we most emphatically do not accept or condone violence outside of these parameters. This is why Army is a Campaign Partner with White Ribbon, which as many of you would know, is a global movement to stop violence against women."

"[The] Army understands that cultural change is a long term process that requires commitment, diligence and continual evaluation. We recognise that in many ways we are behind the curve when compared to other corporate and public institutions, but we are determined to enact change in a meaningful and enduring way. We are dedicated to drawing on, and implementing, best practice by engaging with leaders who have undertaken successful and innovative programs in this field including Deloitte, the National Rugby League and the Australian Federal Police. Through these relationships we will develop methodologies and approaches to ensure sustainable diversity."

"Through their work in highlighting the role of the leader, making workforce flexibility a mainstream of Australian workplaces and looking for, and implementing "game changing" initiatives they are making a telling contribution to this vital area. I am deeply proud to be a Male Champion of Change and an Ambassador for White Ribbon. The values and aspirations inimical to both are completely aligned to those I hold as the Chief of the Australian Army."

"Earlier today, I addressed the media, and through them and the Australian public, about ongoing investigations in to a group of officers and NCOs whose conduct, if proven, has not only brought the Australia Army into disrepute, but has let down everyone of you, and all of those whose past service has won them the respect of our nation."

"There are limits to how much I can tell you because the investigations into this network by both the New South Wales police and the ADF investigative service are ongoing. But evidence collected to date has identified a group of men, within our ranks, who have allegedly produced highly inappropriate material, demeaning women and distributed it on the internet and defence's email networks. If this is true, then the actions of these members are in direct contravention to every value that the Australian Army stands for."

"By now I assume you know my attitude to this type of conduct. I have stated categorically, many times, that the Army has to be a inclusive organisation, in which every soldier, man and woman, is able to reach their full potential and is encouraged to do so. Those who think that it is okay to behave in a way that demeans or exploits their colleagues, have no place in this army. Our service has been engaged in continuous operations since 1999, and in it’s longest war ever in Afghanistan."

"On all operations, female soldiers and officers have proven themselves worthy of the best traditions of the Australian Army. They are vital to us, maintaining our capability now, and in to the future. If that does not suit you, then get out! You may find another employer where your attitude and behaviour is acceptable, but I doubt it. The same goes to those who think toughness is built on humiliating others."

"Every one of us is responsible for the culture and reputation of our army and the environment in which we work. If you become aware of any individual degrading another, then show moral courage and take a stand against it. No one has ever explained to me how the exploitation or degradation of others, enhances capability, or honours the traditions of the Australian Army."

"I will be ruthless in ridding the army of people who cannot live up to its values. And I need everyone of you to support me in achieving this. The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept. that goes for all of us, but especially those, who by their rank, have a leadership role. NB While on Q & A, ABC TV on 1st February 2016, Australian of the Year, Lieutenant General David Lindsay Morrison attributed; "The standard you walk by is the standard you accept"; to David ­Hurley, former Chief, Australian Defence Force, explaining the quote; " ... doesn't belong to me or [my former speechwriter] Cate McGregor, it belongs to the Governor of New South Wales, David Hurley.""

"If we are a great national institution, if we care about the legacy left to us by those who have served before us, if we care about the legacy we leave to those who, in turn will protect and secure Australia, then it is up to us to make a difference. If you’re not up to it, find something else to do with your life. There is no place for you amongst this band of brothers and sisters."

"When I used my real name, all of a sudden there was a lot of commentary. 'Oh, you're a woman' or 'You can't really be a woman' or 'You don't write like a woman.' Or all of a sudden my arguments were not taken as seriously or were judged as hysterical or emotional.... So I got much more interested in why this was happening."

"Wikipedia needs to recruit women, yes, but, more importantly, it needs to recruit feminists. And feminists can be of any gender."

"When professors teach, they teach what they love. What they are experts in. What it is easy for them to learn. Thus, it is easy to forget what it is like to be the student who struggles in the classroom."

"Teachers frequently talk about moments in which they became students again and how much that made them better teachers. For me, there has been no better way to improve my teaching, specifically my teaching in the composition classroom, than to take up a subject at which I am abysmal."

"For me, one of the most empowering outcomes of my year of climbing has been the new narrative I can tell about myself. I am no longer “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, and Wikipedian”. I am now “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, Wikipedian, and rock climber”."

"Suddenly I realized, I used to be the person saying how crazy or impossible such feats were and now I was the one doing them. I had radically switched subject positions in a way I did not think possible for myself. That, I realized, is what I want my students to experience - that radical switch and growth"

"If a piece of information is wrong or misrepresented on Wikipedia, it affects the way the entire world sees that topic."

"We definitely wanna increase the number of women. But just increasing the number of women isn’t necessarily going to– improve the– the fact that content on Wikipedia itself is skewed."

"So I think one thing that Wikipedia has to do as a culture is ask itself, 'Are we willing– to be this– this self-selecting– and– and be this small?' We can have many more people if we’re willing to be a more welcoming community."

"So in one respect, I would say that we need to add the voice of feminists to Wikipedia who are going to talk about– women as underrepresented groups."

"I know something about how the first encyclopedias were developed in the 18th century. And those encyclopedias almost completely excluded the history of women. And it’s one argument that we make all the time."

"When we’re talking both to Wikipedians and people outside of Wikipedia, we say, 'Look, if we want to include all of these other narratives besides the typical narrative that we usually tell of dead white men, we’ve gotta get it in there now.'"

"We brought in an innovative group of young digital humanists led by Adrianne Wadewitz."

"When Wadewitz showed Wikipedia's main page to her class one day, she found that the women featured were largely sexualised or portrayed as victims of a crime, while people of colour were represented as perpetrators of a crime."

"Adrianne Wadewitz exemplifies the early-career professional HASTAC Scholars is designed to mentor . . . because she represents the best of academe."

"Adrianne Wadewitz is a model of the future we all want for our profession, for our students, for our society."

"It is a huge loss for Wikipedia. She may have been our single biggest contributor on these topics — female authors, women’s history."

"Ms. Wadewitz’s interest in rock climbing played out on Wikipedia. Her last editing was to improve an article about Steph Davis, a prominent female climber and wingsuit flier. In Ms. Wadewitz’s hands, the article became filled with personal details, spectacular photos, a highlighted quotation and 25 footnotes."

"Wadewitz was probably best known as a longtime Wikipedia editor. She edited her first entry in 2004, and went on to create pages for female writers, scholars, and their works, editing nearly 50,000 posts in total"

"If you've ever used the crowd-sourced encyclopedia to find information on female writers (especially those from Dr. Wadewitz's area of expertise), it's likely that you've run into her work."

"Wadewitz used Wikipedia as a way to spread and improve knowledge on the period she focused, adding to biographies of women writers and thinkers. Wadewitz made her first edit on July 18, 2004, and over the course of her career made approximately 49,000 edits."

"Unlike the Wikipedia editor stereotype, Wadewitz was not a young male who was tech-obsessed. Still she found Wikipedia appealing as a way to spread her academic knowledge, which was sometimes seen by few, whereas her encyclopedic entries might be read by millions."

"While nearly all of us use the Internet to fact check, learn about topics and read the news, some of us contribute more than others to the knowledge pool. Adrianne Wadewitz was one such woman."

"Wadewitz was an educator who did not live to make money from her knowledge. Instead, she chose to spread her knowledge as freely as possible for the good of readers everywhere."

"One of the things about Adrianne I was always grateful for was that she always wanted to learn and experience more things in the world. She was very thoughtful and interested. She loved literature and reading."

"She really was a person who cared very much about others. She worked for justice and inclusion and making sure that women's voices were heard. She wasn't willing to just accept the world as we were told it was, but worked to help make it more beautiful. I am very grateful for her bringing that into my life."

"Dr. Wadewitz wrote and edited extensively on Wikipedia during the final 10 years of her life, contributing 36 featured articles and more than 49,000 edits."

"Legendary in the Wikipedia world, Wadewitz had more than 50,000 'edits' or contributions to her credit. She also was the author of 36 'featured' articles, the highest distinction bestowed by other Wikipedians based on accuracy, fairness, style and comprehensiveness."

"Wadewitz eventually came out as a Wikipedian, the term the encyclopedia uses to describe the tens of thousands of volunteers who write and edit its pages. A rarity as a woman in the male-centric Wikipedia universe, she became one of its most valued and prolific contributors as well as a force for diversifying its ranks and demystifying its inner workings."

"She was one of the top 10 editors in terms of producing a lot of high-quality content. Wikipedia is full of brilliant, talented people. She really stood out."

"Archivists take Wikipedia with a grain of salt. You think there's a troll behind the screen and don't know what's going on, what's the accountability. She walked us through this great unknown, Wikipedia land. She put us at ease."

"The 37-year-old was remarkable not just for Wadewitz’ Wikipedia contributions, but for her focus on chronicling the overwhelmingly under-researched roles played by women in history and present-day life."

"Wadewitz, a US academic, became one of the most prolific and influential editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia."

"Wadewitz said to attract more women editors, attitudes within the Wikipedia community need to change. This became clear when she revealed her gender, after writing anonymously for several years."

"The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts."

"She could just pack up and leave, but she does not visualize what's beyond ahead."

"Anyone could see that this woman is living a nightmare. Except that she goes through her daily life wide awake, knowing that she could make a mistake at any moment."

"I prefer to be on the side of losers, the misunderstood or lonely people rather than writing about the strong and powerful."

"A Jewish woman in exile in the 1930s is an antihero."

"To all the young people who discover they are gay: Don't be afraid to come out of the closet right now."

"In [the story of Jesus] I found ... a center for my being. Behind the supernatural framework of the first century, behind the language of myth, magic, and superstition, I discovered a life I wanted to know; a life that possessed a power I wanted to possess; a freedom, a wholeness for which I had yearned for years."

"All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth."

"True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers."

"Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue."

"The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Christianity has always been an evolving story. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story."

"There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrow-minded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. 23:17). ... How divine is the message that says for your finite failings you will be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25:30)?"

"What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore."

"Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity."

"The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel."

"Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth."

"Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in an illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult."

"[T]he discovery of an empty tomb would never have issued in an Easter faith. If there had been a tomb, and if that tomb had been found empty, it would have meant only that one more insult had been delivered to the leader of the tiny Jesus movement. The disciples, whoever they were, would have concluded that not even the dead body of this Jesus had been spared degradation. No Easter faith would have resulted from an empty tomb. Therefore such a tradition could not have been primary. It was but a story incorporated later into the narrative."

"If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable."

"I'm bringing booty back Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches hey"

"If I was you, I'd wanna be me too"

"In the majority of cases which are brought to me as a consulting psychologist for love and marital adjustment, there are self-deceptions to be uncovered as well as attempts to deceive other people. Beneath such love conflicts there is almost always a festering psychological core of dishonesty."

"A motion picture must be true to life. If a picture portrays a false emotion it train people seeing it to react abnormally."

"Sound and talking undoubtedly increase the entertainment value of a picture. There is a distinct conflict, however, between a pictorial and sound elements, which cannot be entirely avoided until third dimensional pictures are made."

"Not even the church is so powerfully equipped to serve the public psychologically as is the motion picture company."

"The next 100 years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy—a nation of amazons in the psychological rather than the physical sense. In 500 years there will be a serious sex battle. And in 1000 years women will definitely rule this country."

"Tolerant people are the happiest, so why not get rid of prejudices that hold you back?"

"There are one or two rules of thumb which are useful in distinguishing sadism from exciting adventure in the comics. Threat of torture is harmless, but when the torture it’s self is shown it becomes sadism. When a lovely heroine is show bound to the stake, comics followers are sure that the rescue will arrive just in the nick of time. The readers wish is to see save the girl, not to see her suffer. A bound or chained person does not suffer even embarrassment in the comics, and the reader, therefore is not being taught to enjoy suffering."

"If you conclude, as I do, that the only hope of a permanent peace and happiness for humanity on this planet is an increased expression of love, and that women are the primary carriers of this great force, one of the problems we face is to provide women with more opportunity for using their love powers. The last six thousand years have demonstrated quite conclusively, I believe, that woman under the domination of man can increase but meagerly the world's total love supply. Our obvious goal, than must be to devise social mechanisms whereby man is brought under the love domination of woman."

"The only hope for civilization is the greater freedom, development and equality of women in all fields of human activity."

"A woman character without allure would be like a Superman without muscle."

"The picture story fantasy cuts loose the hampering debris of art and artifice and touches the tender spots of universal human desires and aspirations. Comics speak, without qualm or sophistication to the innermost ears of the wishful self."

"If children will read comics [...] isn't it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read? [...] The wish to be super strong is a healthy wish, a vital compelling, power-producing desire. The more the Superman-Wonder Woman picture stories build this innner compulsion by stimulating the child's natural longing to battle and overcome obstacles, particularly evil ones, the better the better chance your child has for self-advancement in the world. Certainly there can be no argument about the advisability of strengthening the fundamental human desire, too often buried beneath stultifying divertisments and disguises, to see good overcome evil."

"Comics, they say, are not literature – adventure strips lack artistic form, mental substance, and emotional appeal to any but the most moronic of minds. Can it be that 100,000,000 Americans are morons? Possibly so; but there seems to be a simpler explanation. Nine humans out of ten react first with their feelings rather than with their minds; the more primitive the emotion stimulated, the stronger the reaction. Comics play a trite but lusty tune on the C natural keys of human nature. They rouse the most primitive, but also the most powerful, reverberations in the noisy cranial sound-box of consciousness, drowning out more subtle symphonies. Comics scorn finesse, thereby incurring the wrath of linguistic adepts."

"Oh yes, but not until women control men. Wonder Woman – and the trend toward male acceptance of female love power, which she represents, indicates that the first psychological step has actually been taken. Boys young and old satisfy their wish thoughts by reading comics. If they go crazy for Wonder Woman it means they're longing for a beautiful exciting girl who's stronger than they are. These simple, highly imaginative picture stories satisfy longings that ordinary daily life thwarts and denies. Superman and the army of male comics characters who resemble him satisfy the simple desire to be stronger and more powerful than anybody else. Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaboratedly disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them."

"Women now fly heavy planes successfully; they help build planes, do mechanics' work. In England they've taken over a large share of all material labor in fields and factories; they've taken over police and home defence duties. In China a corps of 300,000 women under the supreme command of Madame Chiang Kai-shek perform the dangerous function of saving lives and repairing damage after Japanese air raids. This huge female strong- arm squad is officered efficiently by 3,000 women. Here in this country we've started a Women's Auxilary Army and Navy Corps that will do everything men soldiers and sailors do except the actual fighting. Prior to the First World War nobody believed that women could perform these feats of physical strength. But they're performing them now and thinking nothing of it. In this far worse: war, women will develop still greater female power; by the end of the war that traditional description the weaker sex" will be a joke-it will cease to have any meaning."

"Men actually submit to women now, they do it on the sly with a sheepish grin because they're ashamed of being ruled by weaklings. Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves."

"If, as psychologists, we follow the analogy of the other biological sciences, we must expect to find normalcy synonymous with maximal efficiency of function. Survival of the fittest means survival of those members of a species whose organisms most successfully resist the encroachments of environmental antagonists, and continue to function with the greatest internal harmony. In the field of emotions, then, why would we alter this expectation? Why should we seek the spectacularly disharmonious emotions, the feelings that reveal a crushing of ourselves by environment, and consider these affective responses as our normal emotions? If a jungle beast is torn and wounded during the course of an ultimately victorious battle, it would be a spurious logic indeed that attributed its victory to its wounds. If a human being be emotionally torn and mentally disorganized by fear or rage during a business battle from which, ultimately, he emerges victorious, it seems equally nonsensical to ascribe his conquering strength to those emotions symptomatic of his temporary weakness and defeat. Victory comes in proportion as fear is banished. Perhaps the battle may be won with some fear still handicapping the victor, but that only means that the winner's maximal strength was not required."

"In the spring of the freshman year, the sophmore girls held what was called "The Baby Party" which all freshmen girls were compelled to attend. At this affair, the freshmen girls were questioned as to their misdemeanors and punished for their disobedience and rebellions. The baby party was so name because the freshman girls were required to dress as babies."

"Appetite emotion must first, last and always be adapted to love."

"The creation of children is not justifiable in a majority of unions between the sexes; but when the creation responses are justifiably undertaken, there is sound psychological ground for advising the woman to provide, beforehand, sufficient funds of her own to carry both herself and the child through the period of her physical incapacity for appetitive work. There is sound psychological ground, also, for requiring the male to share equally at least, in the home work and the care of children."

"The talkies are the only art that would attract Leonardo da Vinci were he alive to-day. It is the only art that excites a scientist's curiosity, the only art that challenges the engineer, the only art that offers the great artist a medium capable of expressing every human thought and emotion, as well as the pure aesthetic effects of color and music. It is a baby giant, as clumsy as all babies are. Its noises are, we grieve to admit, often as inartistic as the squalling of a baby. But squalling babies have a way of growing up into soft-voices women and great singers. This is why we, the authors, have gladly played the role of nursemaids. We don't know what the baby will be doing and saying when it grows up. But we are sure it will make its mark in the world."

"The literary story is hard enough, heaven knows. It calls for a thorough understanding of the kinds of people you set out to depict. It cannot be of high quality unless the author can plot well. And, of course, it must be cast in distinctive style. The picture of the silent screen does not demand literary abilities, but it does require insight into character as well as drama; furthermore, it is founded upon a high order of visual imagination. The stage play, in a certain sense, calls for all the chief abilities of literary stories and silent pictures; and, in addition, it must be managed with dialogue, which is some thing very different from literary language. But the sound picture goes beyond all of these other art forms. To invent a good one, you must grasp character, drama, settings, and dialogue. But you must go beyond these. You need a fanciful ear. The backgrounds of your story now cry out. The tale is filled with noises. And every least sound adds a unique quality to the total effect."

"People go to moving pictures to be made to weep or laugh, to be happy or unhappy as they watch what hap pens to the screen characters before them. They become completely absorbed in the screen action. They follow the story, willy-nilly. And in so doing, they are forced to feel the emotion/ aroused by the dramatic situations.Pictures makes millions of people, day after day, feel glad or sad, courageous or fearful, righteous or angry. He, can do this, that is to say, within limits, and these limits largely depend upon the story of the picture. If the producer has a powerful enough story, these millions for get themselves and their little joys and woes and escape into the scenes on the screen before them. Small wonder then, that, with such stupendous power over the thinking and feeling of myriads of men, women, and children, the moving picture producer is willing, even eager, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars — or even a cool mil lion or so — to secure and produce a picture for this world of movie-goers. But the story selected must itself have power enough to arouse the emotions of an audience. Excellent photography and good acting can help to carry successfully any story, but they can never put emotional meaning into a story that is built without emotional appeal."

"The task of depicting character in the sound picture is, in one sense, far easier than in the silent picture. The latter, being essentially pantomime clarified with titles, is cruelly restricted as a medium of depicting human nature. Few of us express ourselves in postures and gestures. Our natural manner finds itself freer and surer in spoken words and, most of all, in decisive acts involving such forms of language as promises, commands, prohibitions, and so on, all of which readily lends itself to reproduction in talk and scene combined. To this extent, character drawing in sound pictures seems to offer pretty much the same opportunities and difficulties as in the drama of the Broadway stage. But a closer study brings out the somewhat startling fact that a sound picture, skillfully handled, can reveal more of a personality than any other device of art or science. The actor on the stage can talk, gesticulate, and move to and fro; but there his powers end. The actor of the talking screen can do all of these things and then carry on his subjective life in the presence of the spectators. We can show pictorially his memories, his fears, his hopes, and his cunning schemes. We can reveal his clenched fist in a close-up. We can show the beads of perspiration on his brow, as he trembles with suppressed rage."

"The social value of freeing women from a harem-enclosed existence to a life of activity can be questioned only by those advocates of a "man's world" who wish to perpetuate its butchers and savage jungle law."

"If Marston is whipping up comics stories while Rome burns, there must be a reason."

"He believes the sexes have changed their professional status, that the hunted has become the huntress, that men have more ideas about women than about themselves and that a majority of men prefer to be 'unhappy masters' rather than 'happy slaves'."

"This noted scientist is the most genuine human being I’ve met. He isn’t fat—that is, in the ordinary way. He’s just enormous all over. We walked through the garden and about the grounds. The doctor asked me about my work and myself, and I told him more in 15 minutes than I’d tell my most intimate friend in a week. He’s the kind of person to whom you confide things about yourself you scarcely realize."

"I always thought this Marston was a phony."

"Marston’s work opened the door for those in his profession to be more actively involved in the legal system. This perhaps begs the question: Is it a good thing for psychologists to be allowed to testify in court? There is certainly evidence to suggest that psychologists have something to offer the legal process above and beyond what their medically trained psychiatric colleagues might offer. Clinical psychologists typically have substantially more training in research than psychiatrists do and also spend several more years in formal study of human behavior. Likely as a result of this extra training, judges, attorneys, and law professors performing blind reviews rated forensic reports by psychologists to be more thorough and of higher quality than those completed by psychiatrists. Thus, William Moulton Marston, by tipping the first domino in a line that allowed psychologists to testify as recognized experts, directly contributed to better information and higher-quality work being used in the legal process. In this respect, much like his famous creation, he was a warrior for truth and justice."

"I wonder if our names determine our destiny, or if destiny leads us to choose certain names."

"You can't change the desert. You can only take the fastest course through it. Wishing it's an oasis won't make it so..."

"Nothing is forever...nothing lasts"

"My love is unique an none can rival her. Just by passing, she has already stolen away my heart"

"Because he is weak and shallow, and you should learn to recognize men who are afraid of others with power, Mutnodjmet."

"I heard Nakhtmin’s voice in my mind, that to be forgotten was the greatest gift that history could give"

"Be careful here, my lady. Let history forget your name. For if your deeds are to live in eternity, you will have to become exactly what your family wants you to be.” “And what is that?” I demanded. “A slave to the throne."

"You can’t change the desert. You can only take the fastest course through it. Wishing it’s an oasis won’t make it so, Mutnodjmet."

"SPEECH AND WRITING ARE MORE SOLID THAN A STELE. A NAME IN THE MOUTHS OF MEN BUILDS IN THE MOST INVULNERABLE HEART OF THE PYRAMIDS."

"THE IMPOSSIBLE IS THE ONLY WORTHY OPPONENT OF MAN."

"A NAME IN THE MOUTHS OF MEN BUILDS IN THE MOST INVULNERABLE HEART OF THE PYRAMIDS."

"The Nefertiti bust is one of the most popular art works in the world. It is printed on scarves and molded in necklace pendants and coffee-table miniatures. But never in my experience is the bust exactly reproduced. The copyist softens it, feminizes it and humanizes it. The actual bust is intolerably severe. It is too uncanny an object for domestic display. Even art books lie. The bust is usually posed in profile or at an angle, so that the missing left pupil is hidden or shadowed. What happened to the eye?"

"Nefertiti is like Athena born from the brow of Zeus, a head-heavy armored goddess. She is beautiful but desexed."

"The problem of ideology ... has especially to do with the concepts and the languages of practical thought which stabilize a particular form of power and domination; or which reconcile and accommodate the mass of the people to their subordinate place in the social formation."

"Much of my professional life has been concerned with the politics of who we think we are. I've been riveted by the question of how we can understand the chaos of identifications which we seek to reach somehow, 'ourselves'. Of course this arrival never occurs; we'll never be ourselves, whatever that could mean."

"How does one go about thinking, talking, living, theorizing, or resisting an original, prodigious, and ongoing first world cultural expansion, indeed, this imperial neocolonization of all citizen-subjects, when the nature of this very expansion functions to take in any thought about it?"

"Late-capitalist retranslation of difference allows hierarchical and material differences in power between people to be erased from consciousness, even when these same economic and social privileges are bolstered."

"Louis Althusser puts it this way: because "class instinct is subjective and spontaneous," the class instinct of the middle classes and "thus of intellectuals" must undergo a painful and "revolutionary" transformation in order to become oppositional—that is, in order to become aligned with the methodology of the oppressed."

"Pain is just a consequence of love."

"I'm very proud [to be part Italian] … Although I don't eat a lot of Italian things, because I'm vegan. … I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding. But I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-round happier person. It is tricky dining out, but I just stick to what I know – veggies, fruit and salad – then when I get home I'll have something else."

"Music is something everyone on Earth can share. Music is meant to heal us, to bring us together, to make us happy."

"“I’m tired of needing to be linked to a guy, I’m not Big Sean‘s ex, I’m not Niall‘s new possible girl. I’m Ariana Grande.”"

"“Don’t ever doubt yourselves or waste a second of your life. It’s too short, and you’re too special.”"

"I don't need a dozen roses You ain't gonna wine and dine me no. I don't need a pretty poet."

"It was my creative vision for it. I said, "I need to put a spin on this and wear it with a Jason mask or a Scream mask" or something. But I was a huge musical fan in general. This is kind of controversial to say, but I loved Avenue Q, even though it won the Tony for Best Musical over Wicked. But Wicked, of course, is my number one."

"I have never in my life felt the way I did when I found out that I got the role of Glinda in the film. I thought, Everything’s going to be okay forever now."

"Grande is my mom's last name; Butera is my father's last name. This feels like the most important, full-circle thing I've ever done, so I wanted to have them both be a part of this."

"The Waterboy, with Adam Sandler, makes me cry. When they're mean to Bobby Boucher, I cry. I don't like it. I love Bobby Boucher. He says, “Would you please still be my friend?” and I lose it. But I cry at everything."

"My sun is in dog, and my rising is in cat. Just because cats are so boundaried, and I have a little bit of boundaries too now, but I have the openness and emotional availability of a dog. So I have the emotional landscape of a dog, but with the boundaries of a cat."

"You know what, they did the Brighter Days memory erasure treatment to me, so I’m having trouble remembering the details. They’re foggy."

"You have to learn the language of my fans because ‘soon’ means 10 days or less,I’m not allowed to use that word at this moment. I’m not gonna use that word today. I’ll say that. Just keep your eyes peeled. Just keep them peeled. That’s all I’m saying."

"¿En perseguirme, mundo, qué interesas? ¿En qué te ofendo, cuando sólo intento poner bellezas en mi entendimiento y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?"

"Yo no estimo tesoros ni riquezas; y así, siempre me causa más contento poner riquezas en mi pensamiento que no mi pensamiento en las riquezas."

"Hombres necios que acusáis A la mujer, sin razón, Sin ver que sois la ocasión De lo mismo que culpáis: Si con ansia sin igual Solicitáis su desdén ¿Por qué queréis que obren bien, Si las incitáis al mal?"

"¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido En una pasión errada: La que cae de rogada, O el que ruega de caído? ¿O cuál es más de culpar, Aunque cualquiera mal haga: La que peca por la paga, O el que paga por pecar?"

"¡Qué bien se ve que eran Sabios en confesarse rendidos, que es triunfo el obedecer de la razón el dominio!"

"No se avergüenzan los Sabios de mirarse convencidos; porque saben, como Sabios, que su saber es finito."

"lady of mine and of all beloved women distant and hallucinated magician of verse, stranger to time, barefoot among the convents."

"Probably the first official feminist in Mexican history was Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz, who lived from 1648 to 1695. During her lifetime, she was honored as the tenth Muse of Mexico, and known through the Americas and Europe for her wit and intelligence. She argued against a sexual double standard in her famous poem, "Hombres necios" (Foolish Men): "Which has the greater/sin when burned/By the same lawless fever:/She who is amorously deceived,/Or he, the sly deceiver?/Or which deserves the sterner blame,/Though each will be a sinner:/She who becomes a whore for pay,/Or he who pays to win her?" Sor Juana argued for equality in education, but did not trust men to act as teachers. She suggested that a group of self-educated women should teach young females, instructing them not only in elementary subjects, but in literature, history, science, and theology as well."

"Just a few years ago, one could easily identify the women in all of Latin America who stood out in literature. Names like Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni, Juana de Ibarború, Delmira Agustini, Claudia Lars, not to mention the greatest of them all, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who, five hundred years ago, took off her feminist gloves when she wrote, “Stupid men, who, without cause, accuse women,” words proclaimed rather shockingly."

"I don't pretend to be anyone's voice. I have been very lucky to be published in Europe, and I say lucky because there are women who have been writing in Latin America since the seventeenth century, like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The problem is that few people ever talk about them. Their work is rarely taught at the universities, there is no literary criticism on them, and they are not published, translated or distributed."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was the first feminist on this continent"

"Her famous Reply to Sor Filotea (1693) defending her right to knowledge, is a major document in the struggle for women's intellectual independence; it was recently published in Barcelona as "The First Women's Manifesto." Sor Juana's poignant awareness of the suppressed potentialities of women makes her the first feminist of the New World and one of its greatest thus far."

"One of our first figures of note was a feminist Mexican nun turned poetess called Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. She was the wittiest writer in the Spanish language between the death of Calderón (1680) and the Romantic era."

"Who is a revolutionary woman? A revolutionary woman wants change, not mere cosmetic change but change to the status quo, and she is willing to sacrifice to make this happen. We have some extraordinary examples: Sojourner Truth, Las Adelitas, Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Dorothy Day, Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, and others."

"As we have seen, those inspired by divine inspiration were amazingly steadfast. To cite just one example, the Mexican nun Sor Juana de la Cruz, when chastised by her confessor for her presumption in writing verse, replied that she could not help it and could not control her ability to do so; it came naturally to her and therefore must be a gift from God. From this she reasoned that she was entitled to write verse."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz left behind many writings and, above all, inspiration for all women, for all time."

"The story of feminist Latinas spreads across centuries and is rich in heroines who demolish the stereotype of the "passive Latin woman." The landmarks are numerous in Mexico, from the openly feminist seventeenth-century intellectual Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, a nun, to the first feminist congress of 1911 and the suffrage movement of the 1930s."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz became a model for my rebellion."

"Sor Juana defended her case for learned women and stated that women should be able to study if they wish. She cites learned Jewish and pagan women, as well as Christian; St. Catherine of Egypt, Ste. Gertrude, Ste. Paula, Ste. Theresa of Avila, among others. She also quotes part of the Bible in favor women's learning. She dared to argue and questioned St. Paul's meaning of 'Mulieres in ecclesia taceant, (let women be quiet in church.) Sor Juana spoke as to the wisdom of learning adding that unqualified men would be better off not studying since a little bit of learning can be dangerous in the hands of madmen. As an example, she cited the Heresiarchs, founders and leaders of a heretical sect."

"Although Sor Juana abandoned her writing, the calibre of the body of work she left Mexico remains unparalleled. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz soared as the most enlightened daughter of the new world. She challenged the foundation of the European Christian institution in her natural law perspective and understanding of the universe. Fearless, Sor Juana left the continent a mandate regarding the rights of women to think."

"Like other pioneer women in American history, Sor Juana Inès paved the road to education and intellectuality for women. To America, she left a vision of the woman of the future, a legacy that continues in the mind and spirit of future generations. Today, women learn and nurture the child of the true Humanity that exists within all of us. To Mexico, Sor Juana's legacy stands as the patria with a clearer vision of itself and its people; an identity that set the stage for independence. In her universal thinking, Sor Juana challenged the control and exploitation of Mexico by Spain's most archconservative institution, the Church."

"Some of the greatest Latin American poets have been women. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, María Sabina, and Violeta Parra are among them, but their true place in the history of poetry has yet to be fully acknowledged...Sor Juana, who was the principal poet of the Americas in the seventeenth century, fought for the right of women to write and paid with her life."

"I think we already know they’re looking to get rid of Fridays. Now we see they don’t even take Monday mornings very seriously either."

"I have a popcorn problem. I can't stop. I've been known to drive by the movie theater, walk in, just buy a bag of popcorn. It's so good."

"Tonight marks the beginning of Chanukah, the eight-day Festival of Lights. It tells the story of the Jewish people’s resilience and their victory over tyranny and religious intolerance. On behalf of Canada’s Conservatives, I would like to wish everyone a Chag Chanukah Sameach!"

"I certainly don’t owe my leadership victory to anybody … It’s a high quality drink, and it’s affordable too."

"if the party was made aware of a sexual assault allegation today, the individual involved would be immediately removed as a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada"

"Canada's Conservatives have been, and always will be, a strong voice for Israel and the Canadian Jewish community, Israel is one of Canada's strongest allies and a beacon of pluralism and democratic principles in a turbulent part of the world, Canada’s Conservatives recognize the obvious fact that Israel, like every other sovereign nation, has a right to determine where its capital is located."

"Jewish people in Canada, Israel and around the world will begin celebrating Purim. I would like to extend my best wishes to the community as you celebrate with some of the happiest traditions of the holiday. Chag Purim Sameach! Happy Purim! Chag Sameach! This evening, Jewish people in Canada, Israel and around the world will begin celebrating Purim. This delightful holiday tells the story of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai, who saved the Jewish community of ancient Persia from their persecutor, Haman. Purim celebrates their heroism and bravery, which led to the survival and victory of the Jewish people. For all Canadians, the story of Purim is a reminder of the freedoms we enjoy and our duty to stand against religious intolerance. I would like to extend my best wishes to Canada’s Jewish community as you celebrate with some of the happiest traditions of the holiday: the reading of the Book of Esther (Megillat Esther); the exchange of special gift baskets with family and friends (Mishloach Manot); and, of course, eating delicious Hamentashen pastries. Have a fun and festive celebration! Happy Purim! Freilichen Purim!"

"I think the party owes their membership an explanation. And furthermore, I think that the party owes Mr. Scheer an explanation … his potential credibility is damaged because of this. They should explain to him how this happened and how it will never happen again. He should be insisting upon a more thorough review of what happened."

"Inverted heart, becomes the testicles of a man."

"How do I love thee? Let me count the days. If there are 50 ways to leave your lover then there are 50 ways to be left."

"There is an afterlife to love and there is love in the afterlife."

"Did you know orchids employ trickery to attract insects? They spray a deceptive scent resembling insect pheromones. Bad flower! Bad flower! Liar! Liar! Petals on fire!"

"Trigger Warning! Rape is a rape is a rape."

"There are other tears, bright, clear, untroubled, Shining as the sun, untouched of care."

"It is a thorny rose, which draws red blooddrops from thine heart— The delicate bright ribbon of the rainbow, o’er thee hung."

"Eggs are generally considered kosher, but what about eggs from chickens who spend their entire lives imprisoned in a cage one cubic foot in size? Food pellets are brought to them on one conveyor belt; their droppings and eggs are taken away on another. The Bible forbids us to torment animals or cause them any unnecessary grief. Raising chickens who can go out sometimes and see the sky or eat a worm or blade of grass is one thing, but manufacturing them in the concentration camp conditions of contemporary "poultry ranches" is quite another."

"I realized that all forms of religion are masks that the divine wears to communicate with us. Behind all religions there’s a reality, and this reality wears whatever clothes it needs to speak to a particular people."

"If you look at our country's history, change doesn't come from presidents. Change comes from large groups of angry people."

"I am very much pro-life. I'm pro the life of women who have lived for years as opposed to cells that have lived for weeks."

"[T]he rules are different for you and always will be; that you must be composed at all times and never scrap in the muck laid down by your opponents because your moral purity is measured differently to theirs."

"You can be told 20 days in (a) row that you should be raped and sodomised and beaten and strung up and thrown out and taught a lesson, but if on the 21st day you turn around and make a joke about firing men into the sun using a cannon, you are a scold who hates men and is teaching her son that he's a rapist."

"Could men just shut the fuck up?"

"Ms Ford was recently called out for signing a copy of her book with 'have you killed any men today? And if not, why not?'."

"Ford’s all-consuming hatred for men is absolutely dripping. She screams, “The framing of criminal acts like these as being somehow the result of depression or financial struggles or just a lack of appropriate emotional support cannot help but infest the circumstances with an air of sympathy and understanding.” She slams “traditional notions of masculinity”, rants about the “patriarchy” and then Lifeline’s number is listed at the end. The fact Ford blankly refuses to comprehend motivational factors contributing to human beings wanting out of life purely highlights why she was never, and should never be, given a platform to speak at any events by any suicide prevention organisation. Ever."

"The time comes to every dog when it ceases to care for people merely for biscuits or bones, or even for caresses, and walks out of doors. When a dog really loves, it prefers the person who gives it nothing, and perhaps is too ill ever to take it out for exercise, to all the liberal cooks and active dog-boys in the world."

"I could discern clearly, even at that early age, the essential difference between people who are kind to dogs and people who really love them."

"We can benefit our kind in no way so much as by being ourselves pure and upright and noble-minded."

"I could not bear it did I not believe in another life for the poor harmless victims where their wrongs will be recompensed, & I may add also in another life for their inhuman persecutors where they will all repent in moral agony worse than the physical pain of their poor victims."

"We women have before us the noblest end to which a finite creature may attain; and our duty is nothing else than the fulfilment of the whole moral law, the attainment of every human virtue."

"He who does most to cure woman of her weakness, her frivolity and her servility, will likewise at the same stroke do most to cure man of his brutality, his selfishness and his sensuality."

"Love naturally reverses the idea of obedience, and causes the struggle between any two people who truly love each other to be not who shall command, but, who shall yield."

"The making of a true Home is really our peculiar and inalienable right; a right which no man can take from us, for a man can no more make a Home than a drone can make a hive. He can build a castle or a palace, but, poor creature! be he wise as Solomon and rich as Croesus, he cannot turn into a Home. No masculine mortal can do that. It is a woman, and only a woman; a woman all by herself if she likes, and without any man to help her, who can turn a House into a Home."

"My great panacea for making Society at once better and more enjoyable would be to cultivate greater sincerity."

"I think that every woman who has any margin of time or money to spare should adopt some one public interest, some philanthropic undertaking, or some social agitation of reform, and give to that cause whatever time and work she may be able to afford; thus completing her life by adding to her private duties the noble effort to advance God's Kingdom beyond the bounds of her home."

"As the main work of civilisation has been the vindication of the rights of the weak, it is not too much, I think, to insist that the practice of Vivisection in which this tyranny of strength culminates is a retrograde step in the progress of our race—a backwater in the onward flowing stream of justice and mercy, no less portentous than deplorable."

"By some strange and sinister fatality the chosen victims at present are the most intelligent and friendly of our domestic favourites—the cats who purr in love and confidence as they sit beside us on the hearth; the dogs whose faithful hearts glow with an affection for us, truer and fonder than we may easily find in any human breast."

"Every system of law is a system of education, and, in extending legal sanction to the scientific torture of animals, the State educates the nation in a false view of the relations of man to the lower creatures, encourages selfishness and cruelty and the disregard of the rights of the weak by the strong."

"As our President said, we have in our army such minds as Spencer, and Mill, and I would add Buckle, and many others; and they are diffusing light, intelligence and civilization, and advocating the right. We have women also. We have Frances Cobbe; whose name I speak with pride and rejoicing; and in the literary world we have Charlotte Bronte, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and many others, who are consecrating their talents to the great cause of womanhood, and freedom, and right."

"Central to Jewish mysticism is the role that vegetarianism plays in messianic expectations: here vegetarianism functions in the concept of Jewish mystical time which chronicles human development from the vegetarian state in the Garden of Eden to the Messianic age when it is believed we will be vegetarians again. … in Judaism the laws governing responsibility to animals derive from the animal's place in the divine economy, assured by the covenantal statements, by the Jewish view of creation, and the Jewish view of a just and compassionate Creator. The stress of these laws with respect to the Jew is summed up in the question: How should the righteous (just) Jew behave toward animals, and the answer lies in the concept of the “imitatio Dei.” The just and merciful human behaves toward animals as a just and merciful Creator behaves toward humans."

"To hell with the fate that makes you share a man... You slave like the maid, but without the pay. If I had known how it would go, I think I would have lived alone."

"Khen ai khéo vẽ cảnh tiêu sơ."

"Ơ hay, cánh cũng ưa người nhỉ."

"Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn, Bảy nổi ba chìm với nước non. Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn. Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son."

"Hỡi chị em ơi có biết không? Một bên con khóc một bên chồng. Bố cu lổm ngổm bò trên bụng, Thằng bé hu hơ khóc dưới hông. Tất cả những là thu với vén, Vội vàng nào những bống cùng bông. Chồng con cái nợ là như thế, Hỡi chị em ơi có biết không?"

"Ghé mắt trông ngang thấy bảng treo, Kìa đến thái thú đứng cheo leo. Ví đây đổi phận làm trai được, Thì sự anh hùng há bấy nhiêu!"

"Cực lạc là. đây, chín rõ mười."

"The Queen of Nôm poetry."

"Here the lake is filled with lotuses. Tell the flower girls to pick some, not stepping on Hô Xuân Hương's grave. In the Golden Springs beyond, she still is angry about lost love. Lipstick dry, powder faded, tomb untended, Xuân Hương is gone...."

"Hồ Xuân Hương is an improbable figure in Vietnamese literature. Vietnamese historians are virtually unanimous in acclaiming her as the "most special" poetry writer who ever lived in Vietnam. ... She wrote poetry which, for all its playfulness, may have been the darkest assault upon Confucian ethics ever delivered by a literate scholar of a classical East Asian society. Most modern Vietnamese writers agree that she often went too far, to the point where her contemporaries regarded her as a "monster," whose influence should be obliterated."

"Lesbians are not women."

"They're always telling me I'm too angry"

"I’m too tired to be angry enough"

"I'm angry that I can't sleep that I hate myself"

"Gloria Anzaldúa, an old friend, and Chrystos, a new one, gave me courage to write honestly about violence."

"In a world that both desexualizes and hypersexualizes people, I am desperate to find companionship and touch."

"One might even call him dreamy. It was a match made in heaven. Or it could’ve been, until he ghosted me."

"It’s not like my standards are that high to begin with. As someone who has spent the greater part of a decade being sexually neglected because I don’t perform gender properly, my standards are comically low. You don’t have to be talented to get in my pants. You don’t have to be charming or funny or witty or able to make great conversation to make me fall for you. You don’t have to have a well-furnished apartment or a beautiful house in order to take me home. Just tell me that you don’t believe in the , let me know that you want to put it in, and I am pretty much yours."

"You could say that I am desperate — because I am. In a world that both desexualizes and hypersexualizes transfeminine people and treats us like street garbage, I am desperate to find companionship and touch."

"Even the most enlightened boys can turn into ghosts."

"You're a shooting star I see A vision of ecstasy When you hold me, I'm alive We're like diamonds in the sky At first sight I felt the energy of sun rays I saw the life inside your eyes So shine bright, tonight you and I We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky Eye to eye, so alive We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky Shine bright like a diamond Shine bright like a diamond Shining bright like a diamond We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky"

"A shot in the dark A past lost in space Where do I start? The past and the chase You hunted me down Like a wolf, a predator I felt like a deer in the lights"

"You did not break me I'm still fighting for peace"

"I may cry, ruining my makeup Wash away all the things you've taken And I don't care if I don't look pretty Big girls cry when their hearts are breaking"

"Quality men are not afraid of quality women."

"Men put roadblocks in front of women as a way of hiding their inefficiencies."

"Emphasis is placed on the strengthening of parliamentary institutions through proactive measures to endow the parliament with greater accountability and oversight powers."

"The Parliaments upcoming workshop will communicate and recognize the importance of the parliamentarians observations and conclusions on the future of food."

"food insecurity and malnutrition is not only an ongoing African problem, it is a global issue that needs to be dealt with in an efficient, proactive manner."

"The outcomes of the workshop will be to help strengthen, improve and properly align the objectives of the Alliance with that of the Technical Cooperation Project document, which will be the guiding tool for the implementation"

"The parliamentarians also underscored the importance of parliamentary dialogue in countries, regions and globally, in order to share good practice and experiences in ensuring food security and adequate nutrition."

"I believe the proposed workshop is exactly what they would deem an “effective response” and “proactive measure” in the strive for a food-secure world."

"Such sectoral coordination will help in addressing food security and nutrition in a holistic manner, which in turn, will help maximize limited resources and gains. Partnership with other institutions has also helped PAP access data, which is critical for inform decision-making, debate, advocacy, and lobbying."

"The right to free expression and assembly has been cast aside, and the number of ordinary people incarcerated is growing by the day. The Turkish government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., has turned its back on universal democratic values and pushed the country to the brink of political and ."

"My prosecution has been unjust. My arrest was a political decision. I remain a political hostage."

"Only the democratic struggle of the people for their own freedom will free Turkey from authoritarianism and fear and free its s — the judiciary and the press — from tutelary control by the government."

"It was quite revelatory about the indescribable fear that engulfs authoritarian leaders when confronted with opponents who persevere despite persecution. How acute must Mr. Erdogan’s fear be?"

"Turkey now understands that the of the on the southeastern periphery affects freedoms and democratic culture across the country. What was limited to the Kurds has become the norm for Mr. Erdogan’s opponents elsewhere too. The only hope for a liberal, democratic future lies in our coming together to defeat the authoritarian ."

"If their own blood relatives discarded, betrayed, forgot and harmed them, then they are our children, our sisters our mothers that we will mourn, we will remember, we will honour their memory and we will not forget!""

"Some anti-fascist protesters, the so-called "Antifa," use pepper spray against the marchers, including me."

"Change is possible, and I know, hope is very difficult to hold on to. But hope in this time, is actually, an act of defiance, it's an act of resistance. I refuse to dehumnaize those people who dehumanize me. Because, otherwise there is really no difference between us and people like them."

"Feminists—in and out of science—often condemn masculine bias in the sciences from the vantage point of commitment to a value-free science. Androcentric bias, once identified, can then be seen as a violation of the rules, as "bad" science. Feminist science, by contrast, can eliminate that bias and produce better, good, more true, or gender-free science."

"one of our great musicians"

"I always loved Buffy Sainte-Marie. I loved how she would close her eyes when she sang. … She had great movement, and she never hit the mic with her nose! I never got quite as good at it as she was, but I loved that movement."

"Feminist porn productions show that female lust and the sexual well-being of women can be very much the focus of porn - and that it can be female-positive, gender-aware and at the same time male-friendly."

"Porno ist nie nicht politisch. (Porn is never not political.)"

"Shame is closely connected to sexuality. The naked body itself is still as politically charged as nothing else."

"This comments might be strong, but it's how I genuinely feel. I don't care that you are christian. I don't care what the Bible says. Like, I feel like it's a clown show, like sitting here, trying to decifer what your little mythical book has to say about these very real political issues, right? I don't care if you are christian. In fact, I will fight for you to have your religious liberty and practice your christianity. I believe in that. I don't believe in christianity, which means that you do not get to dictate the way I live my life based on your religion. I don't care what the Bible says. You have every right in the world, all those women who identify with your religion have every right in the world to not get an abortion, to not take birth control, but they do not have the right to dictate my life and what I decide to do with my body. I don't care about your goddamn religion! I am so tired of having nonstop conversations about what the Bible says. You live your life in the way that you intepret the Bible. Again, I don't care. You don't get to take the Bible and tell me: "Well, the Bible says this, in this chapter, in this verse". I don't care. I don't care, I don't believe in it, and I have the right, based on our Constitution, to not believe in it. (5 November 2018)"

"Co-workers looking at the leaked nudes from the hacking scandal while I judge them."

"San Francisco is terrifying. And it’s hilarious to me because the business community there wants to put lipstick on a pig. They want to put out this $4 million ad campaign pretending as though everything in San Francisco is all hunky-dory. It’s not hunky-dory. San Francisco is a nightmare."

"But you know what else is ineffective? Using taxpayer’s money, funneling it to non-profits so they can literally buy crack pipes and hand them out at Skid-Row… So, anyone on the left who wants to come at me and pretend like this is just a right-wing scare-mongering talking point, you’re full of crap."

"We spent $13 billion in Los Angeles alone last year to combat homelessness. You want to know where that money went? That money went to these trash non-profits who have a bunch of executives making half a million dollars a year. You are running a non-profit dealing with homelessness. That’s my money. That’s my parents’ money. Okay. That is the hard-working people of California paying incredibly high taxes that go to what?"

"So, yeah, I am sick of it. I am sick of it. And honestly, just experiencing what I have seen on the ground in California has made me question a lot about left-wing ideology."

"I say this about everything: when I was on Neighbours I said, 'These are the best years of my life!' When I was filming 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' I said, 'These are the best months of my life!' I always think I'm having the best time ever, and that I'll never have so much fun again."

"I made a conscious decision not to date actors, but not because I hate actors. That’s a nasty generalization to make, and that’s not the case… People take such an interest in your love life when you have a profile, it puts a lot of stress on a relationship. So two people with profiles, I figure it’s just double the amount of scrutiny, and I’d like to avoid that at all costs."

"I will never sell my soul for a paycheck. I don’t need the money because I’m not extravagant. I share my house in London with five roommates. I take the Tube—it’s free entertainment! I intend to stay the exact same person I always was; my family and friends keep me grounded."

"Everyone's like, 'overnight sensation.' It's not overnight. It's years of hard work."

"You can’t tuck your hair back the way you would, you can’t wipe away tears the way you would, because you’ve got nails that are an inch long. All your mannerisms change easily, when you have inch-long acrylic nails."

"The Muslims, in my opinion, should show magnanimity and [make] a noble gesture of gifting away the mosque."

"Women had internalized their subjugation of men as the latter were the breadwinners. Since then women have become quite conscious of their new status."

"I was told by Marrialle that there is lot of tension between Muslims and Christians... Like any other country Muslims are considered as violent and jihad is the main problem. These students also raised the question on Jihad... I told them that in Qur'an and in Arabic language jihad does not mean war. The word jihad and its derivatives occur 41 times in Qur'an but not even once for war. For war Qur'an uses the word qital and clearly says that fight only those in the way of Allah who fight against you and do not comment excesses as Allah does not love those who are aggressors. This clearly shows that Qur'an only permits war of defence, not war of aggression Thus in western countries too education system has become a powerful tool to spread misinformation and prejudices."

"Ms. Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, and people of their ilk are thoroughly westernized and have cut themselves adrift from their own roots. They talk like aliens and needlessly provoke their fellow religionists. Non-conformism has great creative and progressive potential provided it is based on some respectable value premises."

"These days Taslima Nasreen is the darling of the press. All this because she attacks religion in general and Islam in particular. Her reactions against Islam seem to be extreme. Either she has no patience or no understanding of the issues involved. A Genuine reformer does not draw pleasure from attacking certain contextual practices but seeks to reform them with profound knowledge and wisdom. This requires a great deal of patience with people. There are humanists, rationalists, and atheists, who blame everything on religion. They, like religious bigots, display complete impatience and want others to condemn religion and God. For them, the very idea of God is superstitious and anything ascribed to Him or His commands must be outright ridiculed. Taslima Nasreen belongs to this genre."

"These riot vultures do a lot of damage to India, among other reasons because they are so eagerly believed abroad.... Since approximately the Stone Age, Engineer has been travelling to riot spots in India (butchering of minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh somehow doesn’t interest him as much) with prefabricated riot reports invariably showing the same ingredients: Hindu pre-planning, Muslim victimhood, anti-Muslim complicity of the police and some local politicians. With the “facts” of the matter fixed beforehand, the main purpose of his visits is to note down some local names in order to give his reports more credibility. ... Undeniably, Asghar Ali Engineer remains a formidable master of disinformation. This makes him an excellent representative of Indian secularism and of the anti-temple campaign in particular."

"A hard-boiled Islamist whom Hansen and others naively mistake for an enlightened Muslim."

"Interestingly enough an academic conflict is going on between those who do not wish to tamper with facts (Mohammad Habib, S.S.A. Rizvi) and those who are determined to give a benign face to Islam (I.H. Qureshi, Mohammad Mujeeb, Ashgahar Ali Engineer)."

"The Liberal Democrats would like to have a referendum on the major issue of whether we are in or out of Europe"

"I first wrote to my MP when I was about 10. I always wanted to make a difference."

"Every day as the chaos unfolds, we see how hard leaving the European Union will be. Every form of Brexit will make us poorer, it will put jobs at risk and it will weaken us on the global stage. What was supposed to be the 'easiest trade deal in human history' has proved to be anything but. Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have learnt nothing from watching Theresa May negotiate our way out of Europe. Breaking a union of 40 years is destroying our country, I dread to think what dismantling a union of more than 300 years would do."

"We're a party that wants to remain in the European Union because of the huge benefits that gives us"

"We champion freedom - but Brexit will mean the next generation is less free to live, work and love across Europe"

"I will do whatever it takes to stop Brexit"

"I think it’s important that we challenge the idea that women who have babies are not fit for work and don’t have value. There is massive pregnancy discrimination, in parliament and right across society."

"There is no mandate for that (an independence referendum). The SNP have put forward this idea of indyref2 at subsequent elections and they have lost seats and lost votes. So I am confident that this is not what people in Scotland want. People in Scotland want to have Scotland in the UK and the UK in the EU, and that's what the Liberal Democrats are arguing for. And that's what as leader of the Liberal Democrats I'm going to do everything in my power to deliver."

"Instead of despairing at the world, let’s roll up our sleeves and change it."

"Planning for no deal, it's like saying you're going to plan for your house to burn down. You might get contents insurance, you're still going to lose all your stuff."

"Boris Johnson has finally got his hands on the keys to Number 10, but he has shown time and time again that he isn't fit to be the prime minister of our country. Whether it is throwing people under the bus or writing a lie on the side of one: Britain deserves better than Boris Johnson."

"The Liberal Democrats are crystal clear. We want to stop Brexit... If a Liberal Democrat majority government is elected, then we should revoke Article 50 and I think it's about being straightforward and honest with the British public about that."

"We will do all we can to fight for our place in Europe, and to stop Brexit altogether."

"We still want to have a People's Vote. We've been arguing for that for the last three-and-a-half years - [to put] the Brexit deal to the public in a referendum. [But] when we have an election, if we haven't had a People's Vote, people will be looking to resolve the issue of Brexit, and there are so many people in this country who are so sick of hearing about it. They want to get on with their lives and want the government to get on with making their lives better."

"The truth is you can't plan for no deal. Planning for no deal is like planning to burn your house down."

"The first task is clear. We must stop Brexit. There is no Brexit that will be good for our country."

"Even my five-year-old knows that if you do something wrong you have to say sorry"

"I'm proud to have been the first woman to have led the Liberal Democrats. I'm even more proud that I will not be the last. One of the realities of smashing glass ceilings is that a lot of broken glass comes down on your head."

"This heart is black like blood that has dried"

"Here’s to the ghost We still seem to host How he’s becoming us Here come the vultures Here come the vultures Screaming down at us"

"I once had an understanding that everything would go my way But now we’ve come too far along for me to hold on to my own beliefs."

"Aristotle makes it clear that the slave can only obey or follow orders, but cannot reason his own syllogism. The master reasons and the slave does. For that reason, it is difficult to imagine the slave after working hours except as an animal: resting, eating, roaming around, copulating. But these are not human acts when performed by the after-hours slave since they are not acts that are the end of practical syllogisms and only these are open to the kind of evaluation that Aristotle offers when he talks of practical wisdom and moral virtue."

"Anger has been excluded from the dominant group's profile of subordinates. When one gets angry, according to Spelman, one regards the person whose conduct one assesses as one's equal. So, we can understand why anger has been excluded from the personality profile of the subordinate. In excluding anger from their personality profile, dominant groups exclude subordinates from the category of moral agents, since to be angry is to make oneself a judge and to express a standard against which one assesses the person's conduct, both of which are marks of a moral agent. In becoming angry, subordinates signal that they take themselves seriously; they believe they have the capacity as well as the right to be judges of those around them."

"As I speak before this body today, I do so as the representative of a small country which intends to speak with a resolute and principled voice on the issues of substantive concern to the world today. The advent of our Revolution has signalled the beginning of the end of the most dangerous and vicious stage of the colonial experience, that which we recognise as neo-colonialism. This stage had seen us exposed to various constitutional manipulations, all of which had failed to hide the reality of economic bondage under imperialism. Moreover, this neo-colonial stage has also exposed our nation to the vicious, ruthless neo-fascist dictatorship of Eric Gairy. To you here at this renowned body, this petty dictator was known as "Mr. U.F.O.," but to us in Grenada this amusingly descriptive title did not hide the reality of a dictator whose closest links were with imperialism and international criminal elements and openly fascist and dictatorial regimes."

"Our Revolution in Grenada is a people's Revolution and as such one of the fundamental principles of our Revolution is the establishment of the people's rights. Among these rights, we include the right to equal pay for men and women, the right to social and economic justice, the right to work and the right to democratic participation in the affairs of our nation."

"Non-Alignment does not imply for us that we must be neutral in the sterile and negative sense, nor does it imply that our country must regard itself as a political eunuch in the conduct of our international affairs. Our Non- Aligned policy will certainly not lead us to surrender our independence of judgement in world affairs; or to retreat from our right and duty to fully participate in international forums and discussions concerned with issues vital to our interests, concerns and principles. To the contrary, non-alignment for us is a positive concept characterising a vigorous and principled approach to international issues. It is an affirmation of that fundamental attribute of all peoples and states to sovereignty, independence and the right to freely determine their own domestic and foreign policies."

"Consistent with our opposition to colonialism, imperialism and racism, we affirm today before this great assembly our firm support for the struggles being waged by the peoples of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa under the leadership of the Patriotic Front, SWAPO and ANC for their liberation and against apartheid and racism. We recognise and applaud the principled and consistent support being given to these struggles by the Front Line States. We express our firmest support for and solidarity with the struggles of the people of Palestine led by their sole and legitimate representatives, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). On this basis, we reject the Camp David Agreement which does not have the support of the Palestinian people, the PLO, the Arab World or the entire democratic, progressive and Socialist World. We reaffirm our support for the people of Western Sahara under the leadership of the Polisario Front in their struggle for independence and self determination. We call upon the people of Korea to continue the just struggle for the reunification of their homeland. We express our firm support for Heng Samrin government and the heroic people of Kampuchea - a Government which we recognised on the 20th of August last. We support the struggles of the government and people of Belize for independence with full territorial integrity. We also wish to express our strongest solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico in their struggle for independence. We fully support the ongoing and determined struggle of the government and people of Cuba in their fight to gain control over Guantanamo Bay. Our profound solidarity also goes to the government and people of Panama in their just struggle to recover the Panama Canal. We support fully the struggles of all the people of the Caribbean who are fighting for an end to colonialism."

"The peace of the world is a matter that concerns not only the rich and powerful nations, some of whom produce, purchase and deploy sophisticated weapons of mass destruction, but more profoundly, the poor, weak and small nations, who are the victims of the squander and waste that are characteristic of militarism."

"You can well understand the deep concern that we harbour for lasting peace. It is for this reason that we strongly support the efforts of the World Peace Council and any and all moves towards détente, peaceful co- existence and disarmament. The people of Grenada are gratified therefore that the Helsinki Final Act and now SALT II have been signed by both the U.K. and the U.S.S.R. We are however disturbed to note that reactionary elements who definitely have a vested interest in the prolongation of the arms race, have been making efforts to prevent the ratification of SALT II in the U.S. Senate."

"A wind of change is blowing through the Caribbean bringing with it a new regional balance of forces as a result of the changes towards progress by the peoples of Nicaragua, Grenada, St. Lucia and Dominica - a situation that has led the U.S. Secretary of State to define the Eastern Caribbean me one of the world's "trouble spots.""

"The present distribution of world economic power, wealth and living standards is manifestly unjust. It derives from the long history of imperialist expansion and control of the third world. We seek to change this order and to substitute for it a New International Economic Order."

"Our government is not afraid of criticism, in fact we welcome criticism. We believe that the Revolution has gained over the months some positive and constructive criticisms which have been made from time to time."

"It is the Cuban Revolution that has taught the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean how to face blockades, how to defeat criminal invasions of their territories."

"Certainly, we in Grenada will never forget that it was the military assistance of Cuba in the first weeks of our revolution that provided us with the basis to defend our own revolution."

"Your Revolution, Comrades, has also provided the region and the world with a living legend with your great and indomitable leader, Fidel Castro. Fidel has taught us not only how to fight, but also how to work, how to build socialism, and how to lead our country in a spirit of humility, sincerity, commitment, and firm revolutionary leadership."

"We, the people of this region, demand that our region is recognised and respected as a Zone of Peace. We demand an end to all military task forces and air and sea patrols of our region. We demand that the people of the region must be free from aggressive military harassment of any military power. We demand an end to the Monroe Doctrine and to the Carter Doctrine and all other doctrines which are aimed at perpetuating interventionism or backyardism in the region. There must be an end to all attempts to use the so-called peacekeeping apparatus of the Organization of American States to militarily intervene in the region, to hold back progressive and patriotic movements."

"People of Grenada, this revolution is for work, for food, for decent housing and health services, and for a bright future for our children and great grandchildren. The benefit of the Revolution will be given to everyone, regardless of political opinion or which political party they support. Let us all unite as one. All police stations are again reminded to surrender their arms to the people's revolutionary forces."

"I am appealing to all the people, gather at all central places all over the country, and prepare to welcome and assist the people's armed forces when they come into the your area. The Revolution is expected to consolidate the position of power within the next few hours. LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE OF GRENADA! LONGLIVE FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY! LET US TOGETHER BUILD A JUST GRENADA!"

"Weeks after the invasion, Grenadians were still smelling out and burying bodies which lay all over the island. The true casualty figures will never be known. No civilian body count is available. Even the bodies of Maurice Bishop and his slain ministers are never positively identified, no doubt to forestall any possible enshrinement by the people who loved him, no doubt to make the task of smearing his popular memory more easily accomplished. It has already begun."

"I question whether feminism can be defined without saying that it harbors an idealist political philosophy that calls for a thorough transformation of our society, that seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct the world so that it is habitable for girls, women, and our queer futurity."

"My feminist idealism will not yield to pragmatism because it feels like giving up on the future we want to have and in which we want to live."

"To Freud's confusion on what do women want, I would say we want to dismantle a racist and misogynist heteronormative patriarchy that sucks the life out of women."

"The (Chicano) movement to me is now like a mosaic with all these little pieces. The little pieces are the ones that are now being activated so that a poet like Lorna Dee Cervantes is her own little miniature movement. Francisco Alarcón, Norma Alarcón, José Limón, all the people who are writing are carrying out the struggle against domination and subordination in the kinds of things they focus on-language, folklore, just anything."

"Poet and critic Norma Aiarcón tells us that "poetry has been the single most important genre employed by Chicanas in order to grasp and give shape to their experience and desire.""

"as Norma Alarcón has argued in another context, in uncritically accepting the terms of the film's logic, critics like Limón continue "to recodify a family romance, an oedipal drama in which the woman of color of the Americas has no 'designated' place" (1995, 42)."

"If autobiographical fictions by women in general have been seen to disrupt the lifelines of male Bildungsromane in the European tradition, these Chicana stories do double duty, contesting both traditional European models and male Chicano models of lifetelling. Taken as a whole, their narratives contest unified or essentialist concepts of Chicana identity as they construct what Norma Alarcón calls "subjects-in-process" through the textual narrative (1996, 135). Their individual stories delineate a complex map of an ever-changing imagined community, no less real in fiction, that is differentiated by gender, generation, sexual preference, class, race, and regional distinctions."

"My first collection: Una puertorriqueña en Penna came out of those years and the racism I experienced while being a graduate student at Bryn Mawr College. Some of the poems are also a defense of my Puerto Rican culture and language. It is sad to say that the poems were not accepted by a Latino publishing house at the time because I did not write "like a woman." In other words, I was supposed to write about flowers, gardening and domestic chores. This first anthology was amplified to be the final book, En el país de las maravillas, which my dearest Chicana sister, Norma Alarcón, agreed to publish as the first book from her established press: Third Woman. Third Woman Press gave me a platform from which to publish without pressure from the establishment on thematics. They also published my next two books: ...Y otras desgracias and The Margarita Poems"

"Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me."

"He realized...that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious."

"Where does taste end and smell begin?"

"Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences."

"For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time."

"Photographs deceive time, freezing it on a piece of cardboard where the soul is silent."

"When Irina Bazili began working at Lark House in 2010, she was twenty-three years old but already had few illusions about life. (first line)"

""There are a lot of good people, Irina, but they keep quiet about it. It’s the bad ones who make a lot of noise, and that’s why they get noticed..." (p103)"

""...you shouldn't stay trapped in the past or be frightened of the future. You only have one life, but if you live it well, that’s enough. The only reality is now, today. What are you waiting for to be happy? Every day counts, I can tell you!" (p193)"

""...We are all born happy. Life gets us dirty along the way, but we can clean it up. Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it’s silent, tranquil, and gentle; it’s a feeling of satisfaction inside that begins with self-love..." (p194)"

"Write what should not be forgotten."

"our demons lose their power when we pull them out of the depths where they hide and look them in the face in broad daylight. (p249)"

"“It’s easy to judge others if you’ve never suffered an experience like that” (p250)"

"I am Inés Suárez, a townswoman of the loyal city of Santiago de Nueva Extremadura in the kingdom of Chile, writing in the year of Our Lord 1580. (first line)"

"How accommodating love is; it forgives everything. (p10)"

""They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail...Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us." (p264)"

"Alexander Cold awakened at dawn, startled by a nightmare. (first line)"

""With age, you acquire a certain humility...The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything. At your age, you can afford to commit the sin of arrogance, and it doesn't matter much if you look ridiculous" (p50)"

"According 2025"

"Jealousy. The person who hasn't felt it cannot know how much it hurts, or imagine the madness committed in its name. (p368)"

"love is a free contract that begins with a spark and can end the same way. A thousand dangers threaten love, but if the couple defends it, it can be saved; it can grow like a tree and give shade and fruit, but that happens only when both partners participate. (p369)"

"Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives. (p433)"

"Most of my writing is an attempt to bring an illusory order to the natural chaos of life, to decode the mysteries of memory, to search for my own identity. I have been doing it for several years, and I have achieved none of the above. My life is as messy as it always has been; my memory still works in mysterious ways-plus I am losing it!-and I still don't have a clear idea of who I really am. Most people would come to the same conclusion. We evolve, change, age. Nobody is carved in stone, except the very pompous or self-righteous."

"When I wrote my first novel, The House of the Spirits, I had no idea that literature was studied in universities and that people who had never written a book determined the value of others' writing. I simply thought that if a story had the power to touch a few readers, if it planted the seed of new ideas in them, if it seemed true and made a difference in somebody's life, it was valuable. Like most normal human beings, I had never read a book review. Word of mouth was how I chose the books I read."

"I never expected that the weird craft of writing would be of any interest to the general public, nor that a writer could become a sort of celebrity and be expected to behave like one. Writing is a very private matter that happens in silence and solitude-an introverted temperament is an asset in this job. Writing takes up an incredible amount of energy and time; there is very little left for anything else. But more and more the publishing industry forces the authors to become public figures and go around talking, reading, signing, and even selling their books. How can one be in the limelight and still write? Books deserve compassion. They are delicate creatures born to be accepted or rejected as a whole; they can't endure dissection under the microscope of the pathologist. Most writers are as vulnerable as their work. If you pin them against the wall and force them to explain the unexplainable, you might break them. I am afraid it's happening to me."

"Why do I write? This is a question that I often ask myself, although it is like trying to explain why I breathe. Writing is a matter of survival: if I don't write I forget, and if I forget it is as if I had not lived. That is one of the main reasons for my writing: to prevent the erosion of time, so that memories will not be blown by the wind. I write to record events and name each thing. I write for those who want to share the obligation of building a world in which love for our fellowmen and love for this beautiful but vulnerable planet will prevail. I write for those who are not pessimists and believe in their own strength, for those who have the certainty that their struggle for life will defeat all bad omens and preserve hope on earth. But maybe this is too ambitious... When I was younger, I thought I wrote only for the sake of those I cared for: the poor, the repressed, the abused, for the growing majority of the afflicted and the distressed of this earth, for those who don't have a voice or those who have been silenced. But now I am more modest. I think of my writing as a humble offering that I put out there with an open heart and a sense of wonder. With some luck, maybe someone will accept the offering and give me a few hours of his or her time so that we can share a story. And that story doesn't have to always be about the most solemn and transcendent human experiences. I find myself often writing for the same reason I read: just for the fun of it! Storytelling is an organic experience, like motherhood or love with the perfect lover; it is a passion that determines my existence. I am a story junkie. I want to know what happened and to whom, why and where it happened. Writing has been very healing for me because it allows me to exorcise some of my demons and transform most of my pain and losses into strength. Certainly I write because I love it, because if I didn't my soul would dry up and die."

"You think in words, for you, language is an inexhaustible thread you weave as if life were created as you tell it. I think in the frozen images of a photograph. Not an image on a plate, but one traced by a fine pen, a small and perfect memory with the soft volumes and warm colors of a Renaissance painting, like an intention captured on grainy paper or cloth. It is a prophetic moment; it is our entire existence, all we have lived and have yet to live, all times in one time, without beginning or end. From an indefinite distance I am looking at that picture, which includes me. I am spectator and protagonist. I am in shadow, veiled by the fog of a translucent curtain. I know I am myself, but I am also this person observing from outside. (from Prologue)"

""Tell me a story," I say to you. "What about?" "Tell me a story you have never told anyone before. Make it up for me." (last lines of Prologue)"

"She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she had been baptized with that name or given it by her mother, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of "beauty" and "twilight" and cloaked herself in it. She made her living selling words. (first lines of "Two Words")"

"There are all kinds of stories. Some are born with the telling, their substance is language, and before someone puts them into words they are but a hint of an emotion, a caprice of mind, an image, or an intangible recollection. Others are manifest whole, like an apple, and can be repeated infinitely without risk of altering their meaning. Some are taken from reality and processed through inspiration, while others rise up from an instant of inspiration and become real after being told. And then there are secret stories that remain hidden in the shadows of the mind, they are like living organisms, they grow roots and tentacles, they become covered with excrescences and parasites, and with time are transformed into the matter of nightmares. To exorcise the demons of memory, it is sometimes necessary to tell them as a story. (beginning of "Interminable Life")"

"Simple María believed in love. That was what made her a living legend. All her neighbors came to her funeral, even the police and the blind man from the kiosk who almost never abandoned his business. Calle República was vacated and, as a sign of mourning, black ribbons hung from balconies and the red lights turned off in the houses. Every person has his or her story, and in this barrio they were almost always sad, stories of poverty and accumulated injustice, of every form of violence, of children dead before term and lovers who had run away, but María's story was different; it had a glow of elegance that gave wing to the imagination. (beginning of "Simple María")"

"She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying. (p22)"

"That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities. (p125)"

"Barrabás came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy. She was already in the habit of writing down important matters, and afterward, when she was mute, she also recorded trivialities, never suspecting that fifty years later I would use her notebooks to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own. (first lines)"

"...Captain Longfellow—who, like most Englishmen, was kinder to animals than to people... (p31)"

"“This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice” (p162)"

""My son, the Holy Church is on the right, but Jesus Christ was always on the left.” (p182)"

"He felt that Christianity, like almost all forms of superstition, made men weaker and more resigned, and that the point was not to await some reward in the sky but to fight for one’s rights on earth. (p255)"

"Blanca argued that her reading should be monitored because there were certain things that were inappropriate for her age, but her Uncle Jaime felt that people never read what did not interest them and that if it interested them that meant they were sufficiently mature to read it. (p311)"

"The man and the little girl looked at each other, recognizing themselves in the other’s eyes. (p319)"

""Public opinion wouldn’t stand for it,” Gómez replied. “This is a democracy. It’s not a dictatorship and it never will be.” “We always think things like that only happen elsewhere,” said Miguel, “until they happen to us too.” (p367)"

"...and on the date stipulated by law the left calmly came to power. And on that date the right began to stockpile hatred. (p392)"

"She felt that everything was made of glass, as fragile as a sigh... (p430)"

"The coup gave them a chance to put into practice what they had learned in their barracks: blind obedience, the use of arms, and other skills that soldiers can master once they silence the scruples of their hearts. (p436)"

"The Poet’s funeral had turned into the symbolic burial of freedom. (p441)"

"I told her she had run an enormous risk rescuing me, and she smiled. It was then I understood that the days of Colonel Garcia and all those like him are numbered, because they have not been able to destroy the spirit of these women. (p487)"

"Because she lived under the big umbrella of my grandfather and she didn't have any education - she had three kids, had been abandoned by her husband, had no money - it was a horrible life. The only way she could get attention from her father or anybody else was by being sick. She didn't do it consciously. As a child I felt impotent and guilty because I felt that I couldn't help her in any way."

"Thank God – because what are you going to write about if you don’t struggle as a child? I don’t think that you become creative because you have struggled, no, but creative people are fuelled by anger and passion, and haunted by demons and memories."

"It would have been much better if I had started [writing novels] at 19. But I couldn't. I had to support a family, I wasn't ready. And I think I needed to lose my country to start writing, because The House of the Spirits is an attempt to recreate the country I had lost, the family I had lost."

"The theme of displacement is very natural for me. It always comes up in my books because I have been a foreigner all my life and I don’t feel I belong anywhere. I’m an immigrant."

"I imagined the structure of the novel like a braid. My job was to blend three strands evenly and neatly. Each piece of the braid represented one of the stories. The characters were very different but they had something in common: they were emotionally wounded by events of their past."

"I never try to give a message in my fiction. When I see that an author is trying to preach to me in a novel, I feel insulted. If I find a message, it should come between the lines; I will discover it if it resonates with me. The ideas, feelings and experiences of the author appear unavoidably in the writing."

"I can only write fiction in Spanish, because it is for me a very organic process that I can only do in my native language."

"The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses. As a writer, you select some part of a whole. You decide that those things are important and the rest is not. And you write about those things from your perspective. Life is not that way. Everything happens simultaneously, in a chaotic way, and you don't make choices. You are not the boss; life is the boss. So when you accept as a writer that fiction is lying, then you become free. You can do anything. Then you start walking in circles. The larger the circle, the more truth you can get. The wider the horizon—the more you walk, the more you linger over everything—the better chance you have of finding particles of truth."

"Everybody has a story and all stories are interesting if they are told in the right tone."

"I spend ten, twelve hours a day alone in a room writing. I don't talk to anybody. I don't answer the telephone. I'm just a medium or an instrument of something that is happening beyond me, voices that talk through me. I'm creating a world that is fiction but that doesn't belong to me. I'm not God; I'm just an instrument. And in that long, very patient daily exercise of writing I have discovered a lot about myself and about life. I have learned. I'm not conscious of what I'm writing. It’s a strange process—as if by this lying-in-fiction you discover little things that are true about yourself, about life, about people, about how the world works."

"People are complex and complicated—they seldom show all the aspects of their personalities. Characters should be that way too."

"To me a short story is like an arrow; it has to have the right direction from the beginning and you have to know exactly where you're aiming."

"a novel is patient and daily work, like embroidering a tapestry of many colors. You go slowly, you have a pattern in mind. But all of a sudden you turn it and realize that it’s something else."

"Happy endings usually don't work for me. I like open endings. I trust the reader’s imagination."

"I belong to the first generation of Latin American writers brought up reading other Latin American writers. Before my time the work of Latin American writers was not well distributed, even on our continent. In Chile it was very hard to read other writers from Latin America. My greatest influences have been all the great writers of the Latin American Boom in literature: García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Cortázar, Borges, Paz, Rulfo, Amado, etc. Many Russian novelists influenced me as well: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, Gogol, and Bulgarov. The English writers who had a big influence on me during my adolescence were Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. I loved mysteries and read all of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle. Also some American authors who were very popular in Spanish, like Mark Twain, Jack London, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others. I remember the lasting impression that Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird had on me. I read that book again every decade or so. From these books I got a sense of plot and strong characters. I discovered fantasy and eroticism in One Thousand and One Nights, which I read in Lebanon at age fourteen. At that time and in that place, girls didn't have much social life aside from school and family; we didn't even go to the movies. My only escape from a troublesome family life was reading. My stepfather had four mysterious leather volumes in his locked closet, forbidden books that I was not supposed to see because they were “erotic.” Of course I found a way to copy the key and get in the closet when he was not around. I used a flashlight, could not mark the pages, and read quickly, skipping pages and looking for the dirty parts. My hormones were raging and my imagination went wild with those fantastic tales. When critics call me a Latin America Sheherazade I feel very flattered! The American and European feminists that I read in my twenties gave me an articulate language to express the anger I felt against the patriarchy in which we all live. I started working at Paula, a Chilean feminist magazine, sharpening my ideas and my pen to defy the male establishment. It was the best time of my life. I have always liked movies, and sometimes an image or a scene or a character stays with me for years and inspires me when I write. For example: the magic in Fanny and Alexander or the story within a story of Shakespeare in Love."

"Pain is universal. We all experience pain, loss, and death the same way."

"The death of a child is the oldest sorrow of women. Mothers have lost children for millennia. It is only a privileged few who can expect all of their children to live."

"I work with emotions; language is the tool, the instrument."

"This sounds very corny but my life has been determined by two things that have been extremely important: love and violence. There is sorrow, pain, and death, but there’s another parallel dimension, and that is love. There are many forms of love, but the kind I am talking about is unconditional. For instance, the way we love a tree. We don't expect the tree to move or to do anything or to be beautiful. The tree is just a tree, and we love the tree because it’s a tree. You love an animal that way. We love children that way."

"The soul has no age."

"It’s strange that my work has been classified as magic realism because I see my novels as just being realistic literature. They say that if Kafka had been born in Mexico he would have been a realistic writer. So much depends on where you were born."

"the awareness of how powerful the written word can be: how you can tap into that world that we are talking about and discover things that would have been impossible to know if you didn't have that connection to a collective knowledge that comes through the writing."

"Short stories come to you whole. A novel is work—work, work, work—and then one day it’s over; it’s finished. But a short story is something that happens to you—it’s like catching the flu."

"Who wants to be in the mainstream?...Being marginal is like being a new immigrant. If you can transform marginality into something positive, instead of dwelling on it as something negative, it’s a wonderful source of strength."

"there are more similarities than differences when it comes to gender. Essentially, human beings are very similar, but we are stuck in the differences instead of highlighting the similarities."

"I have been a feminist all my life, fighting for feminist issues. When I was young, I fought aggressively. I was a warrior then. And now I am becoming more aware of those essential things we men and women have to explore and that could really bring us together. But don't get me wrong: I am a feminist and a very proud one!"

"you will find elements of magic realism in literature from all over the world—not just in Latin America. You will find it in Scandinavian sagas, in African poetry, in Indian literature written in English, in American literature written by ethnic minorities. Writers like Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, and Alice Hoffman all use this style."

"For a while, in the U.S. and Europe, a logical and practical approach to literature prevailed, but it didn't last very long. That’s because life is full of mystery. And the goal of literature is to explore those mysteries. It actually enlarges your horizons. When you allow dreams, visions, and premonitions to enter into your everyday life and your work as a writer, reality seems to expand."

"I do believe in destiny. I believe that we are dealt a hand of cards and we have to play the game of life as best we can. And often the cards are marked."

"I try to write the first sentence in a state of trance, as if somebody else was writing it through me. That first sentence usually determines the whole book. It’s a door that opens to an unknown territory that I have to explore with my characters. And slowly, as I write, the story seems to unfold itself, in spite of me. It just happens."

"Writing is like training to be an athlete. There is a lot of training and work that nobody sees in order to compete. The writer needs to write every day, just as the athlete needs to train. Much of the writing will never be used, but it is essential to do it. I always tell my young students to write at least one good page a day. At the end of the year they will have at least 360 good pages. That is a book."

"The role of the United States, not only in Latin America, but in many other places in the world, is unknown by many people in the United States. People here don’t know what the CIA and the American government has done abroad. And we know, because we are the ones who suffered it."

"We see stuff on TV that doesn’t look real. It looks like a video game. We don’t see the collateral damage."

"When I came to this country, I was willing to embrace everything that was good, fight against everything I thought was awful, and not lose what I brought with me, which is my language, my traditions, my way of living, hospitality, and many things that we Latins have."

"What shocks me about the issue of immigration is that globally, capital has no borders. Money goes wherever money wants to go. There are no borders, no laws, nothing, for the capitalists. And yet, for labor, for the workers, there are fences, electrified fences and bullets."

"I think that the reason to live is to learn. We come here to experience through the body things that the spirit could not experience otherwise. So we need this body, and we have to transform this body into a temple of learning. (1997)"

"I was influenced by all of them-by García Márquez, by Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso, so many of them-some of my own generation, like Eduardo Galeano. It's easy for me to write because I don't have to invent anything. They already found a voice, a way of telling us to ourselves, so it's easy. (1994)"

"when you look for the motivations you always go to the basic instincts, to the basic emotions, the basic things that have moved humankind always. That's what all writers write about, ultimately. What did Shakespeare write about? Jealousy, love, sex, power, greed, the same stuff that soap operas and the Bible are made of. It's always the same. (1994)"

"Right now I am reading a group of women writers that belong to ethnic minorities in this country. They are great writers, Chicanas, Japanese, Latinas. They are writing extraordinary works, and they are taking over the world of literature that the white men in New York monopolized. Minimalist literature is dying. And it was about time. We are seeing a return to great narrations, to the baroque narrative. We are seeing a return to artistry in words, in sentences, in the extravagance of the story itself. I am very attracted by that...Toni Morrison heads that movement. (1993, translated from Spanish by Virginia Invernizzi)"

"silence can also enrich you very much. Maya Angelou talks about a long period in her childhood when she was silent, and during those years she turned evil into action. All the evil that had happened to her she was raped-was turned into a positive strength, into energy, because of those years of silence. She reinterpreted the world, recreated reality. In a way, I think, that happened to me, too. Not as dramatically as it happened to her, but those years of silence were very necessary. Now that I've been talking and talking and talking in these lectures and in these seminars and courses and teaching, I have the feeling that all my energy is gone out, so I've decided that I will stop all interviews, all lectures. I will only do those I've already agreed to do. I will finish these obligations on October 1. And then it's my time of silence, because I need silence. Without silence I can't write. (1991)"

"There is a wonderful sentence, a statement, by one of Bertolt Brecht's characters, he says: "I am that man that goes around with a brick in his hand, to show the world how his house was." And that's the way I feel about my books in a way, that they are my bricks. I can show people what I believe my world was, so I've not lost it. (1990)"

"The best literature in this country now is being written by minorities, black women first, Chinese Americans, Chicanos, Japanese-Americans. These people are writing wonderful literature that totally defies the standards of WASP literature that is always in the New York Times, and I love it. (1990)"

"The first person to name that movement "Magical Realism," to give a label to that, was Alejo Carpentier...he abandoned the surrealists and searched in our roots, in our history, in our legends, in our folklore. He was the first one to label it. And it was wonderful because it was like giving permission to other writers to finally use their own voices. Because before that our writers were always trying to imitate Europeans, or North Americans, and were denying all our Indian background, our African influence, our own languages, and legends, and myths. This was just an open door for all that. I think that was the beginning of the Boom. That really gave a lot of people permission to do anything. But it's not a literary device, it's part of our life. The magic is still there. Because magic, in my case, stands for emotions...Maybe we deal with them in different forms, but we all feel them in the same way (1990)"

"I acknowledge that One Hundred Years, like the works of Borges, Cortázar, Donoso, Neruda, Amado, among others, opened the road for me."

"The written word is an act of human solidarity. I write so that people will love each other more."

"The political future of Chile is a democracy, without a doubt."

"For me, feminism is a fight that men and women must wage for a more educated world, one in which the basic inequality between the sexes will be eliminated. We have to change the patriarchal, hierarchical, authoritarian, repressive societies that have been marked by the religions and the laws that we have had to live with for thousands of years. This goes a lot deeper than not wearing a bra, or the sexual and cultural revolutions. It is a revolution that must go to the heart of the world, and that all of us must fight, women and men alike. Both sexes are on a ship without a course, and we must give it a new direction."

"I don't pretend to be anyone's voice. I have been very lucky to be published in Europe, and I say lucky because there are women who have been writing in Latin America since the seventeenth century, like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The problem is that few people ever talk about them. Their work is rarely taught at the universities, there is no literary criticism on them, and they are not published, translated or distributed."

"When I write, I fly to another dimension. Like Eva Luna, I try to live life as I would like it to be, as in a novel. I am always half flying, like Marc Chagall's violinists."

"Daily life is brimful of fantasy and at the same time books are saturated with reality. I feel that all things float within the realm of the possible. As a reader I let myself be carried away by the enchantment of a story, without worrying too much about its authenticity. As a writer I abandon myself in the same way to the necessity of telling, convinced that if something is not exactly true at this moment, it may be so tomorrow. That's the way I have found it to be in my work."

"I visualized the book as a string of beads. Each anecdote, each character, was a separate bead strung on one string. That is why I wanted to close the book where it began, as if one had fastened the clasp of a necklace. I also wanted to show that life goes in a circle, that events are intertwined, and that history repeats itself. There is no beginning and no end."

"(About The House of Spirits) All the women in my book are feminists in their fashion; that is, they ask to be free and complete human beings, to be able to fulfill themselves, not to be dependent on men."

"I do realize that human beings are the same everywhere; the differences are not so great. This story of the Trueba family could have happened anywhere."

"When I left Chile, after the military coup, I lost in one instant my family, my past, my home. I felt like a tree without roots, destined to dry up and die. For many years I was paralyzed by a kind of stupor and by nostalgia, but one day in January of 1981, I decided to recover what I had lost. I sat down to write the story of a family similar to mine, the story of a country that could be mine, a continent resembling Latin America... It was almost the act of a conjurer."

"Democratic values have never disappeared from Chile. We must not confuse the Chilean nation with the dictatorship that is ruling it now. Chile is its people, its land, its past, its present, and its future. Pinochet and the evil ones who are with him are an accident in the long life of my country. They will go into history as a misfortune that darkened the sky, but they will go."

"My work as a journalist has been fundamental in my literary creations. Journalism taught me to know and love words, the tools of my trade, the material of my craft. Journalism taught me to search for truth and to try to be objective, how to capture the reader and to hold him firmly and not let him escape. It taught me to synthesize ideas and to be precise about events. And above all, it rid me of any fear of the blank page."

"Already many critics accuse Allende of imitating Garcia Márquez' novel, especially because she writes about a Latin American family, the Truebas, who, just like the Buendia family of the Colombian author, inhabit a world of magic and eccentric spirits. But Isabel Allende differs from García Márquez: she writes a feminocentric saga of free-spirited women who not only play the piano with the cover closed or make objects levitate, but also participate openly in the fight against tyranny and repression...With this book Isabel Allende joins the many spirited women who have chosen to speak for the voiceless and have had the courage to denounce the wrongdoings of their countries. She has written this novel so that all of us can remember the story of a country like Chile which had a freely elected government that was never given a chance to rule. (And there are parallels between the experience of Chile and that of other Latin American nations such as Nicaragua and El Salvador.) The House of the Spirits reclaims Chile's right to exist on its own terms. Allende writes this story because she does not want the humane and generous Chile to be forgotten. The House of the Spirits, then, is not only Chile but a metaphor for a besieged Latin America."

"I liked House of the Spirits a lot, but I wouldn't say it influenced me. A sort of brotherly - or should I say sisterly - relationship can certainly be found between House of the Spirits and Tree of Life. This year I experimented with a course entitled "Do women of the Americas have a common literature?" I selected Allende, Marita Golden... and of course Tree of Life. However, I cannot say that I consider Isabel Allende a major writer. It seems to me that as a writer, she is less comprehensive, less accomplished than Garcia Marquez."

"I come from the so-called Third World," wrote the Chilean novelist and memoirist Isabel Allende after September 11, 2001, a day that also marked the twenty-eighth anniversary of a U.S.-sponsored coup d'état against her uncle, Salvador Allende. Still, she writes, "Until only a short time ago, if someone had asked me where I'm from, I would have answered, without much thought, Nowhere; or, Latin America; or, maybe, In my heart I'm Chilean. Today, however, I say I'm an American, not simply because that's what my passport verifies, or because that word includes all of America from north to south, or because my husband, my son, my grandchildren, most of my friends, my books, and my home are in northern California; but because a terrorist attack destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and starting with that instant, many things have changed. We can't be neutral in moments of crisis...I no longer feel that I am an alien in the United States."

"The New York Times Book Review said of Isabel Allende that she is "the first woman to join what has heretofore been an exclusive male club of Latin American novelists." Her voice stands out as a spectacular outcry of the "magically real." Like the Argentine novelist Luisa Valenzuela, she has inherited the spellbound qualities of the "Boom," the literary explosion of the 1960s, when a group of young Latin American writers brought new dimensions and vitality to the Spanish language. Her characters, mostly women, move between the supernatural and the everyday life with extraordinary ease…Meeting Isabel Allende and listening to her is a rewarding experience. She tells her story in an unpretentious way, insisting on the fact that she knows nothing about literature. We fall under her charm and we can see why her characters talk the way they do: with persuasion and magic, and in a natural and straightforward manner."

"I really liked Isabelle Allende's House of the Spirits...But I also think that their [her and Garcia Márquez's] sense of indigenous people and the land is very limited. It has been pointed out that Allende uses this sort of mythos, the Indian people, as part of the novel, but they don't really appear in her work as people, as full beings."

"I think we are all gifted as children, but we aren’t gifted with the same gifts. In crowded, poor schools, an overwhelmed teacher can’t always help us discover what our gifts are. I am grateful my mom was a frustrated artist. At home we drew murals, created puppet shows, had craft hours, went to the library, visited museums. I’m certain without my mom, I wouldn’t have been an artist today."

"It’s memorable because it makes you either laugh or cry. If a story’s really good, it does both. Sometimes it’s not the story’s fault if it doesn’t stay with you, because you’re too old or too young for it. I feel that, in the Native American sense, the story cycles; there are different times of your life that a story may come to you. You don’t remember it, and then you hear. it again or read it again later in your life, and because of what’s happened in your life it’s distinct from the first time you heard it."

"I think my work still has a distinctive voice that is uniquely mine—and that voice is one of a person speaking Spanish in English. By that I mean that I write with the syntax and sensibility of Spanish, even when there isn’t a syllable of Spanish present. It’s engrained in the way I look at the world, and the way I construct sentences and stories. I was not aware of this when I wrote House, but I’m conscious of it now. What remains the same? Well, I am still as astonished by the world and as intuitive/foolish as ever, but I am aware that this is a good thing, and not ashamed of it as I was when I was young. The difference now is that I know myself. I think my writing is wiser, and, I hope, more complex."

"If I had to speak about anything that was difficult in my life now looking back at it, I would say the most difficult part was how the world made you feel about being poor, about being a girl. And, later, how painful it was navigating the world as a young woman. A lot of times I found myself in disastrous situations because I was such an innocent/idiot. It left me damaged as a human being for decades. I think having been beautiful was a cross, and I’m grateful I’m no longer young and no longer beautiful in that same way."

"The only reason we write—well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn’t generalize—is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got to be who we are. I have to understand my ancestors—my father, his mother and her mother—to understand who I am. It all leads back to the narcissistic pleasure of discovering yourself."

"I don’t take it personally. It has nothing to do with me, or with my book. The book is being taught because it is telling a story that has spiritual resonance at this time in history. It is serving a need, it is doing its healing, it is transmitting light, but I was just the conduit for that light, not the source. I am grateful that the timing was right for my labor to be recognized, and that the readers were ready to hear this story at this time. I am fortunate and blessed to be the flute, but I recognize and acknowledge I am not the music."

"I like living in a town not dominated by cars. I like living in a small community where artists from around the world come and go. I like living in a town with big sky and big clouds, and where you can connect with things of the spirit easily. It’s both stimulating and peaceful all at once. It makes me want to write."

"Of course I like to write about love, but then I’ll ask, how is Mexican love different from American love? I’ll look at the Mexican models of love, and that leads me to the true Mexican love. True love in Mexico isn’t between lovers; it’s between a parent and a child. Mexico is a very intense culture of sons adoring their mothers, and this is why I claim that Mexican culture is matriarchal. Because the one constant, faithful, inviolable, holy love of loves—the love of your life—is not your wife or your lover; it’s your mother."

"In Chicana writing the love between a grandmother and a granddaughter is holier than the relationship between a mother and a daughter because the mother and daughter have to deal with the reality of the everyday, whereas the grandmother can be revered from afar. Especially if she’s dead, she becomes this mythic symbol in Chicana literature."

"my favorite writers are, right now Merce Rodoreda, Grace Paley, Juan Rulfo, Manuel Puig, Marguerite Duras - these are my favorite writers. I'm trying to reach that world level. I think that we should always aim for that level."

"Language is much better than throwing stones; language is much, much stronger."

"Working-class women's literature, women of color, specifically Latina women's writing like my friend Ana Castillo's, or my friend Cherrie Moraga's, Helena Viramontes's, Elena Poniatowska's, and Marguerite Duval's sends me all the way to my typewriter as much as Manuel Puig's stories."

"Books are medicine. What heals me may not be the right prescription for anyone else."

"Even if a language disappears, I believe a worldview, a syntax, a cadence survives from which the conquering language builds upon, like the stones the Spanish conquistadores gathered from the Indigenous temples to build their Catholic churches. Something like that is happening in our poetic inheritance. Something old and ancient and sacred survives in the spoken word, which is fascinating for those of us who are word-workers."

"I’m on a mission to make up for the huge gaps in my miseducation as a woman of color...At this point in my life, I want to read the classics from the Americas, from Mexico, from women, from the working class, from the Indigenous communities, from everyone who hasn’t been allowed to the podium before."

"(Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?) Luis Rodriguez, Edwidge Danticat, Natalie Diaz, Rigoberto González, Virginia Grise, Joy Harjo, Helena Maria Viramontes, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Denise Chávez, Manuel Muñoz, Dorothy Allison, Levi Romero, John Phillip Santos, Charles M. Blow, Jorge Ramos, Carmen Aristegui, Elena Poniatowska, Luis Alfaro and every Mexican journalist who puts their life in danger by writing the truth. And, I hear a chavalo named Lin-Manuel in New York is pretty good."

"It’s important that young people find the right books that speak to them at the right time, otherwise you might be encouraging them to dislike reading."

"For me the great shame and dolor of our times is the story of immigrant children."

"(What moves you most in a work of literature?) I’m not yet the writer I aspire to be, but at my age, great books written by women over 60 give me hope. Diana Athill, Colette, Harriett Doerr, Marguerite Duras, Grace Paley, Elena Poniatowska, Jean Rhys, Mercé Rodoreda, to name but a few."

"I would never want to offend any writer by publicly admitting which books I’ve put down; it’s not the writer’s fault we didn’t click. Maybe the book arrived too early or too late in my life. If I sense a book isn’t likely to make me a better writer or a better human being, I release it. I have to. At 66 I haven’t got a lot of time left before I transmogrify into a maguey."

"A sensitive, compassionate witness, Cisneros re-creates the neighborhood in which she grew up, evoking the smells and tastes and feelings. The effects of sexism, poverty, racism, and the loss of culture and language are told with searing simplicity…Cisneros's telling is relentless, clear in its simplicity. Her anger is palpable, but no words of anger are actually written. Experiences about race and class and sex are put into word pictures. The entrapment of women is drawn in big, thick lines across the page. Sobreviviendo, bearing witness, out of love, so that what has been (and still is) will not be erased. The stories are pieced together like a quilt, arranged so that women can see how it is and has been, can see the lines of connection between themselves as women, as Chicanas, as poor people in the barrio, can think about how they might want it to be, how they could get there. That Cisneros, like Alice Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks, chose to piece her stories like a quilt speaks to the significance of the quilting process as a way of thinking. "Each day is a tapestry," Deena Metzger has written, the piecing a reflection of the structure of daily life."

"Sandra Cisneros is one of the most brilliant of today's young writers. Her work is sensitive, alert, nuanceful. It is rich with music and picture.""

"At all times, Sandra Cisneros has penned poetry of utterly divine language and imagery."

"the poem "Poet's Progress" is to Sandra, reflecting on our lives...There is a great satisfaction that comes from being in the life that one has chosen. When I say, "Save me from a stupid life," I mean an unquestioned life, those unexamined choices that Sandra and I were both expected to make. We both chose poetry, which, to me, is the exact opposite of the stupid life."

"Sandra Cisneros…has done so much to help other writers…There had been some earlier Chicano works, like Pocho, a novel that came out in 1959. But none of these earlier works really made an impact that showed that there was a great demand for Chicano literature. I think Sandra Cisneros made inroads there…Sandra wasn't the earliest Chicana writer either. But she was the one who stimulated the interest in Chicano and Chicana writing."

"A further measure of the importance of the feminism of women of color was the tremendous efflorescence in their fiction. The writings of Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, and Louise Erdrich, among others, played a major role in bringing the feminist message and perspective to the masses of American women."

"Sandra Cisneros has a gift and an attitude we should all be grateful for."

"All poets would do well to follow the example of Sandra Cisneros, who takes no prisoners and has not made a single compromise in her language."

"Sandra Cisneros's stories are pure poetry."

"Texts like the poetry of Sandra Cisneros were a lifeline. Here was a Mexican girl from Chicago who'd become a writer and traveled alone through Europe."

"I define solidarity in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together. Diversity and difference are central values here — to be acknowledged and respected, not erased in the building of alliances."

"The most important message, which we have also learned from the work of Chandra Mohanty and Jacqui Alexander, is that we can never assume that the category “women” equally represents all women. [There are] hierarchies of race and class, and now that we have begun to challenge the binary assumptions behind gender, we can say hierarchies of gender as well. Where, for example, does a transgender woman figure into the hierarchy?"

"A developing consciousness on the woman question today, therefore, must not fail to recognize that the Negro question in the United States is prior to, and not equal to, the woman question; that only to the extent that we fight all chauvinist expressions and actions as regards the Negro people and fight for the full equality of the Negro people, can women as a whole advance their struggle for equal rights. For the progressive women's movement, the Negro woman, who combines in her status the worker, the Negro, and the woman, is the vital link to this heightened political consciousness."

"if what I say here serves even one whit to further dedicate growing millions of Americans to fight for peace and to repel the fascist drive on free speech and thought in our country, I shall consider my rising to speak worthwhile indeed."

"Will you measure as worth of one year’s sentence, my passionate adherence to the idea of fighting for full unequivocal equality for my people, the Negro people, which as a Communist I believe can only be achieved allied to the cause of the working class? A year for another vital Communist belief, that the bestial Korean War is an unjust war? Or my belief that peaceful coexistence of nations can be achieved and peace won if struggled for? Another year for my belief that only under socialism will exploitation of and by man be finally abolished and the great human and industrial resources of the nation be harnessed for the well-being of the people? Still another year’s sentence for my belief that the denial of the exercise of free speech and thought to Communists only precedes, as history confirms, the denial of the exercise of these rights to all Americans?"

"I find now, as throughout this trial of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, that it is we, the defendants, who are morally free and conversely it is the prosecutors and the Court itself that stands naked before the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and the people of our country."

"It was the world-renowned Karl Marx, founder of the Marxist-Leninist science, for which application to American and world historical conditions, we were so fearfully convicted, who long ago predicted that “The time would come when the powers that would be would no longer live by the very laws they themselves have fashioned.”"

"The thinking process, as your Honour well knows, is a process that defies jailing."

"racist ideas, so integral a part of the desperate drive by the men of Wall Street to war and fascism"

"One thought pervaded me throughout this trial and pervades me still, and it is this: In the nine and one half months of this trial, millions of children have been born. I speak only of those who live. Will the future oft those children, including those of our defendants and even you Honour’s grandchildren, be made more secure by the jailing of 13 men and women Communists whose crimes are not criminal acts but advocacy of ideas? Is this not a tyrannical violation of the American dream of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"

"I had early experience experiences which are shared by millions of native-born Negroes — the bitter indignity and humiliation of second-class citizenship, the special status which makes a mockery of our Government’s prated claims of a “free America” in a “free world” for 15 million Negro Americans."

"Marxism-Leninism — that philosophy that not only rejects racists ideas, but is the antithesis of them."

"One need only be a Negro in America to know that for the crime of being a Negro we are daily convicted by a Government which denies us elementary democratic rights, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold judgeships, to serve on juries, rights forcibly denied in the South and also in the North."

"I want to concur with Mr. Perry’s proposal to Mr. Lane that he recommend to the Department of Justice that they show more zeal, since they have not ever prosecuted a single anti-Semite or a Ku Kluxer in these United States with its total of 5,000 lynched Negro men, women and Children since the 1860s."

"one of the historical truths of all history is that the oppressed never revere their oppressors."

"And this, Honourable Judge, is exactly what is the purpose of all Smith Act trials, this one in particular. I share the faith of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Pettis Perry and all my c –defendants that America’s working people, Negro and white, will surely rise, not like sheep, but with vigilance towards their liberty, to assure that peace will win and that the decadent Smith Act, which contravenes the Bill of Rights, will be swept from the scene of history."

"It was the great Frederick Douglass, who had a price on his head, who said “Without struggle, there is no progress.” And echoing his words was the answer of the great abolitionist poet, James Russell Lowell: “The limits of tyranny is proscribed by the measure of our resistance to it”."

"If, out of this struggle, history assesses that I and my co-defendants have made some small contribution, I shall consider my role small indeed. The glorious exploits of anti-fascist heroes and heroines, honoured today in all lands for their contribution to social progress, will, just like the role of our prosecutors, also be measured by the people of the United States in that coming day."

"As Carole Boyce Davies has pointed out in her wonderful book on Claudia Jones, Left of Karl Marx, Claudia Jones was one of the leaders of the Negro Youth Congress (the American Negro Youth Congress and the Southern Youth Congress). And I mention Jones both because of her important work in the US and because she became a pivotal figure in the organizing of Caribbean communities here in Britain after she was arrested for the work she did in the US and eventually deported. How can we counteract the representation of historical agents as powerful individuals, powerful male individuals, in order to reveal the part played, for example, by Black women domestic workers in the Black freedom movement?"

"I will be strong to keep my mind and soul outside a prison,/Encouraged and inspired by ever loving memories of you."

"The Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Foley Square case on June 4, 1951. Just over two weeks later FBI agents in New York rounded up such "second string" leaders as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Pettis Perry, and Claudia Jones. After that we knew it couldn't be long before the arrests came in other places."

"Whereas for Claudia Jones the structural position of black people-black women in particular-in the political economy placed them in the vanguard of the revolution, for Paul Robeson it was their culture that gave the black movement its special insight and character."

"The other great tragedy, for the black freedom movement in particular, was the silencing of radical leadership. Robeson, Du Bois, and Claudia Jones were among the many victims of statesponsored anticommunist witch hunts."

"The position of women has been debated in socialist and communist circles, but even there it is usually left as a question. And black women specifically? They have never been a primary subject of the American Left, always falling somewhere in the cracks between the Negro Question and the Woman Question. As we've seen, key interventions by the likes of Ida B. Wells or Claudia Jones attempted to disrupt color- and class-struggle-as-usual, but few leftists paid attention."

"My feminism is the feminism of Claudia Jones, whose experiences of intense racism and working-class poverty led her to communism, who proposed Black self-determination as a guiding principle of communist organizing and was jailed for an anti-imperialist Women's Day speech. She criticized the left for failing to uproot male supremacy, and the elite feminists who ignored race and class and framed their struggles as a war between the sexes, and wrote that "the triply oppressed status of negro women is a barometer of the status of all women.""

"They grew up very Americanized, in West Los Angeles, and even though the community was very Mexican, they grew up listening to radio shows, being very much influenced by movies, by things like that. So between 1920 and 1940 it was very interesting time, where they were really trying to discover what it was to be American, even though my grandmother and grandfather were Mexican. It was a time that I’m excavating myself in my work because it was such a transition for them…"

"If we know each other’s history, we will be able to see parallels in this history. If the black students knew about the Jazz Quarter and the incredible historic events, I bet they would feel a certain pride. And the Central Americans would understand that there was a transformation and maybe have a little respect. Perhaps then there would maybe be more conversation between them. But if we don’t find those parallels, there’s going to be an incredible war."

"Nobody has the degrees, the historical context, to tell you you’re not someone that you think you are. Nobody has that right…"

"I think it had to have begun pretty early on, [with] that life passion for the curiosity of people's lives and for their stories. As a kid, I would love to listen to my mother and to my aunt talking. When they would sit around the table to do tamales, for example – making tamales is a communal effort. One person can't make tamales, it's got to be a number of people. And so, several of my aunts and my mother would sit down around the table to put masa on the corn husks. And as they were doing that, they would share stories, share jokes, laugh, remember things, and I would love sitting under the table and just listening to all this…"

"There's tons of books out there about writers who suffer insecurities, who suffer all kinds of other ailments. To live in your head for a long time is a difficult thing, especially in terms of novelists, where you have this whole blueprint of this world in your head. I feel like, because I'm so much in my head, I forget that I have a real life, you know? That's a major challenge…"

"Since the advent of Black power, the Black male has exerted a more prominent leadership role in our struggle for justice in this country. He sees the system for what it really is for the most part. But where he rejects its values and mores on many issues, when it comes to women, he seems to take his guidelines from the pages of the Ladies' Home Journal."

"Let me state here and now that the Black woman in America can justly be described as a "slave of a slave.""

"Those who are exerting their "manhood" by telling Black women to step back into a domestic, submissive role are assuming a counter-revolutionary position."

"The new world we are attempting to create must destroy oppression of any type. The value of this new system will be determined by the status of the person who was low man on the totem pole."

"Once you have caught a glimpse of freedom or experienced a bit of self-determination, you can't go back to old routines that were established under a racist, capitalist regime."

"There was so much joy in the making of this film, despite the fact that it’s about such a sad, traumatic experience…We all felt like we were part of something so real and so necessary. It was a joy to go on set every day and tell these real people’s story. Doing this movie, I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it."

"I was completely overwhelmed…The body registers stress, whether good or bad, in the same way. So if it’s super exciting or super traumatising, your body is in equal distress. Though I would choose excitement over trauma every day."

"Don’t sweat the small stuff."

"It's because of the prevalence of whiteness, Eurocentric standards of beauty that we experience this. You know? And it is subconscious. Colorism is the daughter of racism. But sometimes it seems like racism has had amnesia (laughter). You know? And so that's why I wrote this - to hopefully bring it to the fore and people can address it."

"I find a lot of gratitude in my first years on this planet because having to identify - or having to not rely on how I look like to seduce or to get by in life really meant that I had to cultivate other aspects of myself - my personality, my character - and get a sense of self-worth from something other than people complimenting what I look like. And now, after that, I relish in the compliment. But I do know that external beauty will fade. And hopefully, I have cultivated and I continue to cultivate enough internal beauty to sustain me through the years when I am not such a hot pick."

"Hunger is a defining issue for our world and climate change is worsening the problem. We must work to change this dynamic."

"Women’s issues are human issues. Hunger is a human issue and therefore hunger is a women’s issue."

"“There are tons of Black women completely capable and are darn good at that,”"

"“To me it felt like a question about our value system in this culture, the ways we define success for ourselves as well as others,”"

""...I turned down a few projects to pursue this one. I knew there was a sense of what was expected of me, but this play felt so important to me that I had to do it, expectations be damned.”"

"“As an African woman, I am wary of the trap of telling a single story… the chance to appear in Eclipsed after winning an Oscar was an opportunity to share in the incredible (and too rare) freedom of playing a fully rendered African woman.”"

"“It was so nice to have someone embrace that and encourage it, because I never knew that I would start my career and that would be called for. So, it was just really lovely to bring my full self to this without any sort of pretense,”"

"My default is not to feel unwelcome. My default is to seek welcome."

"“I always want to feel like myself on the red carpet—an elevated version of myself, but myself nonetheless.”"

"“It’s such a no-brainer to be able to use this platform.”"

"“I was dismissed, confused, and alone.”"

"“We need better education, early diagnosis, and improved treatments.”"

"“No more suffering in silence.”"

"“My look for tonight is quite pearly, I would say, and it feels like water.”"

"“I wanted her hair to embody the detail and discipline of haute couture.”"

"I grew up with aunties that had their chests out, they fought the system in all sorts of ways, and in many ways rose to the top of their lines of work."

"I think ultimately that mentality that you can be whatever you put your mind to, and that the world you want to see is worth fighting for, won over."

"I definitely surprise myself with how much of a warrior spirit I have sometimes, because I think that politically, socially, and culturally there are wars to be fought."

"“I like to play women who are in contrast to me. I think that’s how I look at it: What aspect of this character offers me a chance to explore something new about my humanity?”"

"…For a long time, it debilitated me a lot. Nothing that I wrote was good enough. I’d start writing then be like, “Nope. This is sh–.” And that was a really negative experience to have with my writing, because the more I said that, it was almost like the writing in my heart would cower into a corner and be like, “I’m not coming out.” I really had to work through a few weeks of being kind to myself and saying, “Your job is to get to the desk, have your pen out, and write, write, write, write.” You have to get through the bad stuff before you can get to the pit of everything that you really enjoy…"

"People aren’t used to poetry that’s so easy and simple."

"I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student – but I knew I was never going to be picked up. All their writing was, you know, about the Canadian landscape or something. And my poem is about this woman with her legs spread open."

"When you see someone who looks like your mom there and she’s like ‘this puts so much of my pain into something concrete that I can hold,’…That’s when I’m like okay, I’m doing something right and I just want to keep doing it."

"As social institutions, universities act to maintain the hierarchical nature of the status quo by excluding most of the population from its classrooms while ensuring that a small number are trained and certified to supervise others. In Gramscian terms, in the post-Civil Rights era black academics have functioned and continue to function as intellectuals in particular and politically contradictory ways in the "ensemble of the system of relations in which these activities have their place within the general complex of social relations." Are we meant to function as the black gatekeepers, ensuring the production, perpetuation, and maintenance of a small, black, middle-class elite, in the hope that this elite will act as a force to control the rebellious tendencies of the black oppressed?"

"My parents did not trust me there was a lot of mistrust…There was this skepticism about white people because of what they had gone through. And I didn't associate with any white people except when I got to junior high."

"In the end, you know, this whole thing about the feminist movement and the feminist art movement, in the end, when it comes down to it, as a Chicana artist, I know what my father has gone through, I know what my husband and my brothers have gone through, and I know what my nephews are going to go through with discrimination and racism. You know, I have to support them. They are my family. And I've seen it now more and more where white women are turning their back against men of color. You know, so their support isn't there as much as they vowed to do. You know, even though they're a minority…"

"I wanted to have these kinds of images because other Chicano artists were doing imagery that was very political, sending messages about oppression and discrimination, honoring the great muralists in Mexico, and protesting the Vietnam war because a lot of Chicanos had been drafted into the army. There were a lot of protests against the war and the draft. I just wanted to focus on the every day life that we’re all very familiar with. We needed to re-celebrate that: the beautiful things that we have always known and grown up with…"

"I grew up with a lot of discrimination and racism though we were in South Texas it was still very prevalent and I had to deal with a lot of it in the public school system. In the elementary school we were punished for speaking Spanish, physically punished for speaking Spanish. So you’re made to feel ashamed. When the farm workers came through Kingsville on their march to Austin, the capital of Texas, we were very excited. The most obvious issues that were being discussed were the violence against the Mexicans and the farm workers, anybody who wasn’t the right color was subject to being arrested, to being beat up by the Texas Rangers. It was at that point that I made the decision that no matter what it took from me I was going to be a Chicana artist, no matter what! Because here was this whole population of my people who were being unfairly treated and if I could use my artwork as a vehicle towards bringing a greater understanding as who were as a people: our culture, our language, out customs, our mannerisms. Everything about our lives needed to be brought out in a fine art format…"

"Humanity has its weaknesses, and woman is perhaps the weakness of man!"

"It's not men's places that women claim, but their own place in a modern society."

"If the young terrorists had a mother with a heart full of love, they would not think of making the revolution, but to build in this country that does not lack corners to exploit". Editor's note: Chronicle published in following the assassination of Quebec Minister Pierre Laporte."

"Mom gives life in every way."

"Women's participation is more than words to take action."

"In this century of violent violence in all parts of the world, it is almost ridiculous to ask people to be thankful, but women must continue to teach their children to be thankful... saying to appreciate the smallest thing that comes from others for free."

"The simplicity of the generous gesture can give a joy of living to those who need it so much."

"You know that there is a time to do one thing and another time to enjoy it."

"Every intelligent woman knows how to be free."

"Smile to life this morning and be assured, ma'am, that this life will make you smile. The present belongs to the optimists."

"The earth does not stop turning, because you are unhappy, as well swallowing your tears and smiling, even if the pain is still burning."

"In education, there are almost no more immutable rules."

"If moms know how to keep open the line that connects them to the friendship of their children, they will learn that today's young people are great!"

"What joys are not felt by people who continually give their good mood..."

"Why not celebrate parents and not separate the holidays from dads and moms?"

"Man has never proved his strength by the goods he possesses, but rather by the generous help he can bring to society."

"The woman, who does not imitate her mother and her grandmother as a mother and a good wife, can only rely on her own scale of values ​​to find a life ideal that is important to her happiness."

"It is certain that in order to dialogue, one must, at the beginning, have an open mind."

"This society so harsh, so inhuman, it is composed of you and me... What are we doing to help the other one?"

"Funny time when most of the poor and disinherited parts of the world could live what the other party leaves on his plate ... And we continue to sing the joy, the peace, the love ... do we really believe?"

"We need succession in career women's clubs. The younger generation of women helps us to be more aware of how our world is changing."

"Graduate studies are not only, today, the key golden men."

"Forget what hurt you, it's a recipe for youth, health and happiness ..."

"If children find life hard, they find that the family still has its good side."

"I never talk about age, but I was born singing. My mother, Catalina, told me that at 9 or 10 months of age I’d wake up in the middle of the night, 2 or 3 in the morning, singing "esta muchachita va a trabajar de noche". Pues la viejita no se equivocó."

"When people hear me sing…I want them to be happy, happy, happy. I don't want them thinking about when there's not any money, or when there's fighting at home. My message is always felicidad - happiness."

"Women are afraid to sing salsa…I don't know why; maybe they think it's for men. I am not a composer, or a soneo, a singer and a poet, which is very difficult. But I think everybody can sing everything."

"Everybody looks at Celia Cruz and thinks, she is very happy…But I don't have a mother, a father, I don't have a country - I only have Pedro."

"I was having dinner at a restaurant in Miami, and when the waiter offered me coffee, he asked me if I took it with or without sugar…I said, ‘Chico, you’re Cuban. How can you even ask that? With sugar!’"

"There are certain artists who belong to all the people, everywhere, all the time. The list of singers, musicians, and poets must include David the harpist from the Old Testament, Aesop the Storyteller, Omar Khayyam the Tent Maker, Shakespeare the Bard of Avon, Louis Armstrong the genius of New Orleans, Om Kalsoum the soul of Egypt, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles. The names could go on until there was no breath to announce them, but the name of Celia Cruz, the great Cuban singer will always figure among them as one who belonged to all people. Her songs in Spanish were weighted with sympathy for the human spirit...Cruz came to the United States and played in a theater on Upper Broadway in New York City and I went to see her every day of her stay. She exploded on the stage and was sensual and touchingly present. From her, I learned to bring everything I had onto the stage with me. And now, some forty-plus years later, without music and by simply reading, I am able to read poetry and satisfy audiences. Much of the presence I bring to my performance, I learned from Celia Cruz. All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike."

"Hopefully, these characters bring us closer to a sense of self: honest and honored. Icons: Toussaint Louverture to José Martí to lesser known heroes, Atahualpa and Denmark Vesey. We lace our visions with Celia Cruz and Aretha Franklin."

"Love is not blind, it just looks in the wrong places."

"Shame is not in the beatings, not in the rape. Shame is in being asked to stand judgment."

"A memoir for me means a person’s life story; if I was going to write my actual life story, I would condense this entire marriage into a footnote."

"Who does the novel belong to? I am writing about a different reality, so I need to shape it to fit my reality. You don’t want to do the same. You don’t want to do the done thing. To take a risk, you still need to be absolutely on the margins. I am doing what I want to do."

"I have been in an abusive marriage. Violence can come from love, from a very intimate person. Violence can come from all sorts of crazy situations. What are you going to do? You have to deal with it when it strikes."

"Sometimes I think that what I do must be either idiotic and naïve or courageous. I don’t know which. If there was no threat of violence, that is what you would do. This threat of violence shouldn’t dictate what you are going to write or hinder you in any manner."

"The literary world must take a stand [to stop Bloomsbury publishing the book]. This is not about cancel culture. This is about defending literature from fascism. This is about standing up against religious divide, hate speech, islamophobia and false history."

"In this country, in this world, racism is used both to create false differences among us and to mask very significant ones—cultural, economic, political."

"The hyper-visibility means that you both can't hide, but also never really feel completely seen by authority figures and by your peer groups. Trapped in that space of hyper-visibility, I think, is where we wrestle with the ideas of, 'What part of me matters?'"

"The farther away you move from our dominant assumptions about who should have expertise, generally speaking, the more you have to prove that you have a legitimate claim to whatever you're speaking on. For black women that means we're dealing with racist ideas and stereotypes about who's knowledge is valuable, but we're also dealing with gender stereotypes about who should be allowed to speak and to lead…"

"I want to be able to show up and raise the hell at the precise right moment that might tip the scales in a way that will make something a little more clear, or a little bit more just, for people I care about…"

"We don’t even have the power to build a bubble, right? That’s the ultimate story of being who we are and writing about ourselves. We don’t even have the authority to create that bubble."

"One of the things I like to say to people is that we think that broadening access in any realm — we do this with everything, by the way. It’s such an American way to approach the world. We think that broadening access will broaden access on the terms of the people who have benefited from it being narrowed, which is just so counterintuitive. Broadening access doesn’t mean that everybody has the experience that I, privileged person, had in the discourse. Broadening it means that we are all equally uncomfortable, right? That’s actually what pluralism and plurality is. It isn’t that everybody is going to come in and have the same comforts that privilege and exclusion had extended to a small group of people. It’s that now everybody sits at the table, and nobody knows the exact right thing to say about the other people."

"The great majority of readers and hearers are the same all over the world. I have no doubt that the people of your country are like those I have met in China and India, and these latter were just like Tibetans. If you speak to them of profound Truths they yawn, and, if they dare, they leave you, but if you tell them absurd fables they are all eyes and ears."

"The attainment of transcendent insight is the real object of the training advocated in the traditional Oral Teachings, which do not consist, as so many imagine, in teaching certain things to the pupil, in revealing to him certain secrets, but rather in showing him the means to learn them and discover them for himself."

"Probably he will vanish like a mirage, with his caparisoned little steed and his party of followers, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. He is a part of the enchantment in which I have lived these last fifteen days. This new episode is of the stuff that dreams are made of. In a few minutes, I shall wake up in a real bed, in some country not haunted by geni nor by "incarnated Lamas" wrapped in shimmering silk. A country where men wear ugly dark coats and the horses do not carry silver inlaid saddles on golden-yellow cloths."

"Orthodox Buddhism strictly forbids religious rites, and the learned lamas acknowledge that they cannot bestow spiritual enlightenment, which can only be acquired by personal intellectual effort. Yet the majority believe in the efficacy of certain ritualistic methods of the healing of the sick, securing material prosperity, the conquest of evil beings and the guidance of the spirits of the dead in the other world."

"Gradually hostile forces seemed to gather around me. I seemed to be obsessed by invisible beings who incited me to leave the country, insinuating that I should be able to advance no farther, either in my study of Lamaism or upon the actual soil of Tibet. By a sort of clairvoyance at the same time, I saw these unknown enemies triumphant and rejoicing, after my departure, at having driven me away."

"I, one day, asked him: What is the Supreme Deliverance? He answered: It is the absence of all views and all imagination, the cessation of that mental activity which creates illusions. Another day, he said: You should go to Tibet and be initiated by a master of the 'Short Path.' ...I foresee that you would be capable of grasping the secret teaching."

"Nine hundred feet below my cave rhododendrons blossomed. I climbed barren mountain-tops. Long tramps led me to desolate valleys studded with translucent lakes... Solitude, solitude! ...Mind and senses develop their sensibility in this contemplative life made up of continual observations and reflections. Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?"

"Sadly, almost with terror, I often looked at the threadlike path which I saw, lower down, winding in the valleys and disappearing between the mountains. The day would come when it would lead me back to the sorrowful world that existed beyond the distant hill ranges, and so thinking, an indescribable suffering lay hold of me."

"I go to Korea. Panya-an; the "monastery of wisdom" concealed in the heart of the forest opens its door to me. When I went there to beg temporary admittance, heavy rains had washed the path away. I found the Panya-an monks busy repairing it. The novice sent by his abbot to introduce me stopped before one of the workers as muddy as his companions, bowed respectfully and said a few words to him. The digger, leaning on his spade, looked at me intently for a while, then nodded his consent and began to work again, without taking any more notice of me. He is the head of the hermitage, my guide told me. He is willing to give you a room."

"Silence was not compulsory as it is amongst the Trappist, but the monks seldom spoke. They did not feel the need of talking nor of spending their energy in outward manifestations. Their thoughts remained fixed on secret introspections and their eyes had the inward gaze of the Buddha's images."

"There are a larger number than one would suppose who, when raising a small lamp in the gesture of an offering before the Buddha's image, ask for no more than spiritual insight. Though they may make but little practical effort to reach it, the mystic ideal of salvation through enlightenment remains alive amongst Tibetans."

"Whatever may be the causes at work, telepathic transmissions, either conscious or unconscious, seem to occur rather frequently in Tibet. Regarding my own experience, I am certain that I did receive on several occasions telepathic messages from lamas under whom I had practiced mental or psychic training. It may even be that the number of these messages has been larger than I suspect. However, I have only retained a few cases in which the lama afterwards inquired if I had understood what he meant to tell at a given time."

"Even the monks attached to morality acknowledge that a virtuous life and the monastic discipline, though of great value and advisable for the many, are but a mere preparation to a higher path. As for the adepts of the second system, they all believe in the beneficial results of a faithful adherence to the moral laws and the rules laid down for members of the religious Order."

"Moreover, all are unanimous in declaring the first method the safer of the two. A pure life, the performance of good deeds, righteousness, compassion, detachment from worldly cares, selflessness and quietness of mind act – they say – as a cleansing process which gradually removes the impure dust that covers the mental eyes,"

"As for the method which mystics call the Short Path, the Direct Path, it is considered as most hazardous. It is – according to the masters who teach it – as if instead of following the road which goes round a mountain ascending gradually towards its summit, one attempted to reach it in straight line, climbing perpendicular rocks and crossing chasms on a rope. Only first rate equilibrists, exceptional athletes, completely free from giddiness, can hope to succeed in such a task. Even the fittest may fear sudden exhaustion or dizziness. And there inevitably follows a dreadful fall in which the too presumptuous alpinist breaks his bones."

"That same day a little before dusk the young man appeared in the valley with his caravan. He wore the very same dress and the foreign sun hat which I had seen in my dream, and in the morning vision."

"To discuss this legitimacy is not always easy. The Buddha insisted strongly on the necessity of examining the propositions put forward by Him, and of understanding them personally before accepting them as true. The ancient texts leave no doubt on this point: Do not believe on the strength of traditions even if they have been held in honour for many generations and in many places; do not believe anything because many people speak of it; do not believe on the strength of sages of old times; do not believe that which you have yourselves imagined, thinking that a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends only on the authority of your masters or of priests. After investigation. believe that which you have yourselves tested and found reasonable, and which is for your good and that of others. p. 9"

"It is evident that the great majority of those who call themselves Buddhists have not been able to rise to the mental level of the Teaching of the Buddha. Most of them have built up for their own use various kinds of Buddhism which are anything but Buddhist and, in their ignorance, they uphold, often with bitterness, their belief and their absurd practices as the expression of the purest orthodoxy. p. 9"

"The object of these teachings is not to amuse the simple-minded, those charitably called in the Tibetan Scriptures the "children", it is meant for the strong to make them stronger, for the intelligent to make them more intelligent, for the shrewd to develop their shrewdness and to lead them to the possession of transcendent insight (lhag thong) which constitutes the real enlightenment. p. 11"

"The Masters of the secret teachings say that the truth learned from another is of no value, and that the only truth which is living and effective, which is of value, is the truth which we ourselves discover. p. 13"

"Literally, lhag thong, means to see more, to see beyond, to see extremely, supremely. Thus, not only to see more than that which is seen by the mass of mankind who are crassly ignorant, but to see beyond the bounds limiting the vision of cultivated minds, to bring into being the third eye of Knowledge which the adepts of tantric sects place in the center of the forehead of their symbolic Gods. p. 14"

"The faith commended to their faithful by all religions, and considered by them as a virtue essential for him who hopes for eternal salvation, is nowise approved in the Secret Teachings. Based on the advice given by the Buddha to His disciples, the primary recommendation that the Masters give to neophytes is: Doubt! Doubt is an incitement to research, and research is the Way which leads to Knowledge. p. 15"

"For several years I have referred to this, hitherto, rare and inaccessible work as the I-told-you-so-book, because it has often been implied that I have invented my explanations of Buddhism out of thin air, thus falsifying its authentic teachings.... Yet, despite the occultist flavor of its title, The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects is the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth explanation of Mahayana Buddhism which has thus far been written."

"1889 also marks the first of Alexandra’s so-called neurasthenic crises... Alexandra... attempted to emancipate herself from what she deemed unworthy passions and habits. She claimed to have seen the banality of most human pleasures... To her diary... she confided that she could not believe in romantic love, which would only lead to infidelity, betrayal, and a broken heart."

"She predicted, wrongly, that she would die young... Without warning, a demonic voice would whisper in her ear that she could put a quick end to her troubles. She knew she mustn’t let it triumph. I belong to a new breed, she would reply. We are few in number but we will accomplish our mission. I am doing what I must."

"Of her several shorter efforts, “Women in Tibet” (Asia 1934) was an unmitigated triumph... female readers from countries as far apart as America and China were writing to her craving more information. The piece analyzed the means by which Tibetan women mastered a harsh environment and gained sway over their men. The women had achieved a de facto equality despite law and scripture unfavorable to them, this by virtue of innate independence and physical stamina. Tibetan women were clever and brave and therefore valued by their husbands."

"The tenor of the article showed that David-Neel remained a firm feminist—no less than during the period when she had crusaded for the legal rights of housewives and unwed mothers, still more for their economic independence."

"Whether one looks at Alexandra David-Néel the adventurer and explorer, the anthropologist, the scholar or the writer, her life is a testimony of an exceptional and highly gifted individual who stopped at nothing to achieve her aims, and in the process left behind a legacy of books, both entertaining and scholarly, that many successive generations will be able to study and enjoy. Although she was not known to have been officially affiliated with any specific occult group in the West, any esoteric school that cares to investigate or research her books as regards the world of the occult could only benefit thereby."

"In 1891, when she was twenty-three, David-Néel had an unexpected, but most timely windfall. Her English friend, Elisabeth Morgan... left David-Néel a small inheritance... enough to allow David-Néel to travel for more than a year through Ceylon and India. On this first of her major trips to Asia, David-Néel was reunited with Annie Besant, who was now the President of the Theosophical Society, with its headquarters in Adyar, near Madras, in India. During her stay there she studied Sanskrit with them, and then moved on to the holy city of Benares on the Ganges. Here she studied yoga with the famous guru, Swami Bhaskarananda of Varanasi... It was also in India where she first heard Tibetan music, which fascinated her. She was however, compelled to return to Brussels when her money ran out."

"At the age of 16 she was already running away from home for jaunts across Europe, and she traveled to India at 21... It was not until middle age that she married... in 1910 he (her husband) offered her a “long voyage”—he meant something like a year—to “get it out of her system.” She was gone for fourteen years, traveling and living in India, Sikkim, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Japan, making forays into the forbidden kingdom of Tibet."

"It was when she moved to Sikkim that she met three people who were to influence her life profoundly... This was the beginning of the most important and fulfilling period of David-Néel’s life. She actually underwent a physical transformation, the “neurasthenic,” somewhat unhealthy woman suddenly growing well and looking years younger....Her state of health improved enormously above a certain altitude —but it also seems significant that David-Néel, who until then had been isolated from other Buddhists, was suddenly living in a place where she received support for her practice."

"When the Dalai Lama asked her how she could have become a Buddhist without a teacher, she said, When I adopted the principles of Buddhism, I knew not a single Buddhist, and was perhaps the only Buddhist in Paris. During their first conversation, the Gomchen of Lachen remarked, You have seen the ultimate and supreme light. It isn’t in a year or two of meditation that one arrives at the concepts you express."

"To the Tibetans, it seemed perfectly logical for Alexandra David-Néel to have traveled to Lhasa: she was returning to the site of a previous incarnation."

"Cultural products which present foreign wars as the heroic effort of a master race to ennoble mankind are, to the degree they are successful as art, objectively in the interests of imperialists, who are people who make foreign wars against other races for profit."

"Cultural products that present people who have no money or power as innately stupid or depraved, and thus unworthy of money or power, are in the interests of the ruling class and the power structure as it stands."

"Cultural products which present women who do not want to be household slaves or universal mothers or sex objects as bitches or sexual failures objectively aid male supremacy."

"In our times, to refrain from mentioning genocide, racism, cultural schizophrenia, sexual exploitation, and the systematic starvation of entire populations is itself a political act. ... As our bankrupt civilization draws to its close, and as the violence of the powerful against the weak, of the rich against the poor, of the few against the many, becomes more and more apparent, until it becomes impossible to watch a news broadcast and remain unaware of it for a second — as this situation becomes exacerbated, to refrain from mentioning it becomes more and more clearly a political act, an act of censorship or cowardice."

"Jewish women in second-wave feminism helped to provide the theoretical underpinnings and models for radical action that were seized on and imitated throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led the way into new arenas of cultural and political understanding in academe, politics, and grassroots organizing. Even a partial honor roll of Jewish women's liberation pioneers must include such figures as Shulamith Firestone, Ellen Willis, Robin Morgan, Alix Kates Shulman, Naomi Weisstein, Heather Booth, Susan Brownmiller, Marilyn Webb, Meredith Tax, Andrea Dworkin, Linda Gordon, Ellen DuBois, Ann Snitow, Marge Piercy, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Vivian Gornick. Despite historians' acknowledgment of the salience of Jewish women in earlier social movements, their prominence within radical feminism failed to attract much attention."

"A lot of the young women in the peace movement were really just pushed around by SDS (the student organization). That is, Meredith Tax or Marge Piercy were pushed around by these guys, these young fellows in these student movements, who were really not shallow because they were very smart, but callow and full of male beans and ambition and so forth. And accustomed to or forced to play a certain role. I think the women's movement has done a lot for men, a tremendous lot for them. For men who paid attention it has taken some of the burden of machoism off their backs, which is a terrible burden to bear. If you think about it, it's horrible. It's horrible to have to be that kind of person in order to be a person."

"We are always haunted by the question of not choosing the other path, the road not taken…Travelling is always about making choices, but at the same time your choices are made for you, structured by many things: nationality, class, gender, what we can access and what not. We’re walking on a map that already exists and our location on the map has been decided."

"In order to fit into certain ideals, you need to mutilate yourself."

"We can decide where to go but we’re not really free…I like having this idea of multiple selves and multiple circumstances. Because that’s what we are."

"…I thought it was important to resist. That’s why I wanted to tell stories about bad women. Feminism, though, was much less appealing than in today's conservative Indonesia. Even progressive male thinkers tend to see feminism in Indonesia as irrelevant, disruptive, or merely a copycat of Western feminism."

"…My fiction is also influenced by women intellectuals such as Melani Budianta and Julia Suryakusuma. I love the works of male writers such as Asrul Sani, Budi Darma’s Orang-orang Bloomington (The People of Bloomington), and Moetinggo Boesje’s play Malam Jahanam (The Night of the Accursed), but my priority now is to learn more about writings by women. Just like in many Western countries, the practice of defining literature has often excluded or ignored women’s writings and their contexts."

"It is quite enough to pay taxes when you are not represented, let alone pay a fine if you object to this arrangement."

"I shall put the case somewhat from the standpoint of the militant suffragettes themselves, trying to give some idea of the philosophy and ethical principles underlying the militant propaganda and, above all, with the hope of making clear to American readers some of the radical differences between English and American conditions."

"The militants hold that they are at war with the British government, basing their right to rebel on the axioms that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

"As our colonial ancestors felt that a decent regard for the opinions of mankind should impel those in a state of rebellion to declare their reasons, so the suffragettes have repeatedly endeavored to set before the world the grievances for which they are suffering."

"The grounds for revolt may be classified, roughly, as follows: The miserable status of English women; the impossibility of obtaining attention for, much less redress of, their grievances by constitutional methods; the historic precedents established by the use of force by the British people whenever the progress of freedom has been blocked by the British government; the insincerity and brutality shown by the present Liberal government in dealing with the women's agitation as compared with the leniency shown to male political offenders both past and present; the determination of the newspapers to stifle the movement by persistently excluding suffrage news and propaganda from their columns."

"In the United States, though the great majority of women are still disfranchised and many of the unjust laws inherited from England continue to disfigure our statute books, the suffragists are absolutely peaceful. We owe this, not to American women, but to American men. In every country it is the men who should be held chiefly responsible for the tone and conduct of the suffrage movement, as the government is in their hands, authority and power are theirs, and they are able to make the task of the feminist comparatively easy and pleasant."

"In England the militant movement is like a slave insurrection; it presents characteristics of the uprising of a servile class; the bitterness of those who have been treated unjustly, the determination of the down-trodden to rise and at all hazards to themselves to conquer respect and consideration for their sex; and the arming of the one part of the community — women — against the other part. If the word "slave," applied to contemporary English women seems an exaggeration, let me say that our colonial ancestors considered taxation without representation tyranny."

"That the negro mother had no control of her child seemed to Abolitionists a potent argument for emancipation. Today the English woman, if married, is not the legal parent of her child. The father is the parent and has the right to prescribe the child's education, religious training and medical attendance; he may take it away from the mother and may by will appoint a guardian without her consent. The position of a married woman is in many ways wretched: though her husband is supposed to support her, there is no legal machinery by which a woman can enforce this law... a man may disinherit his wife and leave her penniless with destitute children whom the law compels her to support."

"The divorce laws are unequal, practically encouraging immorality on the part of the husband, as it is not a ground for securing a divorce from him unless coupled with cruelty or desertion."

"At the request of the American Academy of Political and Social Science she made a survey of the English Suffrage movement. She was Founder and President of the Pennsylvania Limited Suffrage Society and was active with the National Woman’s Party. At its Draftee Parade on September 4, 1917, she was arrested at the age of 44 and sentenced to 60 days at the Occoquan Workhouse. On August 6, 1918, she was again arrested at the Lafayette statue in D.C. At the trial on August, 15, 1918, for “holding a meeting on public grounds” the arrestees refused to participate in their trial."

""....I grew up in a world where feminism was all around me like a beacon of hope cutting through the opposing ideas I was being taught at home...."

"“...celebrate the women who have defied socialcensure and the state to remove the hijab...""

""...No Hijab Day is a day to support brave women across the globe who want to be free from the hijab. Women who want to decide for themselves what to wear or what not to wear on their heads. Women who fight against either misogynist governments that will imprison them for removing their hijab or against abusive families and communities that will ostracize, abuse and even kill them."

"...It will be difficult for Western women who wore hijab on Hijab Day, at the Women’s March,...not feel shame....how you’ve betrayed women, We all deserve freedom...not just you....STOP supporting our subjugation #FreeFromHijab"

"....Maybe they should read the whole Quran as well. It would be impossible for anyone with the slightest bit of empathy to read the Quran and—at the end of it—say that: “Islam is a religion of peace.” But people are generally good, and, if Muslims sat down with the Quran, translated it into their own language and read it, they would be horrified. They would not want to identify with whatever religion teaches these kinds of atrocious things. But most of them don’t even know what that book says. ..."

""...“What I was not prepared for was the tsunami of just hate and pushback and disdain that would come from people I thought were my people: people that believed in enlightenment values, Western values, and liberal values...”"

"....Many apologists for Islam have claimed “Muslims are the true feminists” or “Islam is a religion of peace,” and it is certainly possible to have Muslims who are feminists, and the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people. Many verses in the Quran and Hadith support women and peace. But Yasmine’s story reveals that anyone pushing those narratives without acknowledging that much of Islamic doctrine does the opposite is either ignorant or dishonest...."

"In Unveiled, Yasmine Mohammed... putting the lie to the dangerous notion that criticizing the doctrine of Islam is a form of bigotry."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you dramatically. I am not here to inspire you. I am here to tell you that we have been lied to about disability. Yeah, we’ve been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It’s a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you exceptional."

"These images, there are lots of them out there, they are what we call inspiration porn. And I use the term porn deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we're objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, "Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.”"

"We are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses."

"I learn from other disabled people all the time. I'm learning not that I am luckier than them, though. I am learning that it's a genius idea to use a pair of barbecue tongs to pick up things that you dropped. I'm learning that nifty trick where you can charge your mobile phone battery from your chair battery. Genius. We are learning from each others' strength and endurance, not against our bodies and our diagnoses, but against a world that exceptionalizes and objectifies us."

"That quote, "The only disability in life is a bad attitude," the reason that that's bullshit is because it's just not true, because of the social model of disability. No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. Never."

"I want to live in a world where we don't have such low expectations of disabled people that we are congratulated for getting out of bed and remembering our own names in the morning. I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people."

"... Obviously, targeting is not the same as targeting . Having said that, the right to criticise and mock Islam and the sacred is an important right. If the right to religion is an aspect of , so is the right to be free from religion and to doubt and question and even mock. This criticism is particularly crucial for those of us who are Islam’s non-believers....Islam is a belief like any other and has to be open to criticism ...""

""...The important point about the terrorists who heinously killed or 3 others ...is not that they were Chechen or Tunisian or newly arrived refugees but that they were Islamists. Full stop. Recognising their allegiance to the Islamic far-Right helps us target the political movement. At the same time, we must continue to defend , the right to freedom of conscience and expression, equality of all citizens, and uncompromisingly oppose racism."

"However, you cannot stop racism by banning blasphemy. We have to fight blasphemy laws and racism. We have to fight the far-Right, including the Islamists. We have to defend and atheism. Most importantly, we have to defend Laicite everywhere. Our rights and lives depend on it."

"Coming from the Iranian Left, I find it infuriating that some in the European Left can only envision the Islamist far-Right as a vehicle for “resistance.” Do they equally consider those joining neo-Nazi groups in Europe as a justifiable response to unemployment, disenfranchisement or disillusionment? Do they think, progressive organising in trade unions and labour organisations and feminist or secular movements are not for us minorities? It’s paternalistic and racist to think that we can only be fascists when faced with bigotry, social inequality or imperialism. How racist to assume that when it comes to us – sheer violence, terror and homicide are the only forms of “protest.”...It is obscene how this section of the Left has forsaken its anti-clerical and revolutionary traditions to defend Islamism and reaction at the expense of class politics and progressive secular political and social movements. ...""

"... That some Muslims are offended by is irrelevant in my opinion. We are all offended at one point or another. I am offended by the Quran and by religions’ views on women, LGBT and apostates but my offence does not give me a license to ban Islam and religion or decapitate, threaten and murder. .... Framing it as Muslim offence is part of the problem and normalises the Islamist narrative. ... Offence is not a defence, especially for murder. ..."

"... On the issue of Laicite, I should just add that Britain is not a secular state by any means given its established Church of England, bishops in the and prayers in parliament. It is a secular society despite the established church but this link between the state and church goes a long way to explain why British “secularism” is all about equality of religions and not separation between church and state. This is also the reason why we cannot get anywhere in our challenge of Sharia courts here in the UK. It is because of the implications for the Church and why successive British governments continue to promote a policy of religious communalism at the expense of individual rights and equality. Anything to save the Church’s position in society. ..."

"The Islamist narrative has become mainstream, which is why a number of English-speaking media frame the terrorist attacks as the Islamists do. Watching journalists regurgitate Islamist propaganda by explaining how they were “provoked” to kill – as if the real provocation isn’t murder – ... They have already bought the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Facts and evidence are irrelevant to them....According to Islamist (and also ironically other far-Right) propaganda, regurgitated by lazy and cowardly “journalism,” there are no distinctions between Islam, Islamism and Muslims. ... Is there no difference between Christianity, the Christian-Right and Christians? Do all Christians think alike? ... Replace these with Islam, Islamism and Muslims, though, and suddenly these “journalists” become incapable of critical thought. ..."

"Canadian Prime Minister who says that “freedom of expression is not without limits.” Rather the stance to take – a simple one really – is that the aggression and provocation, the crux of the problem, is not free expression but murder. ...""

"...More than an attack on French or more accurately universal values, Islamist terrorist attacks are integral to a defence of their values – hate, violence, supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, totalitarianism… Values that are at odds with 21st century humanity, including a large section of the believing population – hence their need to impose their project with brute force. ..."

"....What this shows is that ’s cartoons are an excuse for acts of both random and targeted assassinations, executions and terrorism. What some don’t see or choose not to see is that the excuse is not the cause of terrorism. The excuse is there to shift blame on the and to justify the unjustifiable...."

"In Russian: Бой неравный был. В четырех стенах Н икого друзей. Только смертный страх. Только муж - палач. Только в сердце нож. Только цвет надежд, превращенный в прах... Нет, не надо слез! Траур ни к чему. Распознать врага у себя в дому, П родолжать борьбу, сестры, надо вам, Гибель Турсуной учит вас тому."

"The imbalances of our political, social, cultural, spiritual condition must be turned into revolutionary action to overthrow this corrupt system of dutch colonial exploitation."

"For too long, it was taken for granted that we would survive because we were Dutch; because Holland would take care of us. In our ignorant innocence or innocent ignorance we overlooked the fact that they were, and historically are, the rulers and we the ruled ones, and that power never renders itself; it has to be conquered, if not by sword then by the mind. And we neglected the mind. We have not studied our rulers well enough, otherwise we would have known that we were programmed to think that we are not programmed; that if we looked the other way long enough and denied the existence of colonialism it would automatically disappear. We forgot that we were trained not to see colonialism as colonialism."

"od examples, they ignore family responsibilities and are not strict enough with their children the way parents were in the past."

"I love the American dream. I feel this is the place I was supposed to be in. It's beautiful. I love it."

"“This vice is like a pest. It’s never that obvious and by the time you see it, so much has been damaged. We need to fight corruption at all levels, without leaving any type behind. We may assume that we have gotten somewhere when there are some aspects that are blocking our country from progressing,"

"It is sad to see that people are more scared of police than they are of Covid-19, which kills! It seems like we have abandoned the government to fight this battle alone,"

"Women should be confident because they are capable, and the country needs them. They should do all they can such as study University, show that they can also manage to do things and are also talented."

"We know the role of taxes, we also know that developed countries were able to achieve that status as a result of the taxes paid by their citizens... But, in taxation policy, you also consider the taxpayers' financial means"

"There is a saying that many or high taxes spoil taxation. What this means is that if you ask people for taxes that are within their means, you will encourage more people to honour their duties. It is always better to increase gradually"

"Traffic police officers these days tell car drivers to go and pretend to urinate in a nearby place, then put the bribe where they can see so that they come and continue the journey. The Police officer goes and pick it later."

"If a person wants to give a bribe to a given official, they go through a chain of people whose network is difficult to link. For instance, a person wanted to offer bribe [via mobile money] to a prosecutor and passed it through [the phone number of] their former house servant."

"I do not accept the statistic that unity and reconciliation among Rwandans is 94%, because genocide ideology is still visible both among adults and children."

"“If you go to RIB and ask for the data … we have it, not just in my head but in our work, and in all districts.”"

"There is no one to challenge those in leadership; some people misappropriate State funds because there is no one caring, no follow up, money is used as they wish.”"

"“If you are a parent and you accept that someone who abused your child is released, if a parent allows someone to go free after abusing a child, what about the next one?” Plus: “That person deserves to be punished in prison… children from other families should be safe.”"

"In Rwanda, politicians go into politics to grab bread more than to serve citizens.”"

"“This sends a message that there is no impunity for people who try to stop the fight against corruption… Although justice is done, we are not satisfied because this is a capital offence which deserves a maximum sentence…”"

"“Although justice is done, we are not satisfied because this is a capital offence which deserves a maximum sentence.”"

"“However it is disturbing that so many of our citizens experience cases of gender-based corruption in their offices, that is why I call on all employers to immediately put in place mechanisms to prevent and punish such cases.”"

".” (In Rwanda, politicians enter politics to get “bread” instead of serving citizens)"

"People don't see what they have, they're busy looking at what they don't have and worrying about how they can get there, and yet when they start by appreciating what they have, then their lives will be different and their goal in life will not be to project what they don't have and to use it to define themselves when they can learn to define themselves by what they have."

"I learned to redefine myself regardless of what happened to me when I was a kid, I've been able to reclaim myself. This is something that's required for every individual. We are not what happened to us."

"The reason why I go into communities, select groups of young orphans, empower those and bring them back into the communities to inspire change there is because we need to change the way change is viewed. People say politicians or the grownups or the successful ones are going to change things in the country, but I think everyone has a part to contribute."

"I strongly believe that, regardless of what is happening in politics – not just in Zimbabwe but in many different parts of the world – if we want to change things, we will need to go to the grassroots and teach them to stand up for themselves, because if we can empower them beyond being a victim of a political situation, then we are making change happen."

"It was tough"

"I remember I cried many days after that and I used to watch other kids going to school that I used to run around with, and it was painful. But it was more painful to go to school and spend the whole time thinking about what's going to happen when I get home. Getting back home to watch the hungry faces of my granny and little brother. It was unbearable"

"The reason why I was supposed to find it attractive to marry him was because he had two sisters that were going to South Africa to buy clothing and coming back to Zimbabwe"

"I did not go because I realised if I got married, then I was leaving my grandmother and my little brother alone and I wouldn't be able to help them any more"

"When I was eight years old I'd told myself, 'I want to help other young orphans so they do not have to experience what I was experiencing.' I thought, 'If I get married, am I achieving that or not?' And it was clear that was not the way to go. I didn't go to meet the guy and my relative told me, 'I tried to help you, you turned that down and from now on you're pretty much on your own"

"My grandmother was so knowledgeable that even when she couldn't see any more she could smell which mushrooms were edible, inedible, poisonous … But to grow them was very strange"

"You realise that if you can work, you can actually get there step by step, you can put food on your plate"

"In this case it was converting waste into food, creating food for the community, but also doing something that no one else in that community was doing. We were unique in that time, doing something that was highly scientific without having studied at all. In my case I'd only done five years of primary-level education. It was like magic"

"One of my biggest dreams, of course, never having met my father, was to actually have a father"

"I don't think I would be doing what I'm doing now in Zimbabwe if I didn't believe there is a possibility for a change"

"I learned to redefine myself regardless of what happened to me when I was a kid"

"I've been able to reclaim myself. This is something that's required for every individual. We are not what happened to us"

"From those experiences there's some kind of lesson that inspires me to do what I do now, but I'm not back in the moment when I was 10. I've dealt with that. I just look at the future with a new hope. I'm 100% sure that I am not going to be one of those women who say, 'Things are the way they are because I grew up as an orphan"

"Orphaned at the age of seven, Chido Govera escaped a life of poverty and abuse in rural Zimbabwe. Now she's an activist, travelling the world to help others change their lives"

"I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more. This is a matter of freedom. If you don't have many possessions then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself."

"We've been talking all afternoon about sustainable development. To get the masses out of poverty. But what are we thinking? Do we want the model of development and consumption of the rich countries? I ask you now: what would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household than Germans? How much oxygen would we have left? Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet. (Speech at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, June 2012)"

"That (Guantanamo Bay detention camp) isn’t a prison. It’s a kidnapping den, because a prison entails subjection to some system of law, the presence of some sort of prosecutor, the decision of some judge — whomever that may be — and a minimal point of reference from a judicial point of view. Guantánamo has nothing."

"Liberalism has the idea that democracy is its invention, that liberalism had to come about for democracy to exist... Democracy is old, very old; it is an attitude of man… Democracy is an imminent attitude, but one that has always been in crisis with authoritarianism. So democracy can never be considered to be finished or perfect, the end of history does not exist, historical steps exist. Maybe today conditions are being created--thanks to digital mass-communication—that are going to foreshadow a kind of democracy that today we cannot imagine."

"Bourgeois democracy: I defend it and I criticise it. What do I criticise? That it promises a degree of equality that it does not fulfill in practice.. If democracy has to represent the majority, as a symbol I understand that those who have the highest responsibilities should live as the majority does, not the minority. We have become feudal and the monarchy has come back in a different form.Bold text Presidents—the red carpet, those who play cornets, vassals on the bridge, all this paraphernalia which is not republican, because republics came into the world to reaffirm this: that men are basically equal."

"The philosophy of my heart is libertarian. I don’t like the idea of the exploitation of man by man. I believe that one day human civilization will overcome this somehow. But that is not to say that I favour the state as the owner of everything, no, no, no. I can’t conceive of that. I lean a lot towards self-management, with all of the risks it entails for any important institution. It is not exactly the state that should manage things, it’s the people that have to manage them."

"Locked up, I almost went mad... Now I'm a prisoner of my own freedom to think and decide as I wish. I cultivate that freedom and fight for it. I may make mistakes, some huge, but one of my few virtues is I say what I think... I re-read Plato in search of keys to understand what is going on, for nothing is completely new... Politics, which should rule human relations, has succumbed to economics and become a mere administrator... My definition of poverty is the one we owe to Seneca: It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor... I have the aggressive courage to speak out. It's not done in the modern world, where people conceal and disguise their feelings. Maybe that's why I get people's attention... This [marijuana] law is a trial. It doesn't mean we have the final answer....The only thing I'm sure of is that the policy of combating drugs which has been enforced for decades is a crashing failure.... I think recognition of gay marriage, abortion and the law on marijuana all represent progress. But they will really achieve something when there is less of a gap between the poor, the destitute and the very rich... You know what getting old means? No longer wanting to leave home."

"We are a republican voice for the world – a proclamation that has been interpreted to signpost a “possible future, a path, however modest, to take for the common good with politics as its ethical base and honesty as its guiding light."

"Anyone who looks at a map to say that Venezuela could be a threat has to be quite mad. Venezuelans have a marvelous Constitution – the most audacious in all of Latin America."

"That NATO advance makes no sense. It is going to lead us again to a division of the world."

"What are we thinking?...What would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household [as] Germans? How much oxygen would we have left? Does this planet have enough resources so... eight billion can have the same level of consumption & waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet... Are we ruling over globalization or is globalization ruling over us? Is it possible to speak of solidarity and of “being all together” in an economy based on ruthless competition? How far does our fraternity go? I am not saying any of to undermine the importance of this event. On the contrary, the challenge ahead of us is of a colossal magnitude and the great crisis is not an ecological crisis, but rather a political one."

"Today, man does not govern the forces he has unleashed, but rather, it is these forces that govern man; and life. Because we do not come into this planet simply to develop, just like that, indiscriminately. We come into this planet to be happy. Because life is short and it slips away from us. And no material belonging is worth as much as life, and this is fundamental.But if life is going to slip through my fingers, working and over-working in order to be able to consume more, and the consumer society is the engine-because ultimately, if consumption is paralyzed, the economy stops, and if you stop economy, the ghost of stagnation appears for each one of us, but it is this hyper-consumption that is harming the planet. And this hyper-consumption needs to be generated, making things that have a short useful life, in order to sell a lot. Thus, a light bulb cannot last longer than 1000 hours. But there are light bulbs that last 100,000 hours! But these cannot be manufactured, because the problem is the market, because we have to work and we have to sustain a civilization of “use and discard”, and so, we are trapped in a vicious cycle. These are problems of a political nature, which are showing us that it’s time to start fighting for a different culture."

"I’m not talking about returning to the days of the caveman, or erecting a “monument to backwardness.” But we cannot continue like this, indefinitely, being ruled by the market, on the contrary, we have to rule over the market."

"This is why I say, in my humble way of thinking, that the problem we are facing is political. The old thinkers. Epicurus, Seneca and even the Aymara put it this way, a poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more.” This is a cultural issue."

"So I salute the efforts and agreements being made. And I will adhere to them, as a ruler. I know some things I’m saying are not easy to digest. But we must realize that the water crisis and the aggression to the environment is not the cause. The cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life."

"I am greatly anguished by the future that I will not see, and to which I have committed myself. Yes, it is possible to have a world with better humankind, but perhaps today the main task is to save life..."

"I bear upon my shoulders the indigenous cultures, the remains of colonialism in the Malvinas, and the futile and regrettable blockades of Cuba under the Caribbean sun."

"I also bear the consequences of the electronic surveillance, which does nothing but create the distrust that poisons us needlessly."

"I also come with a huge social debt and with the need to defend the Amazon, the seas, and our great rivers of America."

"I have the duty to fight for tolerance for those who are different and with whom we have differences and disagreements. We do not need tolerance for those with whom we agree. Tolerance is the foundation of peaceful coexistence, understanding that we are all different in this world."

"The fight against the dirty economy, drug trafficking, theft & fraud, corruption - all of these contemporary scourges which were adopted by this opposite set of values, those who maintain that we are happier when we are richer no matter what means are used."

"We have sacrificed the old immaterial Gods and now we are occupying the temple of the market god. This god organizes our economy, our politics, our habits, our lives and even provides us with rates and credit cards and gives us the appearance of happiness."

"It seems that we have been born, only to consume. And when we can no longer consume, we have a feeling of frustration, we suffer from poverty and we are marginalized...."

"It is true that today, in order to spend and to bury our garbage in what science calls the carbon footprint, if in this world we aspired to consume like the average American, we would need three planets in order to be able to live."

"Our civilization has mounted a deceitful challenge, and as we go on it is not possible for everyone to achieve that goal. Indeed, our culture is increasingly driven by accumulation and market forces. We are promised a life of spending and squandering; in fact, it is a countdown against nature and against future humankind. It is a civilization against simplicity, against sobriety, against all natural cycles; It is a civilization against freedom, which requires time to experience human relationships and the most important things: love, friendship, adventure, solidarity and family"

"Stupefied, we have rejected our own biological imperative, which defends life for life’s sake as a superior cause, and we have replaced it by functional consumerism and accumulation."

"Politics, the eternal mother of all human endeavors, has remained shackled to the economy and to the marketplace."

"Going from one adventure to another, politics achieves little more than perpetuating itself, and as such it delegates its power and spends its time bewildered, fighting for the Government. Out of control, human history marches forward, buying and selling everything and innovating in order to negotiate what is, in a way, non-negotiable..."

"The average city dweller wanders between financial institutions and tedious office routines, sometimes moderated by air conditioning. He often dreams about vacations and freedom. He dreams about having the ability to pay his bills until one day his heart stops and he is gone. Other such soldiers will fall prey to the jaws of the marketplace."

"Today, it is time to fight to prepare a world without borders."

"The globalized economy has no other driving force except that of the private interests of the very few, and each nation State seeks only to maintain its own stability."

"Truly productive capitalism is a prisoner of the banks, which are at the summit of global power."

"The world is clamoring for global regulations that respect scientific achievements, which abound, but it is not science that governs the world."

"We have to figure out how to recycle more and how to counter global warming. What are the limits of each human task? How many years ago did they tell us in Kyoto about certain facts linked to climate change?"

"We have finally learned that intelligence must be at the helm, guiding the ship to port."

"The fact is that we tend to cultivate feudal anachronisms, spoiled affectations and hierarchical distinctions that undermine the best feature of republics — the fact that no one is better than anyone else. The interaction of those factors and others keeps us living in prehistory, and today it is impossible to renounce war when politics fails. Thus, economies are strangled and resources wasted."

"Every minute in the life of our planet, we spend $2 million on military budgets around the world — $2 million a minute."

"Medical research on all manner of diseases, which has made huge advances and is a blessing that promises longer life, receives barely a fifth of what is budgeted for the military. That process, from which we cannot escape, perpetuates hatred, fanaticism and distrust, fuels new wars and wastes fortunes."

"Today, the world is incapable of establishing global regulations for the planet, due to the failure of lofty global politics, which meddles with everything."

"We must achieve a broad planetary consensus to unleash solidarity among the most oppressed and to punish and tax waste and speculation by mobilizing the large economies not to produce disposable goods, but rather useful goods without planned obsolescence or excess, which would help the world’s poorest peoples. Useful goods could stand against world poverty."

"Turning to a useful neo-Keynesianism on a global scale in order to abolish the world’s most flagrant embarrassments would be a thousand times more profitable than making war."

"How many millions of dollars have they taken from our pockets deliberately creating junk so that people will buy and buy and buy?...In our culture, we act as if nothing had happened. Instead of us controlling globalization, it controls us."

"The greed that pushed us to domesticate science and transform technology — is paradoxically pushing us over the edge into a shadowy abyss, towards an unknown fate, an era without history, and we are left without eyes to see or the collective intelligence to continue to colonize and transform ourselves."

"What is the big picture of which we speak? It is the system of global life on Earth, including human life, with all the fragile balances that make it impossible for us to continue as we are."

"With talent and collective work, with science, step by step humankind can make deserts green; humankind can bring agriculture to the seas; humankind can develop agriculture that lives with salt water."

"If the power of humankind is focused on what is essential, it is infinite."

"It is possible to eliminate poverty from the planet. It is possible to create stability. It will be possible for future generations, if they begin to reason as a species and not just as individuals..."

"If our dreams are to come true, we will have to control ourselves or we will die. We will die because we are not capable of being at the level of the civilization that we have been developing with our efforts. That is our dilemma. We should not spend our time merely correcting the consequences."

"Let us consider the deep-rooted causes, the civilization of waste, the present civilization that is stealing time from human life and wasting it on pointless matters."

"Consider that human life is a miracle, that we are alive as a result of a miracle, and that nothing is more important than life."

"Our biological duty is, above all, to respect life, promote it, take care of it, reproduce it and understand that WE are the species."

"Meet the president - who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay. Laundry is strung outside the house. The water comes from a well in a yard, overgrown with weeds. Only two police officers and Manuela, a three-legged dog, keep watch outside. This is the residence of the president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, whose lifestyle clearly differs sharply from that of most other world leaders. President Mujica has shunned the luxurious house that the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders and opted to stay at his wife's farmhouse, off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo. The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers. This austere lifestyle - and the fact that Mujica donates about 90% of his monthly salary, equivalent to $12,000 (£7,500), to charity - has led him to be labelled the poorest president in the world... Elected in 2009, Mujica spent the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Uruguayan guerrilla Tupamaros, a leftist armed group inspired by the Cuban revolution. He was shot six times and spent 14 years in jail. Most of his detention was spent in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy. Those years in jail, Mujica says, helped shape his outlook on life....Uruguayan law means he is not allowed to seek re-election in 2014. Also, at 77, he is likely to retire from politics altogether before long."

"President José Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.” Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy... Mujica’s influence goes far beyond that of the leader of a tiny country of only 3 million people. In a world hungry for alternatives, the innovations that he and his colleagues are championing have put Uruguay on the map as one of the world’s most exciting experiments in creative, progressive governance."

"To see him today, now aged 78, sitting on his wooden chair, surrounded by books and silence, a pair of sandals on his feet and a bust of Che Guevara opposite him, you might take Mujica for some Latino Diogenes, a benevolent patriarch, the last man on Earth and obviously indignant. He is also one of the few people to have experienced nothingness, spending two years' captivity at the bottom of a well... The international media have described him as "the most incredible politician" or indeed "the best leader in the world". Some have suggested he should win the next Nobel peace prize. He is also thought to be the world's poorest president, because he gives almost 90% of his income to low-income housing organisations. He is not very keen on such labels. The pinnacle of his presidential career came in June 2012 when defence minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro announced that the state would be taking over the production and sale of marijuana, which would be legalised and regulated... Mujica, who says he has never smoked a joint and knows very well that 62% of voters are opposed to legalisation, yet has no qualms about launching the world's first state-grown marijuana. He says it is a question of public security and that he is determined to separate consumers from dealers, and marijuana from other narcotics... He may indeed be a bit crazy, but he is also captivating and quite unique among world leaders."

"Jose Mujica, a former leader of the Marxist Tupamaros guerrilla group, left behind a progressive model of governance, characterized by frugality, simplicity and focused leadership. With a moral and ethical underpinning that emphasizes love, concern and sacrifice, his model of leadership is a telling lesson to a world run by cabals and institutions whose sole idea of development revolves around exploitative and lopsided power relations... In November 2009, at 74, Pepe, as he is fondly called, was elected president, having polled 53 per cent of the vote. The result is a new, improved Uruguay, economically strong, politically stable, socially bonded and with a reduced crime rate. Mujica... demonstrates a genuine spirit of selflessness and concern for his people... The 79-year old Mujica, who as president, lived with his wife in his rustic farm settlement in the country-side and drove to work in his weather-beaten 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, has been renowned for other eccentricities: even while in office, he grew flowers, enjoyed the bucolic wild, and continually soaked his intellect in classical philosophy texts from Plato, Seneca to Marx and Segundo. While he sees himself as a ‘humble peasant’, he has been variously described as ‘the most incredible politician’, ‘best leader in the world’, and even ‘the world’s poorest president’."

"Pepe Mujica, former president of Uruguay who enjoys almost universal admiration in Latin America, said: “Anyone who looks at a map to say that Venezuela could be a threat has to be quite mad. Venezuelans have a marvelous Constitution – the most audacious in all of Latin America.” [xi]"

"Men are adorable, but mysterious...How can he be so average, yet so full of confidence?"

"Unlike women, who always think of themselves as unimportant, men always think of themselves as the center of the universe. Every single sentence from men carries utmost importance, and points out the right direction in which the world should advance."

"A joke can only get laughs for one reason because it resonates."

"Intel is so picky about laptops, they’re even more selective than my taste in men."

"As men, you stand at the center of the universe. You spout pearls of wisdom that shape the future of the world. So when your female friend comes to you, you might wonder: ‘Is she hoping to share her sadness with me? No, she must be hoping to learn something from me!’"

"The supermodels all have skeletal bodies . . . the very existence of their bodies expresses an attitude: the disdain for men. The more men like a certain part of their bodies, the less they want to grow that part. Fashion is such an attitude."

"If a man wants to marry me now, it should be more convenient when he just wants to beat me."

"To be honest, I thought at first that it was an advantage for women to stand alone, because the most important thing for actors is to have their own labels on stage, and actresses carry their own labels. My image on stage has always been that of a girl who is single, who wants to fall in love and who is not particular about being particular."

"My mother never urged me to have a blind date again. She felt that if a man wanted to marry me, it might just be more convenient for him to beat me. In this world, all girls will get sympathy when they encounter domestic violence."

"Regarding the change in identity, I actually took the initiative to accept and work hard to change in this direction, because I feel that growing up on the stage is not as rewarding as recording a show, and I am still eager to go."

"It wasn't until I saw the comments that I realised some people reacted aggressively towards my performance. It kind of scared me. I felt like I was dragged into a war I didn't start. I'm only trying to be funny. In fact, in the same performance, I also ridiculed women for being emotional, but I didn't receive any hateful comments or threats from female netizens. Women have most likely become used to their stereotypical weakness being made fun of, while men have heard so few jokes like this before."

"She said as an ambitious woman she learnt to stand on her own feet and to leave a life independent of her father."

"As an individual, I have always have a passion to assist and mentor the girl-child. “I will keep on doing my best through Vabvana Trust as we seek to change people’s lives."

"I just want to walk my path but I don’t mind having him around me."

"Selmor has been exceptionally helpful as we build up the new Old Mutual Amazing Voices talent search initiative, designed to platform a whole new generation of singers, so her role in working with the aspiring competitors has been enormously beneficial."

"As such, the hard-working diva, through her three-year-old Vabvana Trust, has since stepped up efforts to bring smiles on the poor"

"My Nigeria is giant of Africa by Nigeria is the first to produce female human mechanic in Africa."

"My Nigeria is where you can find a lot of women doing male-dominated professions. My Nigeria women are strong women."

"The constraints, the obstacles, the challenges they could have driven me back they became my opportunities. The future looks bright."

"Our clients keeps coming back because they prefer us because we are determined to be better than a lot of mechanics who take their jobs and salaries for granted."

"If you don’t stand for something, you’ll stand for nothing. While the public service can open you to great opportunities, it can also offer other attractions that can make you compromise your values – it comes with the territory. There will be many opportunities for compromise, you must stay focused and look at the big picture. Ask yourself some critical questions like: Is this why I am here? Why should I settle for less?”"

"I believe African women are burdened by the weight of patriarchy, misinterpretation of religious tenets and a culture that has refused to grow beyond the Stone Age."

"Success or leadership is not limited to a particular gender."

"The difference between a job and a calling is passion. A job will put food on the table, get you life’s luxuries, take you to places and all, but a job that’s a calling will give you fulfilment in addition and endless opportunities!"

"Your love for your job will influence people and bring you big responsibilities beyond your wildest imagination... while the public service can open you to great opportunities, it can also offer other attractions that can make you compromise your values – it comes with the territory. There will be many opportunities for compromise, you must stay focused and look at the big picture."

"Distinguish yourself, be indispensable. One of the dangers of the public service is that efficiency is difficult to measure and because of that, one can get easily drawn into the regular routine of ‘soldier go, soldier come; barrack remains’. Don’t fall for that."

"There is no greater threat to a woman’s agency than violence. As a leading donor supporting efforts to end gender-based violence, the Ford Foundation is further demonstrating its commitment to supporting action and advocacy to counter attitudes, narratives and behaviors that perpetuate sexual violence"

"“Public service is very bureaucratic and routine. The chances of getting into the regular cycle is high. So, always re-invent yourself. Add something to the package of you that makes you a new improved product like marketers do... When it doesn’t work, know when to move on and be open to other opportunities. Take a break if you must and break new grounds.”"

"People will say terrible things about you, especially in our part of the world where strong, intelligent women breaking the ranks and cracking the glass ceiling is considered against the norm. Your greatest critics will come from your inner circle – close friends, family, immediate bosses and even yourself."

"Every party wants to put its best foot forward, and we are not sure that many are going to put women forward"

"Sexual violence does not just happen, it is a learned behaviour, people repeat patterns when they find out that there is no deterrent for a particular behaviour."

"You don’t sit in the comfort of your home and complain that governance is excluding women.So we are encouraging young women to participate in governance."

""We need to change the way we bring up women; otherwise Nigeria will not grow; when you educate a woman, you educate a nation"."

"When men and women combine and form close bonds, we’re stronger and more effective, like a bundle of broomsticks connected together by a single cord."

"I am not saying we should disregard sex differences, i am only advocating that boys and girls be given equal opportunities to develop themselves as standing up straight to pee doesn’t necessarily make anybody smarter, or dumber."

"I don’t think we would have been so hard on the woman if we stopped tying acts of service to gender."

"I love my femininity and would always embrace and enhance as best I can, but I believe that shouldn’t box me or constrain me to a set of rules."

"I am all out for teaching young girls and inspiring women to break away from age-long societal norms, constructs, and stereotypes that have limited their progress by showing them that they can do anything and be whomever they choose to be regardless of society’s dictates."

"Being a gender advocate is definitely not for the faint hearted."

"The educational institution, as a citadel of learning, should not be a place where societal constructs are amplified or embraced."

"The Nordic countries have the opportunity to take the lead in global climate efforts. We're ready to take on this role. We know that it's difficult to prioritize, but we must accept our responsibility. We have to show people, and not least the younger generations, that we mean what we say, and that we practice what we preach."

"It has been complicated for the past four years (2017–2021) and it will continue to be complicated. But maybe it is also healthy having to work with people who don't agree with you on everything."

"When we were jailed, Pussy Riot immediately became very popular and widely known, and it turned from just a group to essentially an international movement. Anybody can be Pussy Riot, you just need to put on a mask and stage an active protest of something in your particular country, wherever that may be, that you consider unjust. And we’re not here as the leaders of Pussy Riot or determining what Pussy Riot is and what it does or what it says. We are just two individuals that spent two years in jail for taking part in a Pussy Riot protest action."

"I think the most fascinating fact about Ukrainians, and I hear it from them, is that they’re never going to give up. A lot of Ukrainians have said that Putin was expecting them to give up the control of the country to him. But that didn’t happen. They just have this spirit of, “This is our country. This is our baby.” And I really think that the president of Ukraine, Zalenskyy, is doing really, really well. He refused to leave Kyiv and he said, “We’re just going to defend it.” And they’re achieving amazing results."

"I think it`s just a - it`s a question of moral choice, and I cannot say that everyone has to make that choice, but I definitely have much more respect to those people who make moral choice not to be silent and go and express their position, whether it`s on the streets or on the Internet. Use your voice while you still can use it, because maybe tomorrow you`re not going to have it anymore."

"The global community was extremely complacent, and I see two reasons: hypocrisy, based on greed. People would make statements that they did not support Putin’s politics, and his oppression of the political opposition, and the wars that he started… But at the same time they would continue doing business with him. ... People underestimate how dangerous dictators are. In 2014, we spoke to the UK parliament, we spoke at the Senate in the US, we were asked by a lot of people how they should talk to Putin, how they should frame the conversation, and I always advised that they should be as strict as they could. You cannot play nice with Putin."

"Vladimir Putin became intimidated by Ukraine choosing the path to freedom and democracy. That's why the Russian army bombs maternity wards, schools, hospitals, rapes and kills civilians and throws their bodies in mass graves. Putin and everyone who supports him are dead inside and they must be defeated."

"Vladimir Vladimorovich: The Kremlin walls became your prison walls. You have already lost. You know it. That's why you are so afraid. You lost in spirit. The world is on Ukraine's side. The world is with the people of Ukraine."

"Dealing with the Russian government is not new for the rocker. Tolokonnikova took part in a protest inside of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral in 2012, after which she spent almost two years in prison. The protest aimed at criticizing the Russian Orthodox Church's close ties with President Vladimir Putin. Two other members of the band were also imprisoned after screaming, "Mother Mary, please drive Putin away."...Individuals and entities labeled as "foreign agents" are required to submit regular financial reports and detailed lists of their income and spending. They must also display a disclaimer on all articles, social media posts and other publications that say, in part, "This Message (material) is creted and (or) distributed by a foreign mass media performing the functions of a foreign agent..." Tolokonnikova wrote on social media that she will not be marking anything as described above and will dispute the label in court."

"Mr President, of course we should legislate to stop all forced labour. But how many times have we had to listen to accusations about China, backed up by nothing more than the say—so of weapons—industry—funded think tanks and groups on the payroll of CIA cut—outs like the National Endowment for Democracy? Where are the full and rigorous investigations, the evidence? Screaming, unsupported accusations is not how to conduct international relations. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has just visited Xinjiang, has had discussions with many groups and representatives there, and hopes this is the start of a fruitful process towards transparency and high human rights standards in China."

"We need more diplomacy, not less. We have two powers. The US and Russia have an awful lot in common. Both are run by monopoly capital, run by oligarchs on both sides. We have two imperialist powers fighting each other in Ukraine, and only working-class people are dying."

"Energy poverty is first and foremost a political failure which requires an adequate political response which tackles the root causes of injustice while ensuring a fair and sustainable future for all. Energy is a public good, but we need to start treating it as such – because we haven’t been doing so."

"The G7 and NATO-aligned countries, which collectively represent a minority of the world’s people, want to contain Russia and China and stop EU-Asia integration. The BRICS countries, which represent a larger portion of the world’s people, are not calling for this break – for isolation or for containment. They are clear that they want to maintain a world where multilateral institutions such as the UN are respected. The EU seems to want world domination. The Global South really wants genuine multilateralism. We should listen to them."

"Is the US a functioning democracy? Well, let’s have a look at it. It cost 2 billion to become president. They have 25% of the total prisoners in the world. They spend over 800 billion a year on arms, which is more than most of the world put together. They’ve been at war for 250 years since their state was formed 275 years ago. But they can’t afford universal health care. They can’t afford a 1.7 trillion debt forgiveness for students. They can’t afford for a programme for the 17 million children that go to bed hungry. Is this a functioning democracy? What’s your idea of a democracy? Bernie Sanders wasn’t even allowed to win the nomination for the Democrats. The Americans couldn’t spell democracy."

"What is democracy anyway? Is it having a vote every four or five years? No, it's not. It's your people having a say in the society they live in. And most of the American people have no say in the society they're living in."

"We all know exactly what NATO is: a post—war mechanism designed to maintain US dominance and control over Western Europe, advance US geostrategic interests and violently suppress socialism. To pursue these aims, NATO has partnered with right—wing terrorists and fascists to conduct long campaigns of bloody terror and destabilisation, both in and outside Western Europe. Everywhere it conducts operations, it leaves a trail of destruction and destabilisation behind it, and persists often for decades after the initial act of aggression."

"Why are we choosing an aggressive position with China? Why are we not choosing cooperation instead of aggression? Why are we not respecting the principle of state sovereignty and non-interference? We should be working for peace with China. It's in our interest. But you know what? I can't help feeling that we are being led along by the nose by the Americans who have a vested interest in challenging China at the moment not because China is a threat to the security of the American people... But China is a threat to their financial supremacy"

"We must question, as the Pope has done, the wisdom of sending arms to Ukraine. We must stop executing the war on Yemen. We must stop the use of sanctions as a weapon of war in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela, Yemen and elsewhere. These medieval weapons are killing women and children, the sick, the old and the vulnerable the most. We must end Fortress Europe and extend the compassion we rightly have for the Ukrainian women and children to all refugees and internally displaced people. Selective humanity is not humanity at all."

"Many people are asking, what is democracy? Democracy is where the people have a say in how their society is organised. There isn’t much of it around. In Member States, it’s been watered down dramatically by the weakening of local government – one of the best vehicles that the people had for connecting with those that were ruling them."

"If we care about human rights we will suspend relations with the criminal apartheid state of Israel until they stop the genocide of the Palestinian people and until Palestine is free."

"Meanwhile, the EU and our friends are immune from criticism and when you have armed contracts with totalitarian regimes, who carry out terrible atrocities, you look the other way. I will take seriously the concern expressed in here for US-paid journalists imprisoned in Vietnam when you deal with the millions of starving and dying children in Yemen and demand they be free from Saudi-UAE aggression and free from the fear of the weapons of the US, Canadian, UK, French, German, Swedish Spanish and Belgian countries blowing them to pieces."

"The US and their allies claim to be fighting a war on terror whenever they drop bombs and kill people. Here they have taken out some of the people who have done more to fight ISIS than anyone else that we know. They have been asked to get out of Iraq, are they going to get out of it? Are they going to recognise the democratic decision? They claim to have brought democracy to Iraq; are they going to respect it now?"

"El-Sisi is a brutal dictator. Do the French have any problems selling him weapons? No. Do the French have any problems selling weapons to the Saudis who are committing genocide in Yemen? No. Does the EU do anything about it? No. This European Union has sanctions, which are a form of terrorism, against Venezuela, Syria, Iran. You do business with murderers. What’s going on with you?"

"We know who is increasing the tensions in the Persian Gulf. It isn’t Iran; the Saudis, with the nice backing of Israel and, of course, the US. Why don’t we call it as it is and stop playing footsie with words? They have a problem with the powerful nature of Iran, with the independence of Iran, and Europe does need to put its arm around Iran and be more welcoming. Iran is not feeling the love from Europe. You have the potential to do more and welcome them more into the international community."

"I came to the United States of America conscious of my African-ness, conscious of my blackness, I became conscious of women studies and became a feminist."

"A lot of work is being done by feminist because we have to think about breaking the glass ceilings and think about if the systems we have been living under will work for us what is different what to do."

"Thinking through what makes a leader, how do you communicate and how do you organize yourself."

"What makes a leader different is the different communication styles respecting different forms of leadership."

"Historically leadership and the concept has always been the top down one most of us who do leadership training we do the bottom up leadership you don't impose structure you figure out organically who the people are."

"The idea of family however conceived is at the root of old family structure and we leave in a world were those family structure are in the end the basis of the legal, religious,social and state laws under which we live."

"New family law can end violence against women."

"Violence is both visible and invisible."

"Dreamers remember their dreams when they are disturbed;And you shall not escape what we will make of the broken pieces of our lives."

"You cannot know how long we cried until we laughed over the broken pieces of our dreams."

"We are all mothers,and we have that fire within us,of powerful womenwhose spirits are so angry, we can laugh beauty into life and still make you taste the salty tears of our knowledge."

"For we are not tortured anymore; we have seen beyond your lies and disguises, and we have mastered the language of words, we have mastered speech and know we have also seen ourselves raw and naked piece by piece until our flesh lies flayed with blood on our own hands."

"What terrible thing can you do us which we have not done to ourselves? What can you tell us which we didn’t deceive ourselves with long time ago?"

"Hello everybody and thank you for joining us, wherever in the world you’re joining us from. My name is Abena Busia. I am a Ghanaian, very proud to be so, a Ghanaian writer and poet, and currently Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil. I am very, very honoured today, however, to be part of this festival and to interview a friend of mine, an extraordinary woman herself who today is best known for co-winning the 2019 Booker Prize with her eighth book, Girl,Woman, Other, making her the first Black woman to win it. But for some of us, her reputation preceded that."

"For some of us, she is a person who is a trailblazer and a visionary who has helped put Black women writers – particularly those writing out of Britain – on the map. She is visionary, she is feisty, and she has an acute sense of the politics of being and the politics of representation. Yet in all of that, her wit and her wisdom have brought to consciousness the place of those of us Black people of African descent growing up in England – the way we negotiate our identities, the way we negotiate the politics of space, the way we interact intergenerationally and between ourselves [which] has been, for some of us, the food of life."

"Her first non-fiction book, Manifesto, on never giving up, is to be published next month. And she has taken that wit and wisdom so many places, including, most crucially, the academy, where today she is professor of creative writing at Brunel University in London and vice-president of the Royal Society of Literature."

"Yes, and we will come back to that and the matter of your hidden histories. But I now want to ask a question about something that not many people think and talk about. And that is, what is a catholic grasp, if you like, of the place of Black writers in British society? I had the privilege of hearing you speak, five years ago, at [the] African Literature Association conference in Germany and I remember being struck by your keynote speech, about the way you could so clearly map the progress of Black writing, the recognition of Black writing and the issues that Black writers had taken on in the public space: naming the challenges and difficulties you face in the sense of not just what you wrote but that you wrote at all, that you existed at all. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that activist part of the collectivity before we return to the question of your personal creativity."

"Well, you did it very well, I must confess . You do succeed in bringing us along. To the point where I am about to send your novel to somebody facing that dilemma. Because it’s not easy on either side. And to be honest, yours was the first thing I read that made it so clear how difficult it was, but at the same time humanised the process both from the point of view of the person transitioning as well as the point of view of the people receiving them. Her grandmother’s responses, the point where her grandmother says, “Look, love, I was born in the 1920s” or whatever it was, you know, “You do your thing but it’s too late for me, I’m a hundred, take it or leave it!” (APAB and BElaughing) “I love you anyway, you can come to the farm but that... I’ve got other things to fight!” Which was also very [much] to the point. Her grandmother had had different things to negotiate, generations of displacement, fatherlessness or in her case, a father who didn’t get it, and looking for her daughter for seventy years. So, again, the complexity of the stories that get bound up in this vision of “This is who we are and need to understand”."

"There are a couple of people who have identified themselves [in the chat], including the person who invited us both here, Amina Mama, and I just want to read what Amina says because I think it’s important and it emphasises what you said when you introduced yourself and your origins. Amina has put up on the platform that she grew up between Nigeria and London, so the exactness of your portrayals hits her very deeply. And it is true that there was only Buchi Emecheta in those days, and [she’s] celebrating the fact that our daughters and mothers have you to read. So that was her comment."

"It’s interesting though. I had a similar experience very, very recently. I am working on an epic poem, in fact, of Black women all over the place, the spirit of a Black woman from what is now Ghana who is following her lost daughters in all these spaces and through time. And I was so excited to discover that book about Black Tudors, Black people in Tudor England.1 What excited me was looking at the timeline. I grew up in this little English country village outside Oxford which was part of the divorce settlement between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves ... (laughs)... documented! And I found enough material in this book on Black Tudors to decide that one of my little daughters is going to get lost in Standlake in Anne of Cleves’ manor house!"

"Yes, it is liberating and so wonderful to find the historians supporting our imaginative lives."

"Always, always, always uplifting to see and hear you, Bernardine. It matters to some of us that you are out there in the world, so keep on your journey, and thank you so much."

"Thank you! That’s a wonderful concluding statement. As always, moti-vating us to be inspirational and think about our own lives. On that note, I would like to thank all of you who are out there in different parts of the world, those of you who are in this room, for being here. This has been a privilege."

"It was a good piece because it creates the atmosphere and the vision. Carole is very interesting, of course, because she is the woman of disguises. The woman who has a secret that she needs to [or] feels she needs to keep quiet about in order to negotiate. I love her mother who is like, “I am a Nigerian and so are you, and we’re not going to get past this, so let’s...” The scenes with her mother and the ways in which the mother helps her re-find herself by dealing with, who is the person that you’re going to marry. I will ask you now about the structure of this particular book and the multiple voices, the twelve different voices, all of whom are connected – some intimately, some tangentially."

"I am one of these obsessive people that find myself going back, going “Oh! Oh! Oh yes! That was that person’s classmate” and “Oh yes! It’s the same teacher.” Going through all of that and trying to understand. I wonder, what inspired you to create the book that way and what was the kernel that made you in a sense move out and flourish from?"

"And that’s important. I do want us to turn to your own writing, but I have to acknowledge that it is characteristic of you not only that you have been an activist but that you always acknowledge the people that you’ve been working with, and the importance of a collective voice and solidarity has always been part of your work which some of us really appreciate. I’m going to extrapolate something from that, that may or may not be true, and that is: I see that collec-tivity actually in the structure of your novels."

"Environmentalists for Black Lives Matter” “Social justice cannot wait,” the caption stated. “It is not an optional ‘add-on’ to environmentalism.” “It is unfair to opt in and out of caring about racial injustices when many of us cannot."

"We should care about the protection of people as much as we care about the protection of our planet-to me, these fights are the same. As a society, we often forget that humans are a part of our global ecosystem and that we don't exist separately from nature; we coexist with it each and every day."

"Unfortunately, as with other animals, some humans are endangered and facing a multitude of social and environmental injustices that impact their ability to not only survive but also thrive in liberation and joy. Why, then, are conservation efforts not extended to the protection of endangered humans and their human rights? This is a question I've struggled with as a Black environmentalist for years, because in my environmental practice, caring for the earth means caring for its people."

"If we combine social justice efforts with environmental awareness efforts, we will harness enough power, representation, and momentum to have a shot at protecting our planet and creating equity at the same time."

"The lack of representation of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, low-income, LGBTQ+, disabled, and other marginalized voices has led to an ineffective form of mainstream environmentalism that doesn't truly stand for the liberation of all people and the planet."

"it's evident that social justice and environmentalism are deeply intertwined and that addressing this interconnection is crucial for attaining justice for both people and planet."

"Social injustice and environmental injustice are fueled by the same flame: the undervaluing, commodification, and exploitation of all forms of life and natural resources, from the smallest blade of grass to those living in poverty and oppressed people worldwide. It's a point that many ecofeminists, environmental justice scholars and leaders, Indigenous rights and land sovereignty advocates, and climate politicians have argued for decades, but it hasn't been embedded deeply enough in modern environmental education."

"I didn't want to be an "environmentalist" if that meant I had to choose between racial progress and environmental progress."

"Those least responsible for the climate crisis are bearing the brunt of it."

"It is time to dismantle and reflect on what environmentalism means and reclaim the term so that it is inclusive of historically excluded and underrepresented people."

"Our identities flow through our politics, our advocacy, what we care about-whether we realize it or not."

"it's truly my biggest hope that one day in the future we won't need to preface "environmentalism" with the word "intersectional"; we won't need to create separate safe spaces and curriculums that seek to be inclusive. One day I hope that when people think of an environmentalist, they'll automatically envision a person who cares very deeply about both people and planet."

"The future can and will be intersectional."

"Hazel M. Johnson's work helped lay the groundwork for climate justice around the world, as well as for an intersectional approach to environmentalism. It's important to also note that she was met with sexism, racism, and classism throughout her career, and has been omitted from many environmental textbooks. As intersectional environmentalists, we are now presented with the opportunity to recreate what environmental education should look like, and we can work together to honor stories like Johnson's to ensure that her legacy, and those of other BIPOC environmentalists, lives on...Another pivotal voice in environmental justice history is its "father," as he's often dubbed, Dr. Robert Bullard."

"What is the impact of having large-scale environmental movements that mostly exclude the voices of the underrepresented and people of color?"

"A mentor of mine once said, "Even the revolution needs accountants." This made me laugh, but it's true! We can each contribute our skills in some way."

"Together, we can transform the future of environmentalism and, with collective action, spread our message across the globe and change enough hearts and minds to positively alter the future."

"Environmentalism was largely a white, middle- and upper-class movement that wasn’t super intersectional. Then after that, in the 80s, we see an emergence of a primarily BIPOC-led environmental justice movement that is trying to address some of the inequity in environmental policy that was really facing Black and brown communities. I think having that context would be really important because the way that it was taught to me was like, ‘there was this environmental movement and it just happened,’ but no kind of nod to the civil rights movement."

"I would say learning is the first step and, honestly, the most fun step. Learning about the history of the environmental justice movement and learning about those cool heroes who deserve to have their place in environmental history. It’s also really important for folks to figure out and get involved with what’s going on in their local communities. You might be surprised, if say, thirty minutes down the highway the air pollution is completely different. Overall, people should look at their local communities, educate themselves, and really have fun with it."

"I had to leave my community in order to have access to the right education, nature, green spaces, clean air. And I think that instilled something in me early on."

"We know it’s going to take all of us and not just a select few."

"I was so frustrated during this second wave of the Black Lives Matter movement [in the Spring of 2020] because the environmental community was largely silent. So I posted the Environmentalists for Black Lives Matter graphic, along with my definition of intersectional environmentalism, and also an intersectional environmentalist pledge and I put it out there."

"If you look at the 1960s and 1970s, there was the civil rights movement, and then there was the environmental movement right after, which was largely white-led. They appropriated the same tactics that they learned from civil rights protestors. And then, of course, we have the first Earth Day, which is super amazing, but if you look at pictures, you see white people wearing headdresses. And now we’re at a different point in history where we have in 2019 and early 2020, the biggest climate marches, and then right after that, side by side, we have another civil rights movement happening at the same time."

"It’s important for people to realize that if they want to use their privilege in the right way, amplify the voices of the people who have historically been unheard."

"I think when a lot of people learn about environmental racism, they think, “How can I save these people?” But they don’t think about “What have I been ignoring to allow this to happen?”"

"It doesn’t matter if you’re living in a city, you’re still in nature. A lot of white environmentalists still view nature as something that they go to, instead of thinking, nature is all around me. And that means that nature is also all around these different communities of colour, even if they’re living in a city."

"I got the term “Intersectional” from Intersectional Feminism*, which is a type of feminism that I identify with. I feel like intersectional feminism shouldn’t have to exist, nor intersectional environmentalism, but because some people in both circles don’t factor in how race and culture can play a significant role in how people are treated or interact with the environment, it needs to be there. For example, people of colour are more likely to live next to toxic waste sites or in areas with higher levels of water and air pollution. I’ve spent the past 6 years in Environmental circles and have been frustrated at times by the lack of acknowledgement of its importance, so I felt like I needed to give words to the type of environmentalism that I practice and would hope all environmentalists adopt."

"I studied Environmental Science and would much rather focus on urgently addressing the climate crisis, but I cannot when I’m fearful for my life and that of those who look like me. I would much rather dedicate my life to fighting against extractive industries than fight for my right to exist in this world. I wish that was just understood as an inherent principle in society."

"For someone who is just getting started, they can start with educating themselves and reading literature about environmental justice and allyship."

"Oprah 100%, I’ve always looked up to her and adore her so much."

"I feel a sense of urgency when it comes to Trump and his administration. I’m here today because I’m beginning to see what my parents saw in the 1930s in Europe. I always tried to imagined how it was like for them, but this is the first time in my life when I feel that I’m experiencing something similar. It has enormous echos for me. ‘America First’ is not substantially different from ‘Deutschland über Alles.’ One of the things that scares me is the global rise of right-wing movements in the United States, Europe and Israel. The American alt-right is in dialogue with similar movements in Israel, and this might pose a danger to both Israelis and Americans."

"no theory about American Jews has been able to express quite as well the nature and power of Jewish identity as the moment when I realized I had passed without a second thought a group of homeless people on a New York City street because I was rushing to a Jewish women's vigil protesting Israeli policies against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. I saw myself instinctively redefining geography and distance, experiencing how much closer Israel, the West Bank and Gaza felt than the 59th Street stop of the Lexington line. Moments like these, integral parts of our daily lives, simultaneously embody theory and concrete experience and I continue to trust them most."

"From the age of twenty, my ego has been invested in poetry. For me, the prospect of expression through poetry transforms solitary silence and an empty page into sheer pleasure. I feel unafraid, knowing I can break all the rules, invent my own forms. No matter what persona I take on, my voice remains accessible and recognizable. There is no artifice, no pose, no sense that I have to transform myself into someone else. As a poet, I remain comfortably disrespectful. I experiment, take risks which sometimes work and sometimes don't. For years I have had no such courage in essay writing. It has seemed an iron-clad genre that I could neither escape nor fit into."

"di bavegung, "the movement," has pushed, encouraged, and given me space, like it has to many women who lacked confidence in their skills and in the value of their perspectives. Above all, it challenged me to present publicly what I discuss privately, to raise issues that I care about and that are central to my experience as a feminist and lesbian, as a Jew sorting out my identity and my relationship to Jewish history, as an American Jew defining my relationship to events in the Middle East."

"At thirteen I tried silence. At sixteen I tried anonymity. I have since learned these are not the only options."

"Repeatedly, I find that I am preoccupied not with countering anti-Semitism, but with trying to prove that anti-Semitism exists, that it is serious, and that, as lesbian/feminists, we should be paying attention to it both inside and outside of the movement."

"I want the issue of anti-Semitism to be incorporated into our overall struggle because there are lesbian/feminists among us who are threatened in this country not only as lesbians, but also as Jews. If that incorporation simply takes the form of adding us on to the already existing list of problems, then it will be mere tokenism and lip service. But if it includes self-examination, analysis of the Jew in America, and dialogue between Jews and non-Jews, then I think this movement will have made a real attempt to deal with the issue."

"When the Jews finally staged the uprising in April 1943, the Polish underground refused them almost every form of assistance. Even though they were facing the same enemy, even though their country was occupied, the Poles could not overcome their anti-Semitism and join the Jews in the struggle for the freedom of both groups, and instead chose to stage a separate Polish uprising more than a year later."

"I think it is time for all of us in this movement, Jews and non-Jews alike, to examine our silence on this subject, to examine its source. And Jews especially need to consider their feelings about their Jewishness, for any self-consciousness, any desire to draw attention away from one's Jewishness is an internalization of anti-Semitism. And if we want others to deal with this issue, then we ourselves must start to develop a sense of pride and a sense that our survival as Jews is important."

"If someone were to ask me did I think a Jewish Holocaust was possible in this country, I would answer immediately: "Of course." Has not America had other holocausts? Has not America exterminated others, those it deemed undesirable or those in its way? Are there not holocausts going on right now in this country? Why should I believe it will forever remain benevolent towards the non-Christian who is the source of all its troubles, the thief of all its wealth, the commie betrayer of its secrets, the hidden juggler of its power, the killer of its god? Why should I believe that, given the right circumstances, America will prove kind to the Jew? That given enough power to the fascists, the Jew will remain untouched?"

"As a child, my first conscious feeling about being Jewish was that it was dangerous, something to be hidden."

"As I grew older, I learned the full breadth of Yiddish literature; but this early introduction with its inherent political vision became as powerful an influence in my life as did the war."

"Experience has obviously taught me that Jews are not the only ones in danger and that what is "undesirable" in me is not limited to my Jewishness."

"As a writer I still cherish poetry that tells a story, especially the dramatic monologue. I still value most a poetry that deals with people, especially those alienated and out of the mainstream-the overworked and dreamless, Third World, women, gay-a subdued, earnest poetry that expresses their feelings, their struggles, the conditions of their lives."

"the Holocaust. I find it almost impossible to write that word because here-in America-the word has lost almost all meaning. And the fault lies with both non-Jews and Jews. It lies with the "American way of life," with the process of Americanization, with American Big Business, with commercialism, with posing, with artificial feelings...I find-and am repeatedly stunned by it-that people (including non-Jews) insist on dredging it up. Writers, for example, who have no feelings or connection to the war, insist on it as literary metaphor, as an epigraph, as some kind of necessary addition. A casual allusion to Auschwitz. An oblique reference to the Warsaw Ghetto. Somehow this "sprinkling" of Jewish experiences is thought to reflect sensitivity, a largeness of heart. And of course it does not. It is simply the literary Holocaust, the Holocaust of words that has nothing to do with fact. It is nothing more than a pose. I must say that my teeth grind whenever I see these gratuitous gestures-usually devoid of any Jewish context, devoid of any sense of the Jewish experience or history."

"I've been thinking a lot about it lately, about the corruption here in America, how everything becomes big business, how everything becomes diseased. Everything."

"How can I say to people that for the survivors with whom I grew up the Holocaust never ended? That all my life I will feel the loss of never having known my father, never even having a photograph of him after the age of seventeen. That all my life I will feel the loss of aunts and cousins and grandparents I never knew. That my mother still stacks shelves and shelves of food-just in case. That twenty years after the war, when some plaster fell down from the living room ceiling, she froze with fear because she thought we were being bombed...The Holocaust was not an event that ended in 1945-at least not for the survivors. Not for me. It continued on and on because my mother and I were alone."

"This is the confusion. Being Jewish. Being a lesbian. Being an American. It all converges. It is like feelings about one's parents. Love and embarrassment. The painful realization that they are not perfect."

"When it comes to the bottom line, the Moral Majority is Christian. So is the Ku Klux Klan. So is the Nazi Party. And I am completely stymied that large segments of the Jewish population have not absorbed these simple basic facts."

"I am also angry that Jews have somehow, during this process, gotten stuck—I'm not sure if that's the right word, but I don't know how else to express it. They have been unable to absorb the experience of the Holocaust, have not learned how to transcend the catastrophe. They've mistakenly thought that to transcend means to forget the past, that to think about the present is to abandon the past. That too is a painful mistake, a grave mistake for Jews in America, because it's kept many of them from universalizing their experience, from joining with others who have experienced oppression—not perhaps an exact duplication of Jewish oppression, but nevertheless oppression."

"This is perhaps the most painful aspect for me of being Jewish, for I identify strongly as a Jew, am proud to be a Jew. And yet I sometimes feel so torn-so torn from the Jewish community, from the Jews I grew up with, who nurtured me, helped me. And yet I don't understand what America has done to them and how it has seduced them. The conservatism is there and really hard to accept. But it is there, definitely there with the mainstreaming."

"what the Jewish lesbian encounters are the typical conservative stances. Closed doors. Silence. Disgust."

"Those of the Left, Jew and non-Jew alike, seem to believe what the Right has always maintained-that Jews run the world and are, therefore, most responsible for its ills. The casualness, the indifference with which the Left accepts this anti-Semitic stance enrages me. It is usually subtle, often taking the form of anti-Semitism by omission. Its form is to show or speak about Jews only as oppressors, never as anything else. That is anti-Semitic."

"I cannot end without affirming as strongly as I can my deep feelings of identification and pride in being a Jew. It was Jews who first instilled in me the meaning of oppression and its consequences. It was Jews who first taught me about socialism, class, racism and what in the fifties was called "injustice." It is from Jews that I adopted ideals that I still hold and principles that I still believe are true and must be fought for and put into practice. It was from Jews that I learned about the necessity for resistance. It was from Jews that I also learned that literature is not simply fancy words or clever metaphor, but instead is deeply, intimately connected to life, to a life that I am a part of. It is really almost impossible to compress this inheritance into a single paragraph. But I know its depth and vitality, and I know that I have absorbed it thoroughly into my consciousness."

"I write as much out of a Jewish consciousness as I do out of a lesbian/feminist consciousness. They are both always there, no matter what topic I might be working on. They are embedded in my writing, embedded and enmeshed to the point that they are not necessarily distinguishable as discrete elements. They merge and blend and blur, for in many ways they are the same."

"A child, of course, assumes that her world is the whole world."

"Though the students in my public school were probably ninety-five percent Jewish, not once between the second and eighth grades do I remember a single teacher-Jew or gentile-discuss a Jewish topic or issue, holiday, leader. All things Jewish belonged outside the walls of P.S. 95. And with the parents' consent."

"I never thought that as a secular Jew who defined herself through Yiddish culture, my sense of self was inextricably bound up in its existence, that when it was in jeopardy, my own identity was in jeopardy. I never realized that it was the mirror that made me visible to myself as a Jew."

"The use of Yiddish was an expression not only of love of a language, but of pride in ourselves as a people; it was an acknowledgement of a historical and cultural yerushe, heritage, a link to generations of Jews who came before and to the political activists of Eastern Europe. Above all it was the symbol of resistance to assimilation, an insistence on remaining who we were."

"I also became acutely conscious of the extreme effort, the commitment required to keep a language and culture alive in an environment that, at best, is indifferent. I was particularly stung by the disrespect with which Yiddish is treated by Jews. Historically, of course, this was nothing new. I had always heard stories of the clashes, some of them violent, between the Bund and the komunistn who advocated "normalcy" and assimilation or with the tsiyonistn who pressed for a Jewish homeland and Hebrew as the national language. And in 1963, when I had visited Israel, I myself heard the scorn with which most Israelis regarded Yiddish. To them, Yiddish meant shtetl, and shtetl meant the Holocaust. Never again. We're a new breed here. A different kind of Jew. I consciously thought them anti-Semitic, felt enraged at their lack of understanding and caring. Israel was one place where Yiddish culture might have survived. (The Soviet Union was the other.) But Eastern European Zionists were determined to wipe out the past of all Jews who came to Israel—not unlike the melting pot philosophy in America—and eliminating Yiddish among Ashkenazi was one of the steps toward achieving that goal."

"These early attitudes, the post-World War II push toward assimilation and American Jewry's increased involvement and identification with Israel, have made their mark on the present generation. When I would tell people that I was teaching Yiddish, most-especially Jews-were amused. Over and over again, I heard: "How cute!" I would counter that Yiddish is a language like any other. Generations of Jews in Western and Eastern Europe spoke it and wrote it, just like any other people in any other language. But here in America what had been mame-loshn to millions of Ashkenazi Jews, what had been a medium through which Jewish history, culture, politics, ethics were transmitted, had become a joke, a joke usually made by Jews, a joke now so Americanized it has become the property of the gentile mainstream."

"in July, 1983-thirty-seven years after having left-I returned to Poland with my mother on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the varshever geto oyfshtand, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Though I had been raised in almost a khurbn kultur, a Holocaust culture, I was totally unprepared for the experience. In Poland I saw the shadows of Jewish-Polish culture and was able to infer from them the magnitude of what had taken place. It was like stepping into a negative rather than a photograph. I was overcome by the sudden realization of the scale of the loss."

"In looking back, I wonder why something so basic as di yidishe kultur, so intimately connected to my life, has been so difficult to maintain, to be actively loyal to. Why have I experienced so many setbacks?...The problem stems from American society, which does not tolerate cultures outside the mainstream and does everything, materially and psychologically, to weaken them. Whether to Spanish-speaking or Chinese-speaking or Yiddish-speaking children, the message is monotonously the same: Change your name. Americanize. Forget the past. Forget your people."

"history has frequently forced Jews to cope with fragments and, as a result, we have learned how to create new contexts, new structures, new wholes-this process, as in the case of Yiddish itself, sometimes taking centuries. It is, I think, part of our resilience, part of our great capacity to transform when we have the will."

"That as a Jew I have a personal stake in the survival of yidishe kultur is not something I am ashamed of. I want yidishe kultur to survive and I intend to contribute toward that end. This commitment broadens my perspective, not narrows it. I believe that only when we ourselves are firmly rooted in our own cultural soil do we understand the commitment of others to their cultures, the binds of loyalty, the benefits of community. Furthermore, maintaining yidishe kultur supports Jewish diversity which feeds me, which continues to make life interesting. My recognition of Sephardic culture, for example, caused an expansion of my own perspective on people in general and specifically on the extraordinary breadth of Judaism and the Jewish experience."

"The survival of Yiddish and its culture does not rest on our ability to find the right term for "corn flakes" or "jet lag"; but rather on our ability to find a proper place for yidishe kultur in our lives, a place among other commitments; on our ability to infuse it with our contemporary values and politics learned outside of its boundaries. For example, feminism: women were co-creators and conveyors of Yiddish culture. This fact should be reflected in cultural history, as in contemporary Yiddish institutions and events. Contemporary Jewish feminists have much to contribute and their perspectives should be sought out. The Jews who would say "we don't need them" should think again about history, about the size of the Jewish community. I believe we need each other."

"I want my Yiddish involvement to be rooted in my life, in the present, want it to be infused with my contemporary politics and concerns, with the special quality of Jewish American experience. Di yidishe svive in the American environment. One world, not two. That's what will keep Yiddish alive for me."

"I do not accept the assumption that there exist two distinct Jewish worlds-progressive and mainstream (or traditional)—all of whose values and norms are always in conflict. My experience as a feminist and a lesbian is that the Jewish world we call progressive has been often as slow and reluctant to deal with feminist and gay issues as the mainstream Jewish world. Some advances have been made and many, though not all, Jewish progressives have reached the stage of paying obligatory lipservice and ensuring token representation at progressive events. But a clear-cut commitment to fighting sexism and homophobia and a dedication to gaining full rights for gays have not evoked the same passions which the struggles for rights of other minorities evoke. Most Jewish feminists and gays that I know remain angry and frustrated by Jewish progressives. Deeply committed to progressive causes, frequently in the vanguard of political action, Jewish feminists and gays find ourselves fighting for the rights of others without the secure knowledge that others will fight for us. Most of the time we fight sexist and heterosexist battles alone in both these worlds."

"Perhaps this experience as a lesbian and feminist is the reason I try to avoid the "us" and "them" division and try to find common ground in both worlds from which to launch various battles. The "us" and "them" division-"us" meaning progressives and "them" being the mainstream-is too simple and veils a more complex reality. It also smacks of smugness and self-righteousness, which I find alienating. It assumes that the progressive world has everything to offer the mainstream and the mainstream's main activity is to unlearn its evil ways. This is neither useful nor accurate. I am, for example, often pained by the ignorance of many Jewish progressives in relation to Jewish history, culture, and religion and wish we would have more contact with the mainstream community and get our Jewishness on firmer ground."

"there needs to be greater communication between Jewish progressives and the Jewish mainstream, there needs to be an exchange, bartering if you will. If such exchanges do not take place we will still be progressives, but not Jewish progressives...There needs to be among us a greater sense of an exchange between equals rather than between givers and receivers. If this sense of mutual respect does not exist, then we progressives will surely be forever seen as outsiders."

"As a feminist and lesbian, as a Yiddishist and a cultural Jew, I often feel alienated from Jewish progressives who do not share my cultural concerns, who do not worry about Jewish cultural survival... I have found, in fact, that my concerns about Jewish identity and culture often form the bridge to the mainstream Jewish community and enable me to get progressive issues such as women's and gay and lesbian rights a more sympathetic ear."

"We Jews are living in a strange historical period in which our sense of history is often quite warped. For many American Jews, the Holocaust and Israel have reduced Jewish history to the years 1939-1945, or 1948 to the present. This extremely limited view of Jewish history naturally narrows the concept of Jewish identity and that narrowness is one which we as progressives ought to be countering."

"Let us not take the attitude that because of our politics we must remain pure and not mix with the Jewish rabble-the mainstream. Let us be as willing to meet with Jews in small community centers in our neighborhoods as we are to meet with Palestinians. The work to be done at these centers and synagogues is as critical as the work needed to resolve the Palestinian/Israeli conflict."

"Like most activists and artists, I have difficulty establishing priorities. The tension between being active in the world and needing solitude is one all of us struggle with. I find myself discussing this tension with other Jews, particularly in regard to our activism on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Not an abstract discussion."

"The Jewish artist in me feels displaced. I want to have time to write, to create literature which expands our notion of our Jewishness, which might in turn give us rest and inspire us to keep on with our peace work. But I don't make time for it. I remain focused on Israel and the Occupied Territories, where the situation is worsening."

"since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra and Shatilla camps' massacres, I have experienced a slow disorientation around my Jewish identity. Israeli policies have caused me to question the adequacy of how I defined myself as a Jew. Like those Jews who until '82 were not focused on Israel, I felt discomfort and then rage about Israel's relationship to Palestinians and an increasing urgency about working to resolve the conflict. With great resistance, I have accepted that events in Israel and in the Occupied Territories-no matter how I defined myself as a Jew-affect my vision of myself as a Jew, my Jewish pride, my sense of how Jewish issues are to be prioritized."

"Though the Middle East is "far away," Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza remain close to our hearts, to our Jewish identity. We discuss the U.S. government's role in the region, the connections between defense spending and the homeless, between Third World people's solidarity with the Palestinians and the tensions between Jews and other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. But these are not, I believe, at the core of our involvement. Israel retains a special place on our list of priorities because it is a Jewish state and we are Jews and cannot disengage ourselves from its fate. It pushes us psychologically, gnaws at our sense of personal responsibility. It keeps us constantly focused and conscious of our Jewish identity."

"For too long our preoccupation with Israel (either in the form of Zionism or fundraising for Israel as the primary content of our Jewish identity or in the form of political opposition to Israeli government actions) has prevented us from seeing and dealing with Jewish identity, and Jewish life in the U.S."

"For some, the symbolic gesture of unequivocally supporting Israel (morally and/or financially) has been the core and sole expression of Jewish identity. As they begin-with great resistance and probably in secrecy-to question that support, they find themselves unable to define their Jewishness, particularly if they are not observant. Other Jews, active for the first time on a "Jewish" issue by opposing Israeli government policies, are also struggling to define their Jewishness and explain their emotional involvement with a country which, until now, they never identified with. The "far away" crisis is triggering the recognition of an emptiness in the Jewish self."

"I truly believe that as U.S. Jews we must question the nature of our Jewish identity-specifically secular identity, since the majority of Jews are not observant-must start paying attention to what is happening to us now as a people in this country. This is not a diversion away from the Palestinian cause. Our neglect of identity issues has a direct bearing on our feelings and responses to Israeli government policies, and by addressing the former, we, in fact, clear our way through the tangled and confusing attitudes which have distorted our perception of the latter."

"The multitude of Jewish options that existed before World War II are ones which most nonobservant U.S. Ashkenazi Jews are hardly familiar with, much less recognize...Before World War II many Yiddish-speaking European Jews were already rejecting observance and secularism. Eager to assimilate, they deliberately abandoned their Jewish language and culture. The well-known letters (Bintl Brif) of Der forverts (The Jewish Daily Forward), the thirties English stories of Anzia Yezierska, and the more modern forties and fifties Yiddish stories of Kadia Malodowsky describe this assimilation minutely."

"The word "secularism" is simply not part of this generation of Jewish students' vocabulary. With few exceptions, they define their Jewishness solely in relationship to Zionism (whose secular origins they don't even consider) and/or to the synagogue. Extremely conscious of the Holocaust, they commemorate Yom Hashoah, but are ignorant of Jewish European history before 1939. They've heard of Yiddish and know the word shtetl and are familiar with the names Sholem Aleykhem and I. B. Singer, but know nothing of the extensive cultural or political history associated with any of these. Born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this next generation is, of course, the product of its upbringing, which almost never included Jewish secular culture and history. Raised in assimilated or semiobservant homes, educated till their bar or bat mitsve in Sunday Hebrew schools (which most of them disparage), contemporary Jewish college students are totally cut off from a Jewish heritage which was thriving just forty years ago."

"Though U.S. Jews were quick to protest the Knesset's attempt to define "who is a Jew," it is a definition we are obsessed with."

"Defining and setting Jewish boundaries, prioritizing Jewish concerns and Jewish needs (especially less concrete ones like identity building) are particularly difficult for those of us who have learned to value and respect other cultures and peoples."

"Eastern and Western European Jews and struggling Jewish immigrants here in the States were neither completely passive nor pacifists in World War II or before that. Before that--? Jewish men served in various European armies, sometimes willingly, sometimes by force. Jewish workers-men and women-staged strikes, often violent. Various Jewish political groups organized self-defense organizations. Political enemies fought each other with weapons which were not limited to words. To claim otherwise is to erase the historically documented active Jewish participation in European life as well as the less picturesque Jewish underworld of gangsters, alcoholism, prostitution, violence, wife and child abuse."

"Emphasizing the seemingly more pious stories of Sholem Aleykhem and Peretz, stressing Jewish passivity over action, obedience to tradition over rebellion (and therefore upholding observance), many supporters of Yiddish and Yiddish culture have wrenched yidishkayt out of the active, political and radical context in which it flourished and thereby neutralized and depoliticized it."

"For many, Zionism was inherited at birth and they now think of it as synonymous with Jewishness. The threat of being labelled a traitor for questioning Israeli policies, and the allegation of self-hatred and anti-Semitism have inhibited an in-depth study of Zionism, its diverse political tenets, its history in relation to other Jews and to non-Jews and its role in defining Jewish identity in the States."

"Just as many contemporary Yiddishists romanticize and depoliticize the past, so do most contemporary Zionists romanticize and depoliticize the Israeli present. Such nostalgia is rightfully condemned by those who want Jews to engage in the political present. But these critics erroneously conclude that any focus on their Jewish identity will inherently foster Jewish escapist tendencies."

"Only by placing the Holocaust in a larger framework, by insisting on moving toward a Jewish future that is informed, but not defined, by the Holocaust, can we develop a productive way of relating to each other and the rest of the world. Such an approach guarantees memory, without sacrificing the present or future."

"the real issue: how we define our identity as Jews determines our politics and how we express them. As long as we allow either anti-Semitic and misinformed progressives to limit our concept of Jewish identity or reactionary Jewish promoters of nostalgia to limit the sphere of our political action, we will never extricate ourselves from the current identity-versus-politics tangle in which most progressive Jews find themselves. We must claim this area of concern for ourselves, on our own terms. By devoting ourselves to clarifying and establishing a secular identity as it was practiced before World War II we can, in fact, find the very answers which nostalgia and escapism currently block."

"As in the past, the next generation's secularism will not be monolithic, but will express itself in a variety of forms, espousing different politics, different interpretations of Judaism, different conceptions of our relationship to other Jewish communities, including Israel. This secularism will only develop, however, if we are able to pick up the threads of a heritage we are now only dimly aware of. We will guarantee another generation a Jewish future if we educate ourselves about the history of Jews, ancient and modern, about Jewish literature-probably in translation from Ladino, Yiddish, Hebrew and all the languages in which secular Jews and observant Jews wrote. We need to know how Jews were politically active in other societies, how they fought for the general as well as for their own good. This knowledge will help establish a secular Jewish calendar of Jewish traditional, historical, and cultural dates around which we can structure our lives and will become the content for the Jewish secularism we want to preserve. Once we have internalized this Jewish content, we can begin to describe our pleasure and rootedness in our culture and history through new poetry, theater, fiction, music, and other arts. And only then will our political commitments, including the two states-Jewish and Palestinian-have a context which allows us to struggle for the right of Palestinians without depleting ourselves, without giving into despair."

"those of us who had rich Jewish backgrounds and are not assimilated, but who have been transformed by feminism, gay politics, and the politics of the Left, must stop longing for an irretrievable past, must give up expectations which cannot be met...We are experimenting, and in the process we're forging traditions for the future."

"Just as we must not allow our strong commitment to developing Jewish secularism to detract from the struggle in the Middle East, that conflict cannot be used to allow assimilation to take over our lives."

"My vision of di froyen fun undzer mishpokhe includes Sephardim who speak Arabic and Ladino, proud lesbians, sabras, rabbis, single mothers, witches, elected government officials, and so many more. Some of them appear before me as individuals, others as shadows longing for daylight to disclose their identity."

"The way things have played themselves out makes me feel grateful to the lesbian/feminist movement because it really did help me get out there. I'm not sure whether I would have ever really been picked by a university press or by other presses to be published. The one thing about the lesbian/feminist movement is that we had a lot of room to do whatever we wanted to do, and so I'm very grateful because the movement really gave me the impetus"

"There's a whole tradition of immigrants, Jewish and non-Jewish, looking at America in a certain way-as a hope and a promise fulfilled. I don't look at it that way. I view it as a place where a lot of people have been ripped off. They don't have full liberties; they don't have economic opportunities."

"I am still a socialist, though I despair at how to express that these days. It's simple, so utterly simple: there ought to be fair distribution of wealth. I think the kind of economic disparity we're seeing now is obscene. I'm not saying anything radical or new. You can read it in the New York Times; the chasm between the rich and the poor has increased endlessly in the last two decades and that's a terrible, terrible thing. It's terrible when you consider what people's basic needs are-whether it's the vaccination of their children or affordable housing and the obscenity of what basketball players or corporation people or HMO presidents get. Nobody needs that much money."

"I think poets are our most important defenses against linguistic corruption. They are the reinventors of language, the defenders of language, who insist that how you express yourself, how you convey your experience, actually matters in the world."

"I think Yiddish is something the Ashkenazi Jews really turn to to help them define themselves in terms that existed before the war rather than in relationship to the Holocaust or Israel. They're pointing to the issues of language and what language can express and mean and especially if it's a language that is a national language. I think writers have an important function here, and I think some of them are accepting it. (GP: Writing in Yiddish?) IK: Well, at least talking about Yiddish or using a little bit of Yiddish even to make their English less mainstream, to make their English more Jewish. People are beginning to study. I think these small steps are significant. (GP: So in some way you're memorializing that tradition.) IK: I'm hoping that I'm not so much memorializing it as taking it into the present…Through my writing and through encouraging other people-not just writers. I want to "activate it," so that Jews will feel that they're connected to this culture, that they can claim it as their legacy, their heritage. It's what shaped their parents-well, at this point, I'd have to say their Eastern European grandparents and ancestors."

"There was a thousand-year-old tradition in Poland that I feel far closer to than the religious traditions based on Torah and Talmud and halakha. Now much of that tradition is religious. But it represents my history, my Polish Jewish ancestors. Poland is the center of my Jewish cultural roots, and the destruction of that center in Eastern Europe has created the deprivation of my life. My mission is to try to figure out how to continue here. So in that sense I don't accept the Zionist premises of Diaspora and homeland-that dichotomy. I feel Jews can be Jews anywhere. They might have to work on it in different ways depending on the contexts, hostilities, support, and so on. But they have to figure it out. So, yes-neither Israel nor the Bible is the core of my Jewish Identity. (GP: Can you say what it is? Is it memory?) IK: For me it is language and culture. What the Jewish Labor Bund called national cultural autonomy…Language by itself really doesn't mean anything to me. It's because a language is the medium of a whole culture, of a literature, of a politics (socialism) that language-Yiddish-takes on meaning. Now the question for me is what happens to that combination of language and culture here in the United States. I'm someone who is currently active in translating. I don't want that Yiddish heritage lost to the Jews here who can't read Yiddish. So simultaneously when I translate I'm also proselytizing for people to study Yiddish so that they can read the original. What I don't know is whether we can in fact have a secular culture-meaning one not based on religious practice and ritual or on religious texts-here in the United States as they did in Europe. They had the Yiddish language to define it, we do not. Of course, I'm hoping we can and will."

"Outside of Israel and Russia, we have our own realities, and Yiddish is "The Language That Won't Go Away." I often talk about this longing for Yiddish despite Israel, despite all the Holocaust memorials, despite all the Jewish activities that are part of American Jewish life. There's a lot of feeling about Yiddish both among an older generation and a younger generation that never even got to hear it. As I myself get older, I encounter young students whose parents don't remember Yiddish or never knew it, but perhaps whose grandparents spoke Yiddish. Yiddish for most is increasingly a vague memory. And yet this younger generation has this yearning. It's an interesting phenomenon. What is it that's missing in Jewish American life that makes Jews think that Yiddish could fill a void? Clearly, something is missing. We don't know whether for them Yiddish is the answer or not; something is happening among that generation. What I would like people to think about is why at a time when there's a frenzy about the Holocaust, about memorialization, about interviewing survivors, and so on, there is a rich revival of klezmer music. Is it a desire to focus on the joy that was there before the war?"

"(If you could do it again, what would you do differently?) IK: As a student, I was a purist (or so I thought). I was only focused on literature and poetry. When I was young, I resented being forced to read history. Now, I wish I had studied it more. I'm trying to catch up. In my younger years, I had a keen kind of intuitive personal sense of history, but I really didn't focus on it in a more disciplined way, and I think that that would have been a real enrichment to me, intellectually."

"(What is the most amazing thing about life?) IK: That it persists despite its fragility. Everything sort of hangs by a hair's breadth and yet somehow it manages.... You hear such horrible stories about people's lives...war, abuse, poverty-that anybody survives is remarkable. Audre Lorde once said, "None of us were meant to survive." There's truth to that, and I remain amazed that so many of us do. It's extraordinary that we can even walk around and function in a minimal way, much less in a productive way. For whatever turmoil goes on internally with people and the pain that they experience at night in their dreams, they still manage somehow to construct lives during the day which are meaningful to other people and to themselves."

"I was born in Warsaw during the war. And I was -- survived partly because I was hidden in a place in a Catholic orphanage. And my parents arranged for that. My father was killed in the uprising. He was one of the people involved in the uprising -- in organizing it."

"It wasn't an age in which people explained a lot of things to kids. Really. I mean, we're so careful now about, is this gonna traumatize the child and all of this. Nobody even thought about it."

"I think my introduction to loving poetry and literature came from Yiddish"

"The '50s were so culturally different than what -- anything that we have now. I mean, there was no bridge between that public school and that shule. In public school, we did Easter -- even though it was, like, ninety-eight percent Jewish, we did Easter, we did Christmas. There was not one mention of anything Jewish. And in the shule, it was like the rest of the world didn't exist."

"I sort of liked the kind of Yiddish poetry of like, Morris Rosenfeld. I liked somebody telling a story -- narrative. I liked narrative in poetry."

"When I write, I will say it out loud to myself over and over again. I want to hear it. I want to hear how it sounds. Not only -- I like to manipulate it on the page and how it looks, but I also want to be able to hear it."

"I experienced a lot of homophobia when I came out, around 1974"

"What happened was that Jewish feminists decided to either reclaim some stuff or -- they pushed into the Jewish community -- and people who had been outside of it, suddenly, women saw that there was a way in because of these other Jewish feminists...Every minority woman did this. They went back to their communities and they said, Where are the women? Let me see where they've been hidden, where they've been buried, who's forgotten, who should be remembered. We all did that with our own communities of origin, and I did the same thing with the Yiddish. And so, when I did with Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz -- when we did "The Tribe of Dina," we highlighted Fradel Shtok, who I'd never heard of before, and Kadia Molodowsky, who I had, but I didn't even know that she wrote prose. And we published -- I translated two short stories by both of them. And aside, I think, from Rokhl Korn, it was, like, the first time that these people's prose was being shown."

"There's an enormous amount of protectiveness -- of sort of like, the three classic writers. You're not -- can't say that they were sexist. Why? I mean, why were they -- were they really, I mean, the only three men in the last century who were not sexist? It just doesn't make any sense."

"I took my first trip to Poland; it was in '83; it was the fortieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And I went with my mother -- the only time she returned. And that had a profound effect on me, also. I think that also pushed me more towards trying to reclaim a Yiddish legacy, because I was sort of very -- I was particularly moved by the cemeteries, which were -- the two larger cemeteries that I saw were in Łódź and in Warsaw. And that, I think, also pushed me, because in some ways, that trip and those cemeteries made very clear to me the Holocaust in a way that it hadn't been before. Because the tombstones reflected the life that had been sort of destroyed in a very concrete way. I mean, you -- it wasn't abstract words; it wasn't a photograph; it was -- these were really burial places of actual people and an actual life. And it was something -- I once said it was like looking at a negative -- instead of looking at the photograph, you're looking at the negative. And that was very profound."

"One of the things that I did when I went to Poland this summer was, I insisted that there were lesbian -- because I know what's going on over there -- that I insisted that the word "lesbian" be in my bio. And it was interesting -- in Kraków, three young people came up to me, one of them in tears, just ecstatic that I had done it, and that I actually -- I had talked about it."

"At the time, it was not an easy process to come out in the Jewish community. And very often, I voluntarily was a token. I mean, I knew I was being used as a token. But I think that that's also part of the process. I think you allow yourself to be a token just so often, you know. But I think it's part of a process of people getting adjusted and having a token out there that they can -- that makes it easier for somebody else not to be a token."

"I'm a person who's interested in history in general. I think we should have accurate history, and I think we should look at people that have been erased, histories that have been erased."

"The translation of Yiddish literature into English by the -- beginning with, like, Irving Howe, and that totally erased women, so it was even worse in English than it actually was in Yiddish."

"The Jewish Labor Bund began as a kind of socialist movement aimed at Jewish workers and evolved into -- very quickly, actually -- it evolved into a kind of socialist, self-consciously culturally identified movement, so that they weren't just -- that it wasn't only interested -- or understood that just either having better wages or better working conditions was really not enough, and that people needed schools and libraries and sports organizations and theater and art and literature in order to lead a kind of enriched life...The Bund was always -- was very strongly, before the war, anti-Zionist, and I was raised -- I don't know if I was raised anti-Zionist, because already by the time I was conscious, Israel already existed and the Bund made its peace with the fact that there was an Israel, but I never had the Zionist idea that I was -- that my home was there. I always felt that my home was in Poland...I want to make sure that it gets remembered. I want to pass it on to other people."

"I felt that by translating, first of all, I made something accessible that was inaccessible and would remain inaccessible. And in some cases, it actually inspired other people to learn Yiddish, by reading the -- then they said, I want to read the original and I want to read more. What's not translated?...it's not like the real thing. It never is. But it's either you get this, or you get nothing. And I feel that a good translation -- it's not the original -- gives you a lot...I wish more stuff was available in English. I mean, I wish I could put stuff in my classroom. But I can't, unless it's translated. And then, that means that students remain ignorant of it."

"I only really became familiar with religious aspects of Judaism when I became active in the Women’s Movement, and I was forced into it. I was working with women who were observant, and I wanted to be sensitive, so I started learning. A friend and I did a feminist Haggadah. I have a whole bunch of xeroxed Haggadahs with all kinds of goddesses on them."

"I feel I was very lucky, though, because when I came out, which was in 1973, New York was just hopping. It was exploding. It was after Stonewall. Lesbians started getting organized. I belonged to a group of lesbian writers. There were four of us who decided to start Conditions magazine, for example, and before that we had a group called Di Vilde Chayas [the wild animals], which was a group that had Adrienne Rich, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Gloria Greenfield, and Evelyn Torton Beck, who did Nice Jewish Girls."

"The Jewish Labor Bund was a non-Zionist organization, so I barely thought about Israel. But if you’re going to be involved with the Left, you’ve got to start thinking about Israel. Melanie and I became very committed to supporting the Women in Black in ‘87. I formed a group here, the Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation (JWCEO) with Clare Kinberg and Grace Paley. We wanted to be identified as Jews protesting."

"When I published my first book, I had lesbian poems in there. Some people got it, and some people didn’t. There were people who only wanted to look at my Holocaust poetry. They pretended like there was nothing else. On the other hand, there were lots of lesbians who were just interested in my lesbian poems and could care less about the Holocaust ones. It was very difficult for me to give readings because I never had an integrated audience. It was only many years later, in the ‘90s, when I became better known and would be invited to campuses, for example, that my readings would be co-sponsored by an English department, a women’s center, and an LGBT committee or group. When I did these things, people would always say, ‘Gee, we’ve never had such a mixed audience before.’ In the ‘70s… this was still too raw. Some of it was quite ugly, and it was very disappointing for me to see the community that I had come out of be so bigoted."

"You’re sort of one person at one moment and another person at another moment. I suppose the only time that you’re ever really complete is when you’re by yourself or in an environment in which you’re not hiding. In the gay community, I was not hiding my Jewishness. Not everybody was interested in my Yiddish work, but nobody was hostile to it. But in the Jewish world, I had to be shut down in certain ways."

"I feel connected to Jewish history. I feel a part of the Jewish community, in all of its variety. As a Jew, my fate is bound up with other Jews. That could be Hasidim, Sephardim...people who are very different from me. In addition to that sense of bond and commitment, I also feel an obligation to contribute to Jewish culture, and that could take different forms. That could be my own writing, or it could be translations from Yiddish, so that people who don’t speak Yiddish can connect with Ashkenazi tradition. I don’t want Yiddish to disappear because nobody can read it. I also spend a lot of time on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I feel very much that it’s a part of me, in a way; I can’t totally distance myself from it, but I’m deeply disturbed by what’s happened there. I recognize the existence of religious texts, but I don’t necessarily believe them. I appreciate some of them from a literary or historical perspective, and I understand that they’re part of my history as a Jew, but I’m not moved by synagogue. I’m not even sentimental about it."

"There’s got to be a greater knowledge of diversity in Jewish life."

"I don’t think there is an ideal community—there are different kinds, and it shifts. One of the things we make a mistake about is that we want things to be static. You have to recognize when it’s become confining or rigid or prescriptive. You know, people always forget, Hasidim were considered rebels only 250 years ago. They were excommunicated! Everyone thinks they were around, walking in the desert in Palestine. They weren’t! They don’t realize that it’s much more dynamic. That gives me hope, that things change."

"I think there’s a strand of people who say you have to speak Yiddish, and you have to speak it correctly. I don’t want the movement to become elitist. It used to be that Hebrew was the loshon ha-kodesh [holy language]. I don’t want Yiddish to become a holy language. I want it to be of the people, which is the way that it always was. I think that’s something to guard against."

"Heroes: Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen, Shirley Chisholm — what a generation!"

"One of the nice things I like to do is to get bilingual books, both in Yiddish and now in Polish...I have, like, poetry which is in Polish on one side and English on the other. And that's sort of an interesting way, also, for me to think about poetry and look at things."

"It seems to me that there are sort of multiple American Jewish identities. One is the Zionist identity -- that I'm a Jew because I'm a Zionist, and I don't have to do anything else, but I can support Israel and I'm a Jew. And then, there's the observant one -- the one that's -- you know, you go to the synagogue. And the secularists -- I mean, when my -- when I first wrote my essay, "Secular Jewish Identity: Yiddishkayt in America" in "Tribe of Dina," which was, like, in, I don't know, '83, '84, people came up to me and said, I didn't realize I was a secularist...there was also this other identity which had to do with the Holocaust, and it had to do with either identifying yourself as a survivor or identifying yourself as the first generation or second and now third, where your identity is Jewish because of your connection to the Holocaust."

"The arts, I think, are very affirming -- affirming, even when they're depressing."

"My students always -- when they want to talk about activism, are always worried that they're not -- you know, Well, we only have four or five people. And I tell them, "Don't worry about that." You know, four or five people can do a lot. And you don't know where you're gonna end up."

"I did teach, and I may start again next semester, for ten years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. And I always sort of considered that part of -- I don't know where the desire came to do that. It's something that I really love doing, and it -- you know, it made me see and opened up a whole part of sort of American justice system and society. But I felt it was very much in keeping sort of with my Bundist connection, even though it had nothing to do with Yiddish or Jews necessarily, or anything else. But it did have a lot to do with fairness and justice."

"For me, Israel played no important role. And like I say, I mean, I longed for Poland, not for Jerusalem."

"We formed Conditions magazine so we felt we were doing something really constructive and something that we really believed in. And we were going to change literature. And I think we did."

"if you’re ever interested in looking at what happened in the women’s movement, in the lesbian movement, around Israel, you should read Yours in Struggle, which has an article by Barbara Smith, an African-American lesbian, Minnie Bruce Pratt, about being a white Southern lesbian, and Elly Bulkin who does an entire survey of what went on around Israel and Zionism on magazines, on collectives. I mean, it was a breaking. It was one of those issues that just broke people up completely."

"I think mourning six million without having a clue who they were, where they came from, what their lives are like, is meaningless. I really believe it’s meaningless. You have to know what you’re mourning. And there’s a real resistance, I don’t know what it’s about."

"when you go into a bookstore and you look at Judaica, for example, the majority of the books are either on Israel or the Holocaust. Those are the two main topics of books. And that’s a shame. Because there is this incredibly rich history. And also you should know what was destroyed and what was possible. I think that’s one of the things that the Bund did was to show what was possible."

"I think the thing is that being a secular Jew in a committed, conscious way, not just by default or by absence, but rather with content, is hard work. I mean, you have to work on it. It’s not like you have a synagogue to walk into. You know, it’s not like there’s an institution that you can walk in."

"I did grow up with a real prejudice against religion. And I think to some degree I still have it. But at the same time, I have to respect the fact that there are intelligent, well-meaning people who, you know, believe it. And I can’t get around that. And if I want them on my side, I have to treat them with respect and with knowledge and not be ignorant in the same way that I would like other people to be respectful of me and not be ignorant about who I am."

"the role of poetry in the women’s movement and during the second wave, was just so important and so visible."

"the Bund was started with 13 people in a crummy attic and Vilna and it became a mass movement. And I know it from my own experience of what happened in the lesbian feminist movement and the women’s movement, somebody like Gloria Anzaldúa, who’s now being taught in women’s studies classes. Audre Lorde, who’s being taught in women’s studies classes. And we started, you know, Conditions and Persephone Press. Kitchen Table, This Bridge Called My Back, I mean, that was just started by two or three people. You know, and it’s sort of amazing what happened. And who would have predicted it? They didn’t predict it, they just wanted to do it! They wanted to publish something and so they did."

"I very much admired the people that went on the Birthrights and interrupted them, the trips, and insisted on asking questions and then were forced off. I think that was just great. I have to say, I think there is, it’s not only anti Zionism, I think it’s a general, that there’s a very young generation now, and I don’t know where they are culturally or secularly, but I think politically that they have stopped being afraid of the Jewish establishment and they have refused to accept what they’re being told. And they’re challenging. And that, I think, is just wonderful. Because they don’t want to say the Holocaust is untouchable and you can’t compare anything and blah, you know that. And they don’t want to say you can’t let me talk about Palestinians, you know, I’m going to talk about them, I’m not going to be silenced."

"Jewish poet Irena Klepfisz writes in the mame-loshn, Yiddish, the mother tongue, even her fragmentary version of it, as an act of reclamation, to salvage what is left, "this echo of a European era and culture in which I never lived and about which I have only heard second-hand like a family story.""

"Endurance, repression, survival, exclusion, absurdity, and work are the themes which drive this relentless poetry. Klepfisz is more than equal to the task of translating her formidable consciousness into splendid language. The poetry takes many forms: narrative, sonnet, journal entry, prose....The mood of the poetry is grim, cynical, ironic. The clarity and simplicity of her language are breathtaking."

"Her verses on rebel womanhood, violent histories, queer love, and dissident, diasporic identity are urgent reading for the present."

"I asked Irena: What makes up our Goldene Kayt on the feminist left? “I think you have to find it,” she replied. “The links are there, but you have to put it together into a chain.” She spoke to me about the attempts that feminists and lesbians made to find their forebears and write a history of their own. “We discovered all these women that we never heard of. They were there. They lived. They made an imprint on the world. It’s just that they were never put together. The Goldene Kayt is there. We just have to fashion it.”"

"At age 2, Klepfisz escaped with her mother from the Warsaw Ghetto and then lived in hiding until the end of World War II. Arriving in America via Sweden, Klepfisz struggled to master English in public school while attending Yiddish supplementary school and speaking Polish at home. For Klepfisz, poetry — in English — was also a hiding place, a “private language” where no teacher could criticize her hesitant use of new words. But the linguistic shifts remained daunting. “Words attach themselves to our most intimate experiences,” she told the Forward. “When you move into a new language, you lose that intimacy, and it’s a tremendous trauma.” Klepfisz treats that trauma through her own poetry, which braids Yiddish into English, and by translating the works of Yiddish women writers. To Klepfisz, who grew up with a deep awareness of the lost life of Jewish Warsaw, the supposed parallel between Yiddish and Irish is not so strange. “We each have a goldene keyt,” she said, using the expression “golden chain” that signifies the Yiddish literary tradition."

"The venerable Polish-Jewish culture that Irena Klepfisz was born into was destroyed by Nazi genocide. She has committed herself to the cause of keeping Yiddish (the mother tongue) and Yiddishkayt (the Yiddish way of life) alive. Much of her poetry, essays, and plays as well as lectures, teaching, and social and political activism is devoted to this end...At the margins of poetry and prose she writes with clarity and precision about cataclysmic moments that occurred in her very young life, bringing the reader into her nightmarish world. Klepfisz's harsh view of America comes from the poet's loyalty to the socialism of the Jewish labor movement; her vision is that of a secular Jew. "I was taught that capitalism oppresses the working masses and all poor people, that it has to be smashed, and that we are to work toward building a classless society.""

"What Klepfisz is: a survivor who studies survival, who lays out the cost of surviving in her poems and bears witness to those who did not survive. The accounts of which she is the keeper are the accounts of a destroyed small world in Jewish Poland, a culture, a civilization that is no longer extant...She operates from a stark but deep compassion. Nothing is stated in these poems; all happens. I've never read a better sequence about political prisoners.""

"Irena Klepfisz's work is an essential part of this poetry of cultural re-creation. It begins with a devastating exterior event, the destruction of European Jewry in the Nazi period through the technologically organized genocide known as the Holocaust, or, in Yiddish, der khurbn. (Klepfisz has written: "The Yiddish word was important, for, unlike the term Holocaust, it resonated with yidishe geshikhte, Jewish history, linking the events of World War II with der ershter un tsveyter khurbn, the First and Second Destruction (of the Temple).""

"The great flowering of Yiddish literature took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, along with the rise of Jewish secularism and the Jewish labor and socialist movements. It is from out of these traditions that history uprooted Irena Klepfisz, depositing her into a community of survivors in New York."

"If I speak here, then, of experiences from which Klepfisz's poetry has been precipitated, it's because a historical necessity has made her the kind of poet she is: neither a "universal" nor a "private" stance has been her luxury."

"because "history stops for no one," Klepfisz has gone on to write a poetry of uncompromising complexity, clothed in apparently simple, even spare language-simple and bare as the stage of a theatre in which strict economies of means release a powerful concentrate of feeling."

"There is extraordinary vitality in Klepfisz's early poems on women in the Holocaust...In them, Klepfisz takes the considerable risk of trying to bear witness to this part of her history without compromise and without melodrama. She succeeds because she is a poet, not only a witness."

""Bashert" is a poem unlike any other I can think of in American, including Jewish-American, poetry, in its delineations not only of survivor experience (in the skin of the mother "passing" as gentile with her infant daughter) but of what happens after survival: the life that seems to go on, but cannot persevere; the life that does go on, struggling with a vast alienation, in a state of "equidistance from two continents," trying to fathom her place as a Jew in the larger American gentile world,"

"Klepfisz has written one of the great "borderland" poems-poems which emerge from the consciousness of being of no one geography, time zone or culture; of moving inwardly as well as outwardly between continents, land-masses, eras of history, or, as Chicana poet Gloria Anzaldúa expresses it, in "a constant state of mental nepantilism, an Aztec word meaning torn between ways." A consciousness which cannot be, and refuses to be, assimilated. A consciousness which tries to claim all its legacies: courage, endurance, vision, fierceness of human will, and also the underside of oppression, the distortions quarantine and violent deracination inflict on the heart. When I say that "Bashert" is a poem unlike any other I mean this through and through: in its form, in its verse and prose rhythms, in its insistence on memory without idealization, its refusal to let go."

"Klepfisz's bilingual poems do not-and this is significant-drop Yiddish phrases in a cosy evocation of an idealized past, embodied in bobe and zayde, or as a kind of Jewish seasoning on an American tongue."

"In white North America, poetry has been set apart from the practical arts, from political meaning, and also from "entertainment" and the accumulation of wealth-thus, pushed to the margins of life. Klepfisz, the inheritor of both a European Jewish Socialist-Bundist political tradition, and a Yiddish cultural tradition, naturally refuses such "enclosures.""

"Klepfisz is one of those rare North American artists who, within and by means of her art, explores the material conditions by which the creative impulse, which belongs to no gender, race, or class, can be realized or obstructed."

"In a different vein, Klepfisz's poems to women lovers probe with a questioning scrutiny what happens in bed, in relationship. Sometimes, as in "periods of stress" dry humor laces vulnerability; always there is compassion for both self and other."

"Throughout, and in its very last lines, this book asks fundamental questions about the uses of history. That it does so from a rootedness in Jewish history, an unassimilated location, is one part of its strength. But history alone doesn't confer this strength; the poet's continuing labor with Jewish meaning does. The other part, of course, is the integrity of its poetics. A Klepfisz poem lives amid complex tensions, even when its texture may appear transparent. There is a voice, sometimes voices, in these poems which can often best be heard by reading aloud. Her sense of phrase, of line, of the shift of tone, is almost flawless. But perfection is not what Irena Klepfisz is after. It is the tension among so many forces: language, speechlessness, memory, politics, irony, compassion, hunger for what is lost, hunger for a justice still to be made, that makes this poetry crucial to the new unfoldings of history that we begin, in 1990, to imagine."

"The extraordinary power of Irena Klepfisz's work lies in the force of its moral and artistic integrity. These essays interweave and overlap (not only with each other, but also with her poetry) in entirely unexpected ways. Who else but Klepfisz could make us understand so clearly (and always in a framework that is Jewish, lesbian, feminist, and conscious of class) the imperative to speak out against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? Against anti-Semitism and homophobia? Against compulsory motherhood? Against the commercialization of the Holocaust? And to speak as loudly for the strengthening and preservation of secular Yiddish culture in the United States? For the demystification of writing? For the celebration and joy of creative work? At a time of repression, when progressive politics are eroding and hate crimes are on the rise, Klepfisz's essays make plain that the political is personal, and that the personal must continue to be understood as political. Klepfisz's sharp critiques of many movements and communities lead us to take action, which is her way of keeping hope alive. Although I have gladly accepted the task of writing the introduction to this volume of essays, it was through her poetry that I first came to know Irena Klepfisz. I can still call up the rush of excited recognition that came over me when, after browsing through the lesbian poetry section of a women's bookstore sometime in 1977, I casually opened periods of stress and recognized myself. Here was a woman writing as a child survivor of the Holocaust, as a lesbian, as a feminist, and as a Jew. At the time I knew of no other lesbian/feminist who had also somehow managed "to escape that fate.""

"Experiments, she calls her essays. Attempts at solutions. But Klepfisz has never used the lack of certainty as an excuse to avoid taking action. In addition to her theoretical writings, she has been an organizer in both Jewish and lesbian/feminist communities, lecturing and giving workshops on feminism, Yiddish culture, anti-Semitism, and the Middle East. Taking my cue from the author's preface, I have allowed myself to respond to these essays in a nonlinear associative way, which is also my preferred mode of writing. Klepfisz's essays are freeing and engaging because of the honesty she brings to the processes of writing, thinking and rethinking, questioning, reexamining a decision that may seem to be correct today but may prove to be disastrously wrong tomorrow."

"By means of her advocacy of a new Jewish secularism, Irena Klepfisz calls to our attention the seriousness of the break and in so doing begins the necessary work of repair."

"Klepfisz is emphatic that "non-observance the choice made by the majority of American Jews is not the same as secularism, that consciously chosen pre-Holocaust secularism was always political and cultural, and always associated with a "fierce determination to preserve Jewish identity." She is equally emphatic that "a true commitment to Jewish secularism inevitably means that we must make decisions-just like observant Jews-about how to structure our lives and our relations with Jews and non-Jews-how to incorporate the past.... A true commitment to Jewish secularism inevitably also means a commitment to establishing and supporting secular Jewish institutions that provide us with a sense of community and common purpose.""

"Klepfisz insists on maintaining the integrity of each individual culture as it joins others. This is a vision worth emulating."

"In a 1989 speech at a public event sponsored by the Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Klepfisz articulated what motivates her to action-to organize workshops, co-found the Committee, and travel to Israel to connect with the women's peace movement there: "We are told that history is made by other people.... We are told this because we are women.... Over and over again the message is monotonously the same: you have no power, you have no power to change anything. But I don't believe this. I believe common, ordinary people are not passive participants in historical events. How each of us shapes our life, shapes history."

"One of the most striking characteristics of so many of Klepfisz's essays is her ability to develop a bilingual mode of writing, a mode that transplants Yiddish into English, thus preserving mame-loshn (the European mothers' tongue), making the language more immediate, less strange. The deep resonances and childhood memories that surfaced when I first read these essays remind me that for Klepfisz, as for me and many other Ashkenazi Jews dispersed throughout the world, Yiddish serves a vital function-it is "the mirror that made me visible to myself." Klepfisz knows that language is a significant carrier of culture, something that is especially true of Yiddish, which in the context of Jewish history "summons a world beneath the words.""

"Do you see your repressed anger manifested in me? What doors would groan wide open if you heard my words with complete understanding? Are you afraid that your daughter is breaking out of our shackles, and into total anarchy? That your daughter has turned into a crazy woman who advocates not only equality for Third World people, for women, but for gays as well? Please don't shudder, Ma, when I speak of homosexuality. Until we can all present ourselves to the world in our completeness, as fully and beautifully as we see ourselves naked in our bedrooms, we are not free."

"When you distort what I say, like thinking I am against all "Caucasians" or that I am ashamed of Dad, then I feel anger and more frustration and want to slash out, not at you, but at those external forces which keep us apart. What deepens the chasms between us are our different reactions to those forces. Yours has been one of silence, self-denial, self-effacement; you believing it is your fault that you never fully experienced self-pride and freedom of choice. But listen, Ma, only with a deliberate consciousness is my reaction different from yours."

"Today, I am satisfied to call myself either an Asian American Feminist or Yellow Feminist. The two terms are inseparable because race and sex are an integral part of me. This means that I am working with others to realize pride in culture and women and heritage (the heritage that is the exploited yellow immigrant: Daddy and you). Being a Yellow Feminist means being a community activist and a humanist. It does not mean "separatism," either by cutting myself off from non-Asians or men. It does not mean retaining the same structure and substituting more women in positions of control."

"We no longer can afford to stand back and watch while an insatiable elite ravages and devours resources that are enough for all of us. The obstacles are so huge and overwhelming that often I do become cynical and want to give up. And if I were struggling alone, I know I would never even attempt to put into action what I believe in my heart, that (and this is primarily because of you, Ma) Yellow Women are strong and have the potential to be powerful and effective leaders."

"Right now, my techniques are education and writing."

"Yellow Feminist means being a core for change, and that core means having the belief in our potential as human beings. I will work with anyone, support anyone, who shares my sensibility, my objectives."

"But there are barriers to unity: white women who are racist, and Asian American men who are sexist. My very being declares that those two groups do not share my complete sensibility. I would be fragmented, mutilated, if I did not fight against racism and sexism together."

"And this is when the pain of the struggle hits home. How many white women have taken on the responsibility to educate themselves about Third World people, their history, their culture? How many white women really think about the stereotypes they retain as truth about women of color?"

"I get so tired of being the instant resource for information on Asian American women. Being the token representative, going from class to class, group to group, bleeding for white women so they can have an easy answer and then-and this is what really gets to me-they usually leave to never continue their education about us on their own."

"To the racist white female professor who says, "If I have to watch everything I say I wouldn't say anything," I want to say, "Then get out of teaching.""

"To the white female poet who says, "Well, frankly, I believe that politics and poetry don't necessarily have to go together," I say, "Your little taste of white privilege has deluded you into thinking that you don't have to fight against sexism in this society. You are talking to me from your own isolation and your own racism. If you feel that you don't have to fight for me, that you don't have to speak out against capitalism, the exploitation of human and natural resources, then you in your silence, your inability to make connections, are siding with a system that will eventually get you, after it has gotten me. And if you think that's not a political stance, you're more than simply deluded, you're crazy!" This is the same white voice that says, "I am writing about and looking for themes that are 'universal."" Well, most of the time when "universal" is used, it is just a euphemism for "white:" white themes, white significance, white culture. And denying minority groups their rightful place and time in US history is simply racist."

"Try to understand that our distrust is from experience, and that our distrust is powerless. Racism is an essential part of the status quo, powerful, and continues to keep us down. It is a rule taught to all of us from birth. Is it no wonder that we fear there are no exceptions?""

"I feel even more deeply hurt when I realize how many people, how so many people, because of racism and sexism, fail to see what power we sacrifice by not joining hands."

"In the last few years, I have realized the value of Homework: I have studied the history of our people in this country. I cannot tell you how proud I am to be a Chinese/Korean American Woman. We have such a proud heritage, such a courageous tradition. I want to tell everyone about that, all the particulars that are left out in the schools. And the full awareness of being a woman makes me want to sing."

"Merle Woo wrote a letter to her mother, stating her pride in being a Chinese-Korean-American woman: "We have such a proud heritage, such a courageous tradition.""

"The right to free speech./Jeanne Kirkpatrick walks out when students hiss./She has the right to free speech/any time/anywhere/because she defends/U.S. imperialism./But Merle Woo?/Merle Woo gets fired/from the classroom./She speaks about democracy./For students, staff and faculty. Against censorship./For a Third World College. Against cultural genocide./For lesbians and gays. Against heterosexism./For the possibility of all our voices,/in all languages, singing out."

"It's the perversion of sexuality that frightens me. It's the way the women around me exude a sexiness that has nothing to do with the heart. Of course Latin Women love as well as any other women... but while the chilliest Anglo-Saxon repression of sex pretends it simply doesn't exist, Latin repression says it's a filthy fact of life, use it for what it's worth... shake it in his face, wear it as a decoy. It's all over the floor and it's cold and savage. It's the hatred of the powerless, turned crooked."

"The relationship between mother and daughter stands in the center of what I fear most in our culture. Heal that wound and we change the world. A revolution capable of healing our wounds. If we're the ones who can imagine it, if we're the ones who dream about it, if we're the ones who need it most, then no one else can do it. We're the ones."

"Not one of those books that ignore us could have been written without our shopping, baking, mending, ironing, typing, making coffee, comforting. Without our caring for the children, minding the store, getting in the crop, making their businesses pay. This is our story, and the truth of our lives will overthrow them."

"Let's get one thing straight. Puerto Rico was parda, negra, mulata, mestiza. Not a country of Spaniards at all. We outnumbered them, year after year."

"sediment has no nationality. Sediment drifts from place to place, on currents of water and air, on muskrat fur and the feathers of Indigo Buntings. It travels without passports, visas, or allegiances."

"We cannot be owned. We cannot own each other. And there is no such thing as a particle of US soil."

"It was hopeful to have a socialist with really good policies go as far as he did in this rigged process. The ideas his campaign put forth helped us imagine a different outcome, a world in which sensible, humane policies that support people and planet were the law of the land. I imagine that world every day. Bernie Sanders’s campaign made that easier. It changed the conversation. In different ways, so did Elizabeth Warren’s. And then it was over. But it’s the campaigning that’s over, not the conversation, and certainly not the fight for a different story, which is what all organizing is about."

"The first rule I remember learning was never to harm or deface a book. The second was never to cross a picket line. (Introduction/Acknowledgements)"

"She taught me to love the women: Jane Austen, Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, Virginia Woolf, and later we would trade the titles of new books on the phone: Doris Lessing, Agnes Smedley, Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker. (Introduction/Acknowledgements)"

"I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish. I was born at the crossroads and I am whole."

"I say solidarity is knowing the future is long and wide, with room for everyone on earth to enter. I say it's taking the long view of the job. (from "Letter To a Compañero")"

"You were my first grief. From the death of you, so intimate, so much an unexplained event of the universe, I made my first decision to live. (beginning of "Heart Of My Heart, Bone Of My Bone")"

"I am shaking with rage that I cannot stop what is being done. That it is being done in the name of protecting Jews. That there are those who will believe that it is in my interest as a Jew, that by being a Jew I have agreed to these acts committed in my name. A logjam of emotions, and beneath, an icy river of fear."

"I have learned that suffering does not improve people, that slavery does not ennoble us for freedom, that oppression springs from oppression, echoing the twisted lessons we learn from our pain."

"now it seems to me that Zionism asks too little, not too much! They have traded in that City of the vision for a cramped fortress tower, believing that Jews will always be persecuted, hunted. That most of humanity couldn't care less if it happened again. Would let it happen. Knowing some of humanity would even applaud. Believing there is no other way for Jews to survive. I want to shout it at them from the rooftops, to cry it out loud: you have never asked for enough! Zionism, at least as it's lived today, accepts anti-Semitism, says it's permanent in the world: As long as there are Jews, there will be Jew-haters, Jew-killers, so we'll build a wall of bodies around us and live behind it, a menace to our neighbors, trying to feel safe. I stand here and cry out to you: "Come out of the trenches! Ask for it all! I demand for myself, and my children who will also be Jews, and for you, too, my soldiering kin, a world where fortresses are unknown and unnecessary.""

"we could be allies, the Arabs and we, two persecuted peoples rooted in the same land, the same customs, food, language. The task is the most difficult one, the most terrifying, the one requiring the most daring leap from the cliff of this present bloody moment."

"I know I have dreamt this dream: Jews and Arabs moving in unison, dispossessing the warriors, building new villages on the sites of the old, changing the face of the land, the shape of history, the look of the future."

"I want to see a flowering of Arab and Jewish cultures in a country without racism or anti-Semitism, without rich or poor or spat-upon: everyone beneath the vine and fig tree living in peace and unafraid. A homeland for each and every one of us between the mountains and the sea. A multilingual, multireligious, many-colored and peopled land where the orange tree blooms for all. I will not surrender this vision for any lesser compromise. No separate-but-equal armed camps turning their backs on each other across a pitted buffer zone. No Palestinian exile burning with dreams of return, injustice embittering generations of children who yearn always for the place of their ancestors: next year in the Galilee. No graveyard the size of a nation, Palestinian blood burning the ground and steaming up each morning, reeking of death. No fortress-state of Jews against all the rest of the world, generations of children growing up soldiers, believing themselves holy, believing there is no one outside the walls, believing fear is the only force that binds people together. I will accept nothing less than freedom."

"In the work I do, repetition is a method, a rhythm of meaning that must be maintained, a beat to my message. ("Libation")"

"This...is what I dream of. Multitudes of women, all kinds of women, arguing, disagreeing, fighting it out, lifting our thoughts up out of the fields and cities and prisons and homes, not to carry the sky but to fill it, making our own wind, strong enough to topple towers and pollinate a whole new world into bloom. ("My Feminism")"

"How many know that the UN Commission on the Status of Women is the work of Latin American and Caribbean feminists, leaders in a Pan-American women's movement between the two world wars? It was these women, Minerva Bernardino from the Dominican Republic, Amalia Castillo de Ledon from Mexico, Isabel P. Vidal from Uruguay, and Bertha Lutz from Brazil, not white US feminists fighting overly narrowly conceived gender equality, who helped to establish the category of women as a global class whose human rights need defending. ("My Feminism")"

"This is a moment that organizers strive for, when the systemic forces behind individual misery become clear, when people's dissatisfactions turn outward, away from self-blame, blame of other oppressed people, blame of "human nature," and toward the workings of an unjust society. ("The Power of Story")"

"Listening to, analyzing, creating, and disseminating stories, and doing so with courage, keenness, skill, and cunning, with the clear purpose of changing human consciousness in the direction of choosing justice-this is what organizing is all about. ("The Power of Story")"

"All organisms are inherently sovereign. All organisms resist harm and repair damage. This is our nature. And our nature is to tell stories about it. Because the story of what is broken becomes something whole. The story of what was forgotten becomes memory. The story of how we survived becomes communal medicine. The story of what we lost becomes new soil. The story of how we are the same as everyone and the story of how we are unique are a braided lifeline. ("The Truths Our Bodies Tell")"

"If disability is defined as people who, because of variations in our body-minds, can't be efficiently exploited, the last thing we need is better access to exploitation, greater integration into a profit-driven society that is driving thousands of species toward mass extinction and making the planet uninhabitable for humans. The last thing we need is more opportunities to do our part in keeping the interlocking wheels of class, white supremacy, heteromale supremacy, and imperialism turning. This doesn't mean that we don't fight for what we need in order to survive, that we don't fight for the crappy job or inadequate benefits that will keep us alive for now. Life jackets keep us from drowning, but the only lasting access is universal inclusion, which means universal justice. ("The Truths Our Bodies Tell")"

"If we can teach the history of racism in the United States as a history of the shifting needs of empire and class, as a history of both impositions and choices, alliances and betrayals, a history with roots far outside and long before the first colonial encounters, if we can hold the tension between disbelief in race and belief in what racism does to us, we will enable more and more young people to remake old and seemingly immutable decisions about where their interests lie and with whom. ("What Race Isn't: Teaching about Racism")"

"Those who make up the rules of Good English try earnestly or contemptuously to edit us into conformity, convinced that when we talk a different talk it's because we are educationally or genetically impaired. ("On Not Writing English")"

"All peoples under attack learn the languages of those who can do us harm. We are multilingual of necessity. Those of us who, by using that language successfully, gain access to a small piece of public ground must fight continually to push our authenticity into print, onto the airwaves, into the classroom, out from the podium. ("On Not Writing English")"

"Deciding that we are in fact accountable frees us to act. ("Raícism: Rootedness as Spiritual and Political Practice")"

"European Americans in this country need to find out against whom their whiteness has been structured, both historically and in the present. ("Raícism: Rootedness as Spiritual and Political Practice")"

"The intellectual traditions I come from create theory out of shared lives instead of sending away for it. My thinking grew directly out of listening to my own discomforts, finding out who shared them, who validated them, and in exchanging stories about common experiences, finding patterns, systems, explanations of how and why things happened. This is the central process of consciousness raising, of collective testimonio. ("Certified Organic Intellectual")"

"Unnecessarily specialized language is used to humiliate those who are not supposed to feel entitled. It sells the illusion that only those who can wield it can think. ("Certified Organic Intellectual")"

"In the eighteen years since I wrote "The Tribe of Guarayamín," there have been significant changes in in the politics of indigenous identity in the Americas. Most powerful among them is the resurgence of Latin American sovereignty, with a strong core of indigenous leadership, much of it female. Evo Morales, an Aymara man, is president of Bolivia, with a new Constitution that renames it as a plurinational state, in recognition of its indigenous nations. Universities, radio stations, courtrooms carry on their business in indigenous languages, and long idle lands of latifundista families have been reclaimed and distributed to campesinxs, some of whom have become, under the new indigenous autonomy laws, self-governing communities for the first time in five hundred years. ("Taíno Citizenship")"

"Boycotts and divestment are honorable tools of moral persuasion through financial choice. ("BDS and Me")"

"What dishonors my relatives is the fact of checkpoints in their names, of mass arrests, collective punishment, home demolitions, the theft of territory and resources, to rid the land of Palestinian people, so it can be farmed and built on by Israeli Jewish settlers. I am one of many Jews who believe only justice will bring peace, and who face tremendous pressure and personal attacks for saying so. Today, my Jewish kin who believe repression is the price of survival are acting on old fears of standing alone against terrible threats. ("BDS and Me")"

"A real assessment of the history of Puerto Rican-Jewish relations has to begin by examining the relationships already in place among Christian, Muslim, and Jewish residents of Iberia long before 1492. It must consider the Jews of North Africa, from Egypt to Morocco. It must take into account the Jewish seafaring merchants of Majorca, conquered by Aragon in 1344, and the school of mostly Jewish cartographers and cosmographers, now at the service of Christian aristocrats, whose maps, charts, and compasses made possible the seizure of the Canary Islands, in what became the dress rehearsal for both American genocides and plantation slavery. ("Puerto Ricans and Jews")"

"Only when we fully and honestly examine our histories and the power dynamics we have inherited from them can we truly decide to throw our lot in with each other, not for the short term but for the widest possible vision of a liberated future. ("Puerto Ricans and Jews")"

"Taking responsibility for our place in the social relations of power doesn't mean volunteering to go under. It means dedicating ourselves and our resources to unmaking the structures of inequality, jumping from the burning building of piracy into a net held by many hands. ("Class Privilege and Loss")"

"We can't surrender whiteness or maleness, heterosexuality, or the reality of having been born into money, but we can dismantle the lies we have been taught about what those things mean, consciously build relationships of equality and respect with people who are not privileged where we are, assume they know more about that piece of the social landscape than we do, and learn from them. How to acknowledge the injury privilege does to those who have it as well as those who lack it, how to make it clear, to ourselves and to those who have what we do not, that relying on each other instead of our unearned extras is ultimately joyful and deeply rewarding, that the real losses happened long ago, when the privilege was accepted-these are fundamental questions for a much needed theory of solidarity, of how to reweave the torn fabric of our interdependence. ("Class Privilege and Loss")"

"Last word: Nowadays there is a lot of talk of the patria grande, the greater American homeland, and the unifying dreams of Bolívar, but I have never trusted that word patria. Nations emerged when the obedience and loyalty once sworn to individual aristocrats had to be transferred to an entire class, and it's not a coincidence that patria comes from the same root as "patriarch," "patrimony," "patriarchy." The loyalty I swear is not to nations or governments. My loyalty is to a far broader and deeper integration. I am faithful to the web of vital connections between all that lives, and being faithful to that web requires practicing ecological ethics, requires defending whoever needs it, requires interweaving intimate and communal sovereignties in what could perhaps be called the matria, from the same root as matriz, "womb," the reestablishment of kinship. Only so, spinning and weaving that fine, strong, relational gauze, will we be able to bind our wounds, mine, those of my people, and those of my planet. ("Histerimonia" p203)"

"Radical collective memory is a major threat to the status quo. Those of us who are elders need to take seriously our soil-building responsibilities, not by lecturing the young but by engaging in deep conversations, listening to their burning concerns, questions, and confusions and offering up our segment of the long road for consideration. In a time of geographic mobility, fractured memory, and the instant media reshaping of events, many of the younger radicals I talk with are hungry for intergenerational relationships. They need access to our experience, not as a set of instructions but as a mineral-rich environment in which to grow. ("Building Radical Soil")"

"The ecological crisis we find ourselves in is in fact a crisis of human relations, with each other and with the entire planet. It is a crisis created by a set of false assumptions about reality, the same assumptions that drive all systems of oppression. That greed and domination are the inherent driving forces of human existence and, therefore, that warfare, conquest, enslavement, exploitation, the looting of other people and of the entire ecosystem are natural and inevitable, and therefore must be okay."

"it's essential that we understand this: every struggle is an ecological struggle."

"For human society to be sustainable on earth, it must become inclusive, must take into account the well-being of each one of us."

"In order to create ecologically viable societies and avoid our own extinction, we will have to build social movements that include all humans in our vision of environmentalism and our entire ecosystem in our vision of social justice."

"Profit is built on inequality, which is incompatible with sustainability."

"I believe that we have it in us to rise to this moment, to end the failed experiment of greed, restore the streams of our creative power, and establish a global culture of reciprocity and generosity as the beating heart of human life on earth."

"...injustice is traumatic. It does real damage to our bodies, our relationships, our emotions and intellects. We're all trying our best, hampered by millennia of PTSD."

"My personal medicine bag and tool kit have been gathered over a lifetime of activism. Here are the main ingredients...Cultivate Hope...Practice Consciousness Raising...Build Solidarity...Collectivize My Struggles...Connect with My Ecosystem"

"Of every proposal for any kind of social action I ask whether it will increase the sum of human solidarity, because solidarity is the antidote to oppression, which always seeks to dehumanize and divide us."

"I remember that history is wide and deep, that there are many other lives being lived around me, and that generations stretch backward and forward from my moment in time. How I live my life right now extends the impact of ancestors and enriches the soil my descendants will plant their own lives in. Thinking this way makes the difficulties of the moment shrink against that grand background."

"Each one of us is tipped low on some scales, higher on others; each one of us is arbitrarily robbed and rewarded, punished and privileged for attributes beyond our control. But the injustice of the robbery and punishment is far more obvious to us than the injustice of our unearned privileges and rewards."

"The foundational crime of this country is indigenous genocide."

"The work of identifying and removing the invasive and parasitic beliefs about each other that we have been deliberately infected with can be painful and mortifying, but it is also joyful beyond measure. When the fog is burned off, what remains is an illuminated social landscape, where the entire geology of our lives is laid bare. This is the landscape of solidarity, where no life is a distraction, where we move in and out of our necessary home spaces, continually expanding the area of the liberated commons, that world-in-creation where all of our identities simultaneously mean everything and nothing because every excuse for injustice is gone."

"The structures of unequal power are many-layered and complex in the ways they function in the world. But at its root, oppression is really quite simple. It's about looting. The rest is made up of the rules and institutions, rituals and agreements, mythologies, rationales and overt bullying by means of which small groups of people keep a firm grasp on way more than their share of the world's resources."

"In a massive act of projection, they [slavers] often described the African people who did every stitch of their work for them as lazy; seriously believed that slaves needed European people to set them tasks and make them useful."

"consider the almost hallucinatory fantasies of wealthy members of Congress that teenage African-American welfare mothers, a small minority of the welfare-receiving population, and consuming a minuscule fraction of the public budget, are responsible for bankrupting the economy, growing rich at public expense by having babies in order to pad their AFDC checks. Excluded from decent employment and denied the most basic necessities so as not to slow down the astronomical rise in income of the top 10 percent, these young women are held publicly accountable for the pillaging of our common resources by the greedy."

"Who could bear to hold privilege that meant the suffering and death of others if they had not been trained from early childhood to see these others as unreal and undeserving? Who would tolerate for even an hour the inhuman conditions imposed by the privileged if they had not been trained from early childhood to feel themselves not fully entitled to life?"

"Memory, individual and collective, is one of the most important sites of social struggle. The "false memory" movement of the 1990s that sought to deny authority over memory to sexual abuse survivors; escalating attacks on teaching the history and literature of indigenous people and People of Color, that frame sharing any information about oppression or the cultures of the oppressed as violence against "Western civilization"; Holocaust denial that pretends the attempted Nazi genocide against primarily European Jews, Roma, lesbian, gay, and disabled people never took place; the bizarre pseudoscience of misogynist politicians claiming that pregnancy results only from consensual sex-these are all examples of the attempted erasure of collective memory and knowledge and represent backlashes against powerful popular movements attempting to wrest control of history from the ruling class."

"As in the case of the false memory movement, the privileged accuse the disempowered of oppressing them. Teaching the histories, cultures, and thought of the 99 percent violates the "freedom" of privileged white heterosexual men by forcing them to participate in a world in which their interests and perceptions are not the exclusive priority of everyone."

"The denial of our interrelatedness is killing this planet and too many of its people."

"Recovery from trauma requires creating and telling another story about the experience of violence and the nature of the participants, a story powerful enough to restore a sense of our own humanity to the abused."

"Healing takes place in community, in the telling and the bearing witness, in the naming of trauma and in the grief and rage and defiance that follow."

"While the false memory theoreticians attempt to establish that pain is ahistoric and traumas leave no trace of themselves in our lives, the traumatized keep finding ways to insist that pain has documentable origins, that when someone is hit, it hurts, and that injuries leave scars."

"Racism frames violence within communities of color as inherent to our identities because it denies the cumulative impact of genocide, slavery, lynching, and other forms of organized violence, enforced poverty and segregation, and the systematic denial of opportunities. It is only by recognizing the traumatic impact of oppression that we come to see that all violence, all dysfunction arises from historical causes. It was the identification of those sources that radicalized former street gangs, giving rise to powerful movements like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords."

"Just as the individual recovering from abuse must reconstruct the story of her undeserved suffering in a way that gives it new meaning, and herself a rebuilt and invulnerable sense of worth, the victims of collective abuse need ways to reconstruct history that restore a sense of our inherent value as human beings and immunize us against the elite mythology that our only worth is in our ability to make them rich."

"Only through mourning can we reconnect to the love in our lives and lose our fascination with the ones who harmed us."

"It is part of our task as revolutionary people, people who want deep-rooted, change, to be as whole as it is possible for us to be."

"One of the first things a colonizing power, a new ruling class, or a repressive regime does is attack the sense of history of those they wish to dominate by attempting to take over and control their relationships to their own past...A strong sense of their own history among the dominated undermines the project of domination. It provides an alternative story, one in which oppression is the result of human behavior, of historical events and choices, and not natural law."

"History is the story we tell ourselves about how the past explains our present, and how the ways in which we tell it are shaped by contemporary needs."

"All historians have points of view. All of us use some process of selection by which we choose which stories we consider important and interesting. We do history from some perspective, within some particular worldview. Storytelling is not neutral. Curandera historians make this explicit, openly naming our partisanship, our intent to influence how people think."

"One element of imperial history is that events tend to be seen as caused by extraordinary personalities acting on one another without showing us the social roots and contexts of those actions. For example, many of the great discoveries and inventions we are taught about in elementary and high school were being pursued by many people at once, but the individual who received the patent is described as a lone explorer rather than part of a group effort. Rosa Parks didn't "get tired" one day and start the Montgomery bus boycott. She was a trained organizer, and her role, as well as the time and place of the boycott, was the result of careful planning by a group of civil rights activists. Just as medicinal history must restore individuality to anonymous masses of people, it must also restore social context to individuals singled out as the actors of history."

"Childhood is the one political condition, the one disenfranchised group through which all people pass. The one constituency of the oppressed in which all surviving members eventually stop being members and have the option of becoming administrators of the same conditions for new members."

"The oppression of children is the wheel that keeps all other oppressions turning. Without it, misery would have to be imposed afresh on each new generation instead of being passed down like a hereditary illness. Children enter the world full of expectation and hope. They are not jaded. They are not cynical or resigned. They see clearly what custom has made invisible to us and are outraged by all injustices, no matter how small. It is through the agency of former children that the revolutionary potential of current children is held in check."

"Without any form of political representation, children remain in many senses the property of the adults in their lives."

"We tolerate and accept for children a level of disenfranchisement that we would protest for any other constituency. Childhood is the standard for acceptable powerlessness. "They're just like children" is the classic statement of paternalistic racism and patriarchy. "Don't treat me like a child" is the outraged cry of the disrespected. We talk about the ways in which various groups are not admitted to full adulthood, how women were, and in many places still are, permanent legal minors, how the colonized are considered naïve, not ready for self-governance, deprived of sovereignty with the same air of protectiveness we extend to children."

"the arguments against the enfranchisement of children are identical to those used to oppose suffrage for women, immigrants, former slaves, the illiterate, and the poor in general. "They are innocent and cannot understand politics. They will be taken advantage of and manipulated by the political interests of those more sophisticated than they. They aren't ready for the responsibility." But what readies people for responsibility is being allowed to take some. People become informed and savvy about those areas of life where they can exercise some power. It is powerlessness that creates passivity. When children are treated with respect, given choices, and expected to have opinions that matter, they develop opinions and make choices. I wonder what it must have been like, what dignity it must have conferred on children of the Iroquois Confederacy that any child over three was welcome to speak about matters of group importance in the tribal council. One of the most politicizing experiences of my life was the summer I spent in Cuba when I was fourteen. Overnight I found myself in a country in which fourteen-year-olds could make major life decisions-for instance, to join the merchant marine, drill with the militia, or choose special vocational training without parental permission."

"All solidarity movements must work hard to counteract the pull to think for the constituencies they ally themselves with. Those with privilege often have a hard time abandoning the conviction that they are more competent than those they want to support. As adults, we need to listen to children more than we talk to them. We must back the initiative of children themselves, secure resources and share skills, respect their right and ability to lead themselves, and learn to let them lead us. This process, more than anything, will bring into our awareness and let us begin to repair the disempowerments of our own childhoods. As we do so, we will begin dismantling one of the most powerful ways that oppression reproduces itself."

"Storytelling is a basic human activity, with which we simultaneously make and understand the world and our place in it."

"we write from necessity, that our writing is a form of cultural and spiritual self-defense. To live surrounded by a popular culture in which we do not appear is a form of spiritual erasure that leaves us vulnerable to all the assaults a society can commit against those it does not recognize. Not to be recognized, not to find oneself in history or in film or on television or in books or in popular songs or in what is studied at school leads to the psychic disaster of ceasing to recognize oneself. Our literature is documentation of an existence that doesn't matter a damn to those in charge. And like the forged passports of my paternal Jewish relatives, from time to time it saves our lives."

"This is why we write: to see ourselves on the page. To confirm our presence. To clear a space where we can examine the lives we live, not as the sexy girlfriends, petty crooks, and crime victims of TV cop shows, and not as statistical profiles in which hardship, bravery, and resourcefulness lose all personality, but in our own physical and emotional reality. Where we can pull apart and explore this complex relationship we have with the island of our origins and kinship and this vast many-peopled country in which we are writing a new chapter of Puerto-Ricanhood. This necessity gives shape to our literature, to our urgent poetry of the streets, our ever so autobiographical fiction, our legends of collective identity. Most of what we write, we write under pressure."

"language is born from history."

"in the public discourses of anti-semitism, losing relatives to the Nazis is often wielded as a kind of moral authority that exempts us from the challenge to think critically. I have been accused of betraying the Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis because, like the past six generations of my family, I believe our safety lies in the solidarity of working people, and not in a Zionist state. I have been accused of being a retroactive Nazi collaborator by people who claim that dead children accuse me. I am at peace with my ghosts. In none of my lineages do my ancestors demand that I build gated homelands. They say Protect all the people, cherish every land, build freedom for everyone."

"Racism is like a millstone, a crushing weight that relentlessly presses down on people intended to be a permanent underclass. Its purpose is to press profit from us, right to the edge of extermination and beyond. The oppression of Jews is a conjuring trick, a pressure valve, a shunt that redirects the rage of working people away from the 1 percent, a hidden mechanism, a set-up that works by misdirection, that uses privilege to hide the gears. Unlike racism, at least some of its targets must be seen to prosper, must be well paid and highly visible. The goal is not to crush us; it's to have us available for crushing."

"I am a native of an occupied colony being systematically stripped of everything that supports life, and I know exactly what I am looking at in Palestine. I too am a thirsty resident in a land of privatized water, of massive land grabs, toxic waste disposal, a majority of my people unable to live in my country, citizen of a continent famous for invasions, occupations, death squads. I am familiar with the pornographic distortions of marketing through which oppression is sanitized, with shiny brochures that proclaim Puerto Rico to be paradise and Israel the home and hearth of freedom. I am a Latin American, so when I see soldiers shooting at children and calling them terrorists, I know what that is. I once wrote, "I am a colonial subject with a stone in my hand when I watch the news. I am a fierce Puerto Rican Jew holding out a rose to Palestine.""

"Jews fleeing the hardships of Christian Europe could have built something quite different in a place with centuries of coexistence, could have come as respectful migrants, to be neighbors, not conquerors. But whatever it could have been, what we have now is this devastation, which, along with everything else, is also bloody reenactment: the grandchildren of ghettoized Jews patrol the borders of Gaza and build walls, descendants of pogrom survivors carry out collective punishments and random executions, and Jews privileged by what they have built speak of "dirty Arabs" in the exact same tone of voice in which the Christians of Europe said "dirty Jews.""

"In my grandmother's village, there was a three-cornered argument about what, if anything, would save the Jews. The Orthodox said it was in God's hands. The Zionists said only Jews could be counted on to stand by Jews, and we needed a defensible territory of our own where we called the shots. The communists and socialists and anarchists who slipped in and out of the shtetls, handing out precious pamphlets to be passed around and hidden, said only an alliance of all the working people can dismantle our oppression and everyone else's. As a boy, my father took part in that identical debate on the Boardwalk in Brooklyn. But after the Holocaust, after the Nazis destroyed so much of the world of European Jews, after the solidarity that existed was not enough, and the old Russian antisemitism that had been punished as a crime against socialism became a part of Soviet policy, after all that, the three-cornered debate went lopsided with despair, and now the Zionist minority of my father's childhood has grown to dominate all debate, aggressively silencing dissent."

"In the face of a widespread belief that domination is the most trustworthy answer to fear, I am fighting for both the freedom of Palestine and the souls of Jews."

"I am fighting for an end to the recycling of pain. I am fighting for my own deepest source of hope, the belief in human solidarity, in our ability to decide that we will expand our hearts and our sense of kinship to include each other and resist the urge to contract in fear, to huddle and bare our teeth and lash out. When I speak out for the humanity of Palestine I am defending the humanity of everyone, including all Jews. When I stand firmly against the hidden reservoirs of antisemitism that bubble up when the ruling class needs them to, when I tell my gentile friends not to get distracted from the white Christian male 1 percent, to stay the course and stay clear, I am standing for accuracy, for clarity, for revealing the structures of domination that crush our world, including the people of Palestine."

"How can you own something that changes under your hands, that is so fully alive? Ecology undermines ownership."

""national soil" is a nonsensical idea. Places have history, but soil does not have nationality. Just as the air we breathe has been breathed by millions of others first and will go on to be breathed by millions more; just as water falls, travels, evaporates, circulates moisture around the planet-so the land itself migrates."

"Land and blood. Mystical powers that never change their identity so that a speck of Mississippi mud and an individual red blood cell are both seen as carrying unalterable identity, permanent membership in human cultures. This is the mysticism that allows fascist movements to call up images of long-dispersed and -recombined ancestral peoples like the ancient Aryans and Romans, or entirely mythic genetic strains like White Race, and then scream for genocide to return them to a state of purity. The reality is that people circulate like dust, intermingling and re-forming, all of us equally ancient on this Earth, all equally made of the fragments of long-exploded stars, and if, by some unlikely miracle, a branch of our ancestors has lived in the same place for a thousand years, this does not make them more real than the ones who have continued circulating for that same millennium. All of us have been here since people were people. All of us belong on Earth."

"So, what about the stealing of land? What about all the colonized places on Earth? What of indigenous peoples forcibly removed by invaders? The crime here is a deeper and more lasting one than theft, akin in some ways to enslavement. Before land can be stolen, it must become property. The relationships built over time between the land and the human members of its ecosystem must be severed just as ties of family and village and co-humanity were severed so that slavers could enslave. The indigenous peoples of the Americas did not own land in the European sense. They lived with and from the land and counted it as a relative."

"Earth-centered cultures everywhere held our kinship with land and animals and plants as core knowledge, central to living. The land had to be soaked with blood and that knowledge, those cultures shattered, before private ownership could be erected. It wasn't just theft."

"Because the land is alive, our relationship with it is real. We are kin to the land, love it, know it, become intimate with its ways, sometimes over many generations. Surely such kinship and love must be honored. Nationalism does not honor it. Nationalism is about gaining control, not about loving land. But it wears the cloak of that love, strips it from its sensual and practical roots and raises it into a banner for armies. The land invoked as a battle cry is not the same land that smells of sage or turns blue in the dusk or clings thickly to our boots after rain. That land is less than nothing to the speech makers."

"Ownership shatters ecology. For the land to survive, for us to survive, it must cease to be property. It cannot continue to sustain us for much longer under the weight of such a merciless use. We know this. We know the insatiable hunger for profit that drives that use and the disempowerment that accommodates it. We don't yet know how to make it stop."

"Torturers are made, not born. We know enough about the repetitive cycles of violence, enough about the training of secret police and death squads, special military units and spies to know that the way you learn to torture is by being tortured."

"To me the choice seems difficult and clear: either we are committed to making a world in which all people are of value, everyone redeemable, or we surrender to the idea that some of us are truly better and more deserving of life than others, and once we open the door to that possibility, we cannot control it. If we are willing to say that some people don't matter, that some people are unaffordable for the planet, that some people's actions have placed them beyond the pale, then what forgiveness is there for any of us if we commit errors, even crimes? If we agree to accept limits on who is included in humanity, then we will become more and more like those we oppose."

"A fully just society in which human potential is never despised or thrown away is possible only if that invitation to a restoration of integrity and community is always open."

"All of us have had failures of integrity. I believe part of what makes it so hard to consider perpetrators as part of our constituency is that we cannot bear to examine the ways we resemble them. Until we confront the moments when we have been co-opted, coerced or seduced into harming others, we will be vulnerable to defensive self-righteousness."

"I am holding out for a radical refusal to compromise on the possibility of any one of us to heal, make new moral choices, make amends, and reclaim kinship with those we have harmed. A justice that is truly restorative."

"There is a place for righteous rage at the torturers and a place to demand accountability and hard work. But punishment is not a tool of liberation. It is the powerless exercise of violence by those who can think of nothing better. It is the refusal to acknowledge our kinship with those who hurt us. It is a laying down of our vision, and ultimately, if we cannot overcome the urge to punish, our vision, which is what truly distinguishes us from those we oppose, will die."

"Only a feminism that fully integrates the expertise of all women, that does not indulge in a hierarchy of liberation agendas, will be capable of bringing large numbers of women together in long-term alliance. Therefore the theory we need to be developing is that which helps us understand the relationships between our different and multifaceted lives, with all their specific struggles and resources. Rather than build unity through simplification, we must learn to embrace multiple rallying points and understand their inherent interdependence. Such a theory needs to shed the metaphor of "intersections" of oppression and assume a much more organic interpenetration of institutional systems of power. The idea of intersection treats the social categories "woman," "working class," "lesbian," "person of color," and so on as if it were possible to separate someone's womanness from her class position, her “racial" or ethnic position, and so on. But these social categories do not exist anywhere in their "pure" state. Every woman is a woman of some class, some ethnicity, some sexual orientation, some country. The notion that working-class, colonized Women of Color suffer from triple jeopardy has always bothered me, because the implication is that racism and class oppression have no effect on those who are privileged by it. There is no such thing as single jeopardy. The only way to believe that the isms are separable is by ignoring privilege-so that upper-class, heterosexual, European and US white women are thought about only in the context of gender, as if people existed only in the categories in which they are oppressed. Social categories don't intersect like separate geometric planes. Each one is wholly dependent on all the others for its existence. For a liberation theory to be useful, it must address the way systems of oppression and privilege saturate each other, are mutually necessary, have no independent existence."

"The concept of internalized oppression, that collective historical trauma has powerful and lasting effects on individuals and communities, provides the most important insights into the behavior of oppressed people. Seeing how internalized institutional abuse affects people's choices allows me to explain their actions as separate from their potential-to say that people make the best choices of which they are capable at any particular moment."

"In order to successfully build a politics of inclusion, we need to map the ways in which our own thinking has been affected by our individual, familial, and cultural histories of oppression and resistance. The process of consciousness raising, of naming the specific ways in which our particular experiences of inequity traumatized us, is an invaluable theorizing tool. There are few things as powerful as identifying the manufacturer's mark on what we have perceived as our personal demons."

"Full inclusion requires us to root out all the ways in which we have been tricked into collusion with the oppression of others, and all of us have. It requires us to move beyond our comfort zones. I once heard Bernice Reagon say that being in coalition meant working with people we didn't much like, and we might need to vomit over it for a while, but we had to do it anyway."

"Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable."

"Joy is to mood as stars are to the weather, a constant to steer by, sometimes hidden by storm clouds but high above them, untouched by wind or rain."

"Trauma is not the opposite of joy; it's the husk around its seed. The more we face into the world, the more we let ourselves know how other people live, the more we learn about not only their pain and rage but also their love and resilience, their defiance and hope, and it's from that full spectrum of knowing that we fill in the details and colors of the world we want. There is a joy that rises from being with what's true, even when that truth includes the terrible."

"To live a lifetime of audacity, dwelling in the place where joy meets justice, year after year, can only be sustained by being so in love with a vision of what's possible that we no longer flirt with despair."

"Imagine that seeking the sources of audacity in our lives, choosing to know whatever we must to find it, we discover that there is nothing to defend. Whatever the harm done to us and the real wounds of it, our scars are not treasures to be hoarded. Whatever our complicity in the deprivation of others, whatever we've allowed ourselves, in the name of comfort or fear, to accept instead of freedom, is not worth having, that injustice was already here when we were born, that it's much bigger and older than our mistakes, that claiming each other is much better than lying low."

"I have tried to integrate healing myself and healing the world."

"I understood that excavating and revealing the truth about my experiences of abuse, and the sense of empowerment and release that process brought me, was the same process as excavating and telling the truth about the centuries of invasion, enslavement, patriarchal rule, accommodation, collaboration and resistance. The healing came from the same source."

"abuse is the local eruption of systemic oppression, and oppression the accumulation of millions of small systematic abuses."

"However the abuse is perpetrated, the result is the same: abuse does not make sense in the context of our humanity, so when we are abused, we must either find an explanation that restores our dignity or we will at some level accept that we are less than human and lose ourselves, and our capacity to resist, in the experience of victimhood."

"I call the work I do "cultural activism" because it does battle in the arena of culture, over the stories we tell ourselves and each other of why the world is as it is. It's a struggle for the imaginations of oppressed people, for our capacity to see ourselves as human when we are being treated inhumanely. Cultural activism is not separate from the work of organizing people to do specific things. In fact, successful organizing depends on this transformation of vision; the most significant outcome of most organizing campaigns is the transformation that takes place in people who participate."

"The reality is that when we are unable to mobilize people on their own behalf, the difficulty is usually at the level of vision. Either we ourselves have been unable to see the people with whom we are working as fully human and have treated them as victims instead of allies, or we have failed to engage their imaginations and spirits powerfully enough."

"Cultural work, the work of infusing people's imaginations with possibility, with the belief in a bigger future, is the essential fuel of revolutionary fire."

"Sustainable activism is not simply a matter of organizing energy and applying it to tasks. Anyone can do that in a crisis, in a pinch, for a while. Long-term activism requires more or less reliable, ongoing sources of hopefulness, faith, joy and trust because it is a matter of believing in and working for possibilities that are nowhere in sight."

"we need to find ways to live as if what we want to build were already here."

"We live in a society that offers us cheap imitations, that devalues the spiritual in favor of consumption or empty religious forms devoid of spirit, that substitutes the individual for the personal and offers us entertainment and addiction instead of living art. And in order to sustain ourselves, in order to fully tap our power to make social change and do the work we want to do in the world, not for the duration of one crisis after another, but for fifty or sixty years, what we need is the restoration of these profound sources of nourishment: connection with spirit, connection with the personal and connection with the creative. Only such a base gives us the flexibility to adapt to changing conditions, to stay hopeful in times of setback, to balance patience and persistence and choose our battles wisely."

"The spiritual is whatever allows us to notice the miraculous nature of life, how it keeps coming back, asserting itself in the midst of destruction. Whatever allows us to notice that life is in fact bigger than all the mean-spirited cruelties and brutalities of unjust societies. Something large enough to entrust our sense of future to, so that we don't become mired in struggle."

"Our society is individualistic to the point of insanity. Concern for the common good is ridiculed as naive, and the skills of people from more communally oriented cultures are seen as liabilities."

"Love is subversive, undermining the propaganda of narrow self-interest. Love emphasizes connection, responsibility and the joy we take in each other. Therefore love (as opposed to unthinking devotion) is a danger to the status quo and we have been taught to find it embarrassing."

"Art, like dreaming, is something so necessary to internal balance that people deprived of it go a little wacky. Art is the collective dreamplace, the reservoir of our deepest understandings and desires and hopes, as essential as water. In recognition of this fact, the marketplace offers us entertainment, hoping to replace the wild and forested interior of our souls with potted plastic plants. Just as we dream-whether we want to or not, whether we long for or fear our dreaming-people make art and are drawn to art."

"Every vital social movement immediately begins to generate art-songs, poetry, posters, murals, novels-an outpouring of the creativity that people will create from even the smallest crumbs of hope."

"art, like sex, is an essential and affirming part of aliveness, it cannot be totally repressed. So, as best they can, our rulers steal it, commodify it and return it in barely recognizable form, sanitized, rootless, artificial, or they try to medicate away the need, substituting addiction."

"We who believe in freedom, whose daily lives are made up of the clash between what we want for this world and the violent greed that surrounds us, need a culture rich in our people's dreams to keep us sane."

"Human beings seek integrity like water seeks its level, grow toward creative and just solutions like plants grow toward sunlight, sometimes by crooked paths, but always reaching."

"We are so vulnerable in our pleasures and desires."

"the seductiveness of the victim role; the thin satisfactions that come from a permanent attitude of outrage...Victimhood absolves us from having to decide to have good lives. It allows us to stay small and wounded instead of spacious, powerful and whole. We don't have to face up to our own responsibility for taking charge of things, for changing the world and ourselves. We can place our choices about being vulnerable and intimate and effective in the hands of our abusers. We can stay powerless and send them the bill."

"To shamelessly insist that our bodies are for our own delight and connection with others clearly defies the predatory appropriations of incestuous relatives and rapists; but it also defies the poisoning of our food and water and air with chemicals that give us cancer and enrich the already obscenely wealthy, the theft of our lives in harsh labor, our bodies used up to fill bank accounts already bloated, the massive abduction of our young people to be hurled at each other as weapons for the defense and expansion of those bank accounts-all the ways in which our deep pleasure in living has been cut off so as not to interfere with the profitability of our bodies. Because the closer I come to that bright, hot center of pleasure and trust, the less I can tolerate its captivity, and the less afraid I am to be powerful, in a world that is in desperate need of unrepentant joy."

"I grew up in a Marxist home at a time of international decolonization struggles, my imagination filled with Cuba and Vietnam, Angola and Guinea-Bissau, Chou En-Lai's China and the Bolivia of El Che. I grew up listening to groups of young men talking excitedly about strategy and theory in our living room, while women sat silent, or, if they spoke, were ignored. I grew up with a mother who was a feminist without a movement, who moved farther and farther from those meetings where her comments kept being attributed to my father. I also grew up in a barrio with very few options for women, where intelligence and curiosity were restricted to the daily struggles and the doings of one's neighbors, without room to make other choices than young and plentiful childbearing, agricultural and household labor, food stamps and a pot of gandules."

"The Chicago I landed in in 1967 was on fire with the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, antiwar activism, and the explosion of what was called the women's movement. If Pablo Neruda taught me that a poet could be passionately engaged in politics and write eloquently about it, it was white feminist women like Susan Griffin, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and Alta who taught me that writing about typing, housework, motherhood, the tangle of sex could be as powerful and gut-wrenching, as tender and exquisite as anything else in literature that my life was worthy. At the same time, the white women around me and my mother, both of us members of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, said things like "Mexican women don't need feminism because they are at the heart of their families and already have the power and support they need. Black women find empowerment in the fight against racism, not sexism. The movement is white because we're the only ones who need it." They could not yet envision a feminism shaped by the needs of brown women. Nevertheless, white feminism began the process of giving me voice."

"It was not until 1978 that I found my first community of women of color writers. A group of us had all taken summer jobs interviewing randomly selected women in San Francisco on their experiences of sexual assault, and we were the interviewers sent into the Mission District, Chinatown, Filmore. In protesting the racism within the project, in sharing the stories we were gathering, and their weight on our hearts, we found each other. Cherríe Moraga, Kitty Tsui, Luisah Teish, Luz Guerra. Each of us led to others. Finally, I began having the conversations I hungered for most. I remember us laughing until our sides hurt, gathered around a potluck of our favorite home foods, about all the lies we had been told about ourselves and each other's people, a healing cleansing laughter that fed our poetry."

"It is the writing of U.S. women of color, a handful of clear-headed white women, mostly Jewish, a few men who engage gender, mostly gay, that sustains me and gives me context."

"This tribe called "women of color" is not an ethnicity. It is one of the inventions of solidarity, an alliance, a political necessity that is not the given name of every female with dark skin and a colonized tongue, but rather a choice about how to resist and with whom."

"Feminism has nearly as long a history in Puerto Rico as in the United States, but colonialism has prevented the full-grown development of movements, cultures, and communities of resistance that have been possible for women in the United States,"

"this is how it comes home. That not only does my sense of myself cross many national boundaries, but my sense of Puerto Rico has also opened up, multiplied, shed mythology, and become itself international."

"There are people who move into the cultures of others with such grace and respect that the friction of foreignness virtually disappears, who can un-self-consciously love the unfamiliar as if it were the most natural thing in the world."

"I grew up within a legacy of joyous border crossings, of knowing we have the right to love anyone, to learn any language and speak it, to offer ourselves wherever we choose."

"I also grew up in a house full of books, with parents who read poetry aloud, in English and Spanish, and those rhythms saturated my earliest sense of language. Most of them were men, but men of many countries, writing in many languages, translated into our reach. I read Bertolt Brecht and Nazim Hikmet, Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado, and the Eighteen Laments of Tsai Wen Chi. Bad translations irritated me almost physically. I was still a child when I began revising the English versions of Neruda in the bilingual editions we owned and ached to know what might have vanished from the German of Brecht's poems in order to preserve their rhythm and rhyme."

"To listen to the other is the beginning of possibility."

"I am thinking of the year I tried to teach the history of Western feminism on a North-South axis-U.S., Latin American and Caribbean feminism, not U.S. and European-and first heard the names of these women you rubbed shoulders with, Bertha Lutz, Clara Gonzalez, Elena Torres, Minerva Bernardino, Amalia de Castilla Ledón, Paca Navas, Irma de Alvarado. No one in my class had ever heard of any of them, not a single one. Not the Latin American delegates who put women into the U.N. Charter and saw to the creation of the Commission on the Status of Women; not the women who openly balked at the militarization of the continent in 1947; not any of the writers, thinkers, and agitators who had struggled not only for suffrage (which came far later to them than to women in the United States and kept them militant through the lull between our first and second waves) but also for divorce and child custody, nationality independent of a husband's, national self-determination, and living wages, and against dictatorships and fascism and the arming of the Americas."

"There is nothing as sustaining as legacy, as fore-mothers on whose lives we can build."

"The history of strong women, of writers and revolutionaries, is full of these shattered places made by loving men incapable of loving us as we are. The women I look to most are often heartbroken. It's a condition of history, a moment in evolution, that those of us who act most powerfully, who are artists and activists, who take up space and show ourselves to the world, and whose lovers are men, rarely find loves who can stand to be our matches. Emma, Rose, Luisa, Alexandra, Rosa, Jane-when I look at the lives of the women before me who give me strength, I see them mostly torn with grief or stoically alone, powerful and articulate and in pain, unable to have it all."

"I hope that future generations of women writers will have lives so much easier than mine that they will instantly perceive barbarities of my situation I don't see, because I can't imagine their absence."

"Our bodies are in the mix of everything we call political. (p 10)"

"We are turning the world out of prehistory into that morning that will be ours, when everyone on earth will wake up unafraid. (p 29)"

"If there was widespread recognition that many people are depressed because oppression makes us miserable, and that large numbers of people are getting sick because of the reckless use of toxic chemicals for profit, more of us might become inspired to organize, and resist the policies that make us sick and sad. (In the article "some thoughts on environmental illness")"

"Listen with your body. Let your body speak."

"Outrage silences nuance"

"Skin of our bodies and skin of the world. This is how to understand the land as well as the flesh. To be unsingular, fractured and whole, grieving and proud, in universal solidarity and difficult alliance, never to allow urgency or burning injury to keep us from demanding the whole, intricate, inclusive story."

"For me, the destruction of the land and the poisoning and violation of my body are inseparable, wound together on the spindle of a conquest that from the beginning was narrated as a sexual act."

"My father, an ecologist and fifth-generation radical, taught me this: "When two legitimate needs seem to be in conflict, neither side is asking for enough." We need an economy that saves both trees and people, a sexual culture that honors desire and sovereignty in all humans. Our job is not to discover the single issue that trumps all others, to fight for the priority of what presses on our own skin. It's to seek out the places where those skins rub, the spark-filled junctions where we could find ways to say a bigger yes, where we can add layer upon layer of meaning, rejoice in the complexity of our lives and use it to expand our desires beyond the limits of what we thought possible."

"So much depends on the conditions of the moment we live in. (in Bridges, Spring 2011)"

"in spite of all the things that make my heart sing, in spite of so many shifts of culture and consciousness, so many structural changes, so much intelligence and passion, sexism and racism both saturate daily life, as of course, they do in most places. Which brings me back to the image of a bridge, and makes me question it. Because what I have wanted, in every case, in every situation in which I straddled some gap of understanding, was to bring my whole self to the table, to have every aspect of my being respected, to have every aspect of my liberation embraced by those whose experience did and didn't overlap with mine. The bridge I keep building is meant to link two shores, but it's not who I am, it's what I do. What I am is the many-rippled, living river below. (in Bridges, Spring 2011)"

"he taught us to think long-term...to have a big picture sense of change. And to know that you can't always tell in the moment if you're winning or losing. That, that's something that history determines. And so for me, that has always made it less upsetting when we face defeats. Cause I know that sometimes defeats do lead to victories, and end up sabotaging much bigger ones, and you know, that it's a much bigger and more complex picture than we think. (2022)"

"The Cuban press, every day there were articles about Africa and Latin America and Asia, and people were educated. They knew what the political struggles in different African countries were. They knew about — you know, you’d go through the Daily International page and it was like, in Chad, this is happening. In Burundi, this is happening. In Costa Rica — it was like somebody had pulled back the veils and there was a whole world out there."

"One of my proudest credentials as a writer is to know that my poem “Child of the Americas” was plastered on bathroom walls in a small school in Michigan as graffiti, in an attempt to get people thinking about racism."

"I grew up within the anti-colonial movements of that period. I knew about the Algerian revolution. My father has this amazing mind for history and politics and would tell stories all the time. I knew about the Algerian revolution. I knew about Vietnam. We received Peking Review. I read children’s stories from China, stories from the Cuban Revolution. I had a sense of us being part of a global movement of people with whom I felt a tremendous sense of kinship. I also thought all radicals were Jewish. I was really shocked to discover that Pete Seeger was not Jewish...It was shocking to find out that there were right-wing Jews and that there were so many people who were not Jews who were radicals."

"("Is the racism of the women’s movement dominant in your recollection and experience of the women’s movement?") Yes, but my own ability to think about it clearly didn’t emerge until there were other women of color around. I was a new immigrant as well, and the strangeness of the United States, period, overwhelmed some of the other things that I was thinking about."

"On the strength of what happened with This Bridge Called My Back, I was suddenly credentialed. Suddenly I had the authority to speak about my own life and get paid a lot of money by a university to do so. Because that book had broken into — had been picked up by women’s studies all over the country and was being taught. As a high school dropout I suddenly was an authority, I was an expert, and I was getting called up and asked to come speak about being both Jewish and Puerto Rican, about being an immigrant, about the particular position that I held. And it was a very odd experience to go from complete outsider to academia to being brought in as a lecturer and being paid hundreds of dollars."

"the writing coincided very closely with, was always tied up with, survival...Writing is magic. Writing is a form of spell-casting. It is a form of healing. And self-witnessing...I saw writing as a tool of problem-solving and inquiry and exploration from the time I was very small"

"disability justice is asking a lot of different kinds of questions about the nature of our bodies, and part of what I put forward to disabled student groups is to not settle for fighting for inclusion in existing movements but to really look at the ways in which disabled people have leadership to offer. For instance, our bodies don't comply with the demands of capitalism; what could we bring to the labor movement, which looks for better pay and better working conditions within a structure of work that is highly oppressive? Well, we can question the whole nature of what work is."

"If trauma damages our resilience...what does the cultivation of solidarity between us create? Can we create an inheritable resilience? Can we harness the resilience in our bodies and leave it to be passed along?... I mean, we need everything! My brother talks about climate change, and is it the end of the world?...Are we past the point of no return? We don't know. There are a lot of different versions of that answer. But it seems likely that a lot of people are going to die. It seems likely that the next stage of our presence on the planet is going to involve really huge changes,... so I feel like our job is to put together the absolute best tool kit for our descendants that we can, to create the most resilient culture, the most resilient ways of thinking about things, the best tools... to give them the best shot. And dismantling as much as we can about the oppressive structures that have created the problems."

"When I lose the individual isolation and remember that I'm connecting to the entire web, I can feel what's going on in the web, I can feel my connections to everything, and then, how is it possible not to belong anywhere? Because there is only this one web that encompasses the planet."

"There's the nitty gritty of surviving the now, but the difference between a Band-Aid and a step is "does it open up more possibility?"...The small actions that we take-their importance is how they change us, how they change how we think. And so for any individual or small-scale action, my questions are, "Does it increase empowerment? Does it increase solidarity? Does it increase connection? Does it increase clarity about the nature of reality? Does it pull away the masking? Or does it let people feel like they've done their part and can relax and reinforce passivity?""

"I think healing justice is about understanding our bodies as historically constructed, full of trauma, resistance, resilience, innovation, epigenetic scars, and epigenetic resources; [about] understanding that you can't do politics that doesn't include that and then really thinking about how we assess the impact of trauma on the work that we do."

"There's a difference between imposing a meaning on someone's life, and saying it arises from their life, and having an interpretation that you own as your own that arises from your own life. And it should be full of questions, not just statements."

"An essay on Lebanon, written just after the invasion of that country by Israeli troops in 1982, by the Jewish-Puerto Rican writer Aurora Morales came closest to expressing my own rage and grief."

"Aurora’s writing is itself alchemy, balancing emotional nuance with rich historical context, simultaneously speaking in an intimate personal voice and for a collective we. She offers us vulnerable, power-filled lyricism that moves the audience to new understandings of their own lives as she claims her body’s pleasures and pain. Her writing moves me like no other.”"

"As Aurora Levins Morales teaches us, "The stories we tell about our suffering define what we can imagine doing about it." Currently the prevailing story told about sexual violence is that our suffering can be fixed by the criminal legal system. Legal remedies such as restraining orders and criminal charges are the primary forms of redress offered to survivors of violence and harm. This limited range of remedies frequently forecloses our consideration of other possible ways to address sexual harm. Abolition is the praxis that gives us room for new visions and allows us to write new stories-together. But it is hard, hard work."

"disability justice. It’s a framework that embraces abolition. And that is to say, it demands nothing less than the overthrow of all forms of ableism, you know, and the structures that support it. So, the difference between disability justice and disability rights is that disability justice says, you know, we’ve got to deal with racism, sexism, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, that these are the forms of oppression that make even disability differential. And so, if you think about the way that we responded to the COVID-19 crisis, for example, and to this day how we’re still responding to it, that disabled people who are Black and Brown and poor, undocumented, Indigenous, queer, gender nonconforming, they’re the ones that end up getting differential care, sometimes less care, sometimes inhumane care. They’re the ones who end up incarcerated, end up homeless, end up jobless, housing insecure. And that’s what disability justice tells us. And for me, I was forced to really come to terms with it by a number of folks who really were involved in the disability justice movement, who really forced me to think deeper about, like, what is a radical freedom dream, you know? Aurora Levins Morales, for example, is one who’s a really important disability justice activist who really kind of pulled my coattails on this."

"Twenty years ago I first read Medicine Stories and had my mind blown by the elegant, virtuosic way Aurora Levins Morales imagined a theory interweaving childhood sexual abuse survival, Indigenous sovereignty, anticlassism, and deep Latinx queer anticolonial ecological justice. Twenty years later, her analysis is even more rich and full of fruit, revising and expanding her work to encompass Standing Rock and the global fight for water and land liberation, survivorhood, and disability justice."

"Aurora Levins Morales's work should absolutely be supported. She has an impeccable progressive and visionary politic. Her prose has the literary eloquence of a pure poetry."

"When the revolution came to power there were tens of thousands of prostitutes, hundreds of thousands of illiterate women, 70,000 domestic servants. Gambling was a big business, vice and corruption were encouraged, and the population was denied its most elementary rights: access to education, to medical care, to hospitals, to recreation. All that was reserved for the privileged classes alone."

"What did the triumphant revolution offer our women? A new life, filled with possibilities and prospects, in which their deepest dreams might become reality. A society in which that which is most precious to us all-our children's future-would be assured. A different society, where the people would be masters and mistresses of their own destiny, where they would exert their rights fully, where new values would come into being. The triumph offered our women the opportunity to study and to work, it offered them economic security, thereby putting an end to oppression and hardship. It opened prospects of health care, of social security. For women, the revolution meant the opportunity to attain human dignity."

"We had to change women's mentality-accustomed as they were to playing a secondary role in society. Our women had endured years of discrimination. We had to show her her own possibilities, her ability to do all kinds of work. We had to make her feel the urgent needs of our revolution in the construction of a new life. We had to change both woman's image of herself and society's image of women."

"Voluntary work was beginning to fulfill its purpose: opening new horizons for women, showing them it was possible to take part, creating a new consciousness."

"In the PSP a group of us organized a woman's caucus; in fact this is what most of the women in Left organizations did. We studied the writings of the Russian leader, Clara Zetkin on the "women's question." We read about revolutionary Cuban women-Haydée Santamaría, Vilma Espín-and the role they played in toppling the Batista government."

"The Arab woman who is equal to the man in duties and obligations will not accept, in the twentieth century, the distinctions between the sexes that the advanced countries have done away with. The Arab woman will not agree to be chained in slavery and to pay for the consequences of men's mistakes with respect to her country's rights and the future of her children. The woman also demands with her loudest voice to be restored her political rights, rights granted to her by the Sharia and dictated to her by the demands of the present. The advanced nations have recognised that the man and the woman are to each other like the brain and heart are to the body; if the balance between these two organs is upset the system of the whole body will be upset. Likewise, if the balance between the two sexes in the nation is upset it will disintegrate and collapse. The advanced nations, after careful examination into the matter, have come to believe in the equality of sexes in all rights even though their religious and secular laws have not reached the level Islam has reached in terms of justice towards the woman. Islam has given her the right to vote for the ruler and has allowed her to give opinions on questions of jurisprudence and religion. The woman, given by the Creator the right to vote for the successor of the Prophet, is deprived of the right to vote for a deputy in a circuit or district election by a (male) being created by God."

"...Every woman who does not stand up for her legitimate rights would be considered as not standing up for the rights of her country and the future of her children and society. Every man who is pushed by his selfishness to trespass on the legitimate rights of women is robbing the rights of others and bringing harm to his country. He is an obstacle preventing the country from benefiting from the abilities and efforts of half the nation or more. He is impeding the advancement of his country and preventing it from being placed in the position it deserves - among the advanced nations whose civilisation was built on the shoulders of women and men together, just as Arab civilisation at the beginning of Islam was built on the co-operation and equality of the two sexes. Now after this feminist conference and the presentation of the cause of women to the public and the placing of its documents in a historical archive, it is incumbent upon man to record on his own page in the historical record that which will honour him and justify his stand before God, the nation, and future generations."

"I see myself as a foreigner in my community. This is because my thoughts do not match their thoughts, and their thoughts do not match mine. My community doesn't consider me to be a real woman because they are unwilling to accept a woman who objects or defends her gender. To them, I am not a woman because I am strong and stand against them. They believe that strength is for men and weakness for women."

"So if the traditions and culture of the Eastern community are blindly compelled to hurt a woman’s dignity, insult and degrade her in the name of cultural unity, then I am ready to burn myself. If it means facing prosecution and rejection to highlight these difficult truths, I intend to vocalize my pain and start a revolution for the silent women who faced centuries of oppression."

"the mother of the Egyptian feminist movement"

"Although I was never fortunate enough to meet her in person, the Arab feminist renaissance owes her and her achievements a great debt of gratitude. She must be counted in the very first rank of women who fought for the advancement of Arab women, their rights and progress. Her name echoed in every concourse of women, and at every social activity. She was the first to point to the nation's need to make use of cultured women, to get women used to the routine of work, to expand the circle of acquaintances among Arab women, and to call upon them to demand social reform. It must be emphasized here that Egyptian women were the first Arab women to engage in concerted national action, defying both local traditions and foreign occupation in their celebrated demonstration in 1919. Huda Sha`rawi was in their vanguard. They left their private chambers, fired by a burning desire to rid their land of foreign occupation, and raised their voices so loud that the whole world heard them with astonishment and admiration. We in Beirut closely followed news of them, our hearts filled with pride in their achievements and a great hope for their success. The world press carried pictures of them leading the demonstrations courageously and with utter determination, defying the guns of the British army, and marching onwards even after some in their ranks were killed or wounded. Their actions may be considered a historic landmark of the feminist movement, testifying to the degree of intellectual maturity and nationalist sentiment achieved by Egypt, its feminist leaders and its women in general. These actions also served as a sort of beacon, lighting the way for women throughout the Arab world, at once a refutation of those who depicted Arab women as weak and lazy, and a testimony of the potential power of Arab, and Eastern women in general."

"Hoda Shaarawi and her organization worked hard to bring women's rights to the forefront as part of the national struggle for liberation. Women started to be aware of the fact that they have to fight a double battle: not only against the British and foreign exploitation, but also against male domination or patriarchy in the family and in society."

"Doria Shafik took the liberal ideology of the EFU one step further, becoming more militant in her reformist ideas and actions than Huda Sharawi."

"England is known to provide so freely for the education of the poor of every other class without distinction of creed. Why should the deaf and dumb be the exception? Why should not a privilege be granted to the speechless poor which is so liberally bestowed on all others?"

"Any measure calculated to encourage virtue and subdue vice must be the wisest and best policy of a nation. In new countries there is a dignity in labour and a self-supporting woman is alike respected and respectable. Why should the door of hope be closed on those poor women, and why refuse them the means of attaining that independence in other countries which they are debarred from in this?"

"Charlotte Stoker's account of 'The Cholera Horror' in a letter to Bram Stoker (c. 1873)"

"The word "love" is used far too frequently and far too imprecisely. It moves heaven and earth, it illuminates the purest of pages, but oh, with what ease it is pressed into service to mask the most infamous of passions, the vilest selfishness, and even crime!"

"A young man needs friends to serve as guides and counselors, confidantes and role-models. The mature man is capable of meaningful undertakings only when his actions are undergirded by the support of others. And the elderly seek strength in their time of weakness and, ultimately, in their struggle for survival, in companionship and affection. Even if there is love at first sight, there is no friendship that does not demand time and space to reach its perfection. The ancient proverb states, and rightly so, that two friends cannot truly know each other without having first shared a bag of salt."

"Friends dislike being apart. Separation, says Emily Dickinson, is all the Hell we need. Each shared moment is precious. And the only ones who can remember the hour of loneliness are those who survive it."

"He who has a friend lavishes benevolent actions on those around him."

"Veneration of our parents is seen in this light, not as an obligation difficult to fulfill, but rather as an easy inclination of our affection. We gratefully remember what we owe them: our existence, thanks to the love they expressed to one another, the care with which they watched our growth; and the gentleness and skill with which they guided us toward independence, responsibility, and the ability to make wise choices."

"Children, because of their helplessness, evoke our tenderness. But we must give them more than that: a vigilant sense of responsibility, an exquisite equilibrium between the extremes of exercising our authority and respecting their freedom. There is no greater satisfaction than a child who, when grown and at the age of accountability, is able to forgive us."

"Outside the family circle, friendship evolves into good will. In the workplace this allows us to manage without despotism, and to follow orders without resentment. In society we will learn to intervene without violence, but also without servility. And we will be able to look beyond the geographical borders of our own country, our customs, our race, our religious beliefs, and our political ideology to see that humanity is an attribute of all mankind."

"You may not be interested in hearing it, but I want to talk about it. To talk about them, rather: the forty-five years (exactly the number I have lived) as of today. I don't want to hide anything or misrepresent the date, like one covers up a gray hair or a wrinkle. No, each day has been worth what it has cost, and much more."

"Possibilities were available to me, doors were opened to me, all because of one government official's concept of justice and the consistency of his desire to see the law equally applied. I refer to Lázaro Cárdenas."

"The march, as you know, was not only to express their dissatisfaction but also to begin a strike against household chores-those jobs so sui generis, so unique that they are only noticed when left undone"

"Of course, there have been commentaries. And, of course, the gamut of these commentaries has been exactly what one might expect. From foolish outbursts and impudent plays on words to the rending of garments in the face of this new apocalyptic sign that heralds the decadence and perhaps even the death of our civilization and culture."

"I warn you that we Mexican women are taking due note of what is happening to our northern cousins and making ready for the day it becomes necessary for us."

"I've been at this long enough to realize that my column is like a mirror-a little mirror to which each Saturday I pose the question of who is the most marvelous woman on the planet."

"I tried what all children try in their desire to be noticed: tantrums and every sort of illness I could dream up. But since these were not successful, I found myself obliged to seek other means. And so it was that I came to write and publish my first verses. At ten years of age I was already perfectly installed as a poetess."

"I can say with Amado Nervo that "I loved and was loved and the sun caressed my face." But all of that happened in the School of Philosophy and Letters, in the halls that led from one classroom to another, from a lesson poorly noted, from a tutorial en route to a professional degree."

"in giving birth to Gabriel, I gave birth to myself as a mother-a role for which I was unprepared but which I try to carry out as best I can. Mother and poetess do not rhyme, but they go together rather well."

"I have confidence not so much in my own abilities as in the generosity of everyone else."

"Hablo no por la boca de mis heridas."

"Hechizada, contemplo el milagro de estar/como en el centro puro de un diamante."

"Nadie está solo. Nadie."

"¡Cómo canta la tierra cuando gira!/Canta la ligereza de su vuelo,/su libertad, su gracia, su alegría."

"no te bebas de un sorbo la alegría."

"No es posible sino soñar, morir,/soñar que no morimos/y, a veces, un instante, despertar."

"palabras que los vientos dispersan como pétalos"

"Heme aquí, ya al final, y todavía/no sé qué cara le daré a la muerte."

"sonríe ante un amanecer sin nadie."

"¿Qué se hace a la hora de morir? ¿Se vuelve/la cara a la pared?/¿Se agarra por los hombros al que está cerca y oye?/¿Se echa uno a correr, como el que tiene/las ropas incendiadas, para alcanzar el fin?"

"El otro. Con el otro/la humanidad, el diálogo, la poesía, comienzan."

"Lo que soñó la tierra/es visible en el árbol."

"ternura, la palabra pequeña, familiar/que cabía en mi boca."

"Adiós para la tierra que en mi torno bailaba."

"mi corazón, lugar de las hogueras,/y mi cuerpo que siempre me acompaña."

"He venido, feliz como los ríos,/cantando bajo un cielo de sauces y de álamos/hasta este mar de amor hermoso y grande./Yo ya no espero, vivo."

"El idioma salía de sus labios, como debe salir de todo labio humano, enrojecido de vergüenza. Y Rominka, al arrancarse la costra de sus pecados, lloraba. Porque duele quedar desnudo."

"El viento de las alturas huía graznando lúgubremente. Un sol desteñido, frío, asaeteaba aquella colina estéril."

"La seguridad de su vida era tan frágil que había bastado la cara de un chamula, vista al través de un cristal, para hacerla añicos."

"la visión turbia como si sus entrañas estuvieran latiendo en medio de las cejas."

"don Agustín, que no tenía afición por la copa ni por el tabaco, que había guardado rigurosamente la continencia, era esclavo de un vicio: la conversación. Furtivo, acechaba los diálogos en los portales, en el mercado, en la misma catedral. Don Agustín era el primero en enterarse de los chismes, en adivinar los escándalos y se desvivía por recibir confidencias, por ser depositario de secretos y servir intrigas."

"Su silencio le producía vergüenza, como si callar fuera burlarse de los otros. Y como un castigo inmediato crecía, junto a la vergüenza, una sensación de soledad. Teodoro era un hombre aparte, amordazado por un secreto."

"(who would you suggest we should be reading more among the women poets, especially in Latin America?) Well, she died already, but in Mexico, there was a poet called Rosario Castellanos. She was very good."

"Your verses were leafy trees, uncertain roads where the healers nested in the century plant."

"we see the surprising similarities between the renowned Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos and the young Peruvian poet Giovanna Pollarolo. The lyrical voices in this section subvert and rebel against routine; they speak about it as if it were a prison. The poets rebel through language which casts a light on and makes of their everyday lives a battlefield where objects become the signifiers of disorder and of liberty."

"Castellanos is one of the most brilliant writers of the last century, but when the Latin American boom in literature resounded in the United States, it was only the male voices that were heard."

"the Life/Death/Life forces are part of our own nature, an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of Life and Death. It is composed of the parts of ourselves who know when something can, should, and must be born and when it must die. It is a deep teacher if we can only learn its tempo. Rosario Castellanos, the Mexican mystic and ecstatic poet, writes about surrender to the forces that govern life and death: “... dadme la muerte que me falta .../give me the death I need . . .” Poets understand that there is nothing of value without death."

"The brilliant Mexican Rosario Castellanos combines a philosophical outlook with a well-grounded historical perspective in both novels and poems, in which she employs complex striking imagery, as in "Daily Round of the Spinster," another treatment of the theme of the childless woman. A profound student of women's lives, she suggests, as in "Meditation at the Threshold," that the solution, not yet found, requires "Another way to be human and free./ Another way to be." Her powerful utterance opened the way to a new generation of women poets born after 1937, in different countries, but all with a clear apprehension of the contemporary woman's situation..."

"here’s a very short list of Latin women novelists I think should have been considered part of the Boom…Mexico: Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos..."

"I see no hope of functioning 100 percent in the interest of the common people except through the Socialist Party, and hereby apply for readmission to membership. I left the party because I considered dangerous the party’s attitude toward America’s participation in the war; but the crisis created by the St. Louis resolution is past, and the present immediate danger is an imperialistic peace which, I believe, only a unified and strengthened international Socialist movement can prevent. I thrill to think how rapidly the world would move forward if, for instance, the German Social Democracy were to unite — if the party of the right were to unite with the party of the left — and sweep the Hohenzollerns out of power, or if the several parties of the Social Revolution in Russia were to sink their differences and go to the heart of their common purpose; or if in Italy, France, and England there were but one unified expression of the Socialist movement; and because my heart cries out to them, “Comrades, unite!” I am brought to a keen realization of my own remissness. If I see and deplore the results of disruption and desire unity for my Comrades abroad, I must surely strive for unity here, where 90 percent of the American people, whose hearts beat warm as any in the world for humanity, need to stand as unitedly against their own and the world’s anti-humanitarian 10 percent, as the 90 percent of any other country. President Wilson’s last message; the British and French government’s failure to meet fully and in a spirit of frankness the democratic implications of it; the imprisonment in Germany of 300 of her left wing Socialists; the counterrevolutionary attempts in Russia, where an unseen hand not Russia’s seems to be playing fast and loose — these four significant events are among the foremost impelling me to rejoin the Socialist Party. I beg, dear Comrades, that you admit me again to your ranks."

"We have met here in protest against the law which operates to keep the knowledge of contraception from the mothers of the poor and blinks the fact that the comfortable classes obtain that knowledge from their highly-paid physicians and from one another. We demand that the law which is a dead letter for the rich also become a dead letter for the poor, and declare that we shall continue in ever-increasing numbers to honor this law by breaking it. The poor and they physicians of the [poor], and those who realize the immediate necessity of spreading contraceptive knowledge, will not continue to respect a law that is negatively responsible for so much misery among the masses of the people."

"it is widely known — and discussed (although not in print) — that not among the least of those who have persecuted the poor law-breakers in this respect have rich law-breaking friends and do themselves break the law and benefit by the scientific knowledge they are instrumental in sending others to prison for disseminating."

"Is it possible that according to the law of our economic autocracy to be poor is to be obscene and to have property is not to be obscene? Ah, but these propertyless agitators who are spreading this scientific knowledge among the poor and the propertyless must be suppressed. For it is the business of our greedy capitalist society to prevent the poor from regulating the size of their families"

"Speak in terror of dollars and cents, (the language best understood by the ruling class)"

"The thing that impresses the “impractical” radical most is not so much the cost in money as the cost in human life, the toll paid in human suffering, the agony millions of mothers endure when sickness or poverty or other unfavorable conditions (needlessly forced upon them by a maladjusted system) brings them a coffin and carries away the cradle, or — as frequently happens — leaving the cradle, leaves it with something more tragic than a coffin."

"Recently an editor commented on this birth control movement. The climax of his editorial was that the distribution of contraceptive literature is not only against the law of man but of the Almighty. The old cry of superstition against science. Do these men who claim to be so intimately acquainted with God ever announce what the will of God is with regard to crushing little children in the mills, the mines, the factories? One does not hear much concerning God’s decision in this respect. Yet when they do speak up, it is usually to impress upon us the thought that in child labor there may be hidden some divine purpose. In their hearts they must know that it exists to fill the pocket of greedy mill and mine and factor owners and stockholders."

"Science comes to regulate life and prevent needles death. But, say the bigots, these conditions exist by God’s will and must therefore be borne in a meek and humble spirit."

"From the day that the light of science began to break upon the mind of men, superstition has attempted to place a black curtain of fear between man’s mind and the light."

"The battle between Science and Superstition is by no means over, but for Science it has been and continues to be a winning fight."

"Frankly, then, I have broken the law over and over, because I believe that since science has shown the way, the mothers of the world should have the power and the right of control birth — to have as many or as few children as the conditions of their health or their particular material environment coupled with a decent standards of living, shall dictate."

"My chief interest is not birth control, but Socialist propaganda, which aims to place land and industry within the reach of all the people upon terms of equal opportunity — which purposes to eliminate poverty and insecurity by eliminating the waste and robbery of Capitalism. But pending the day when the Socialists have sufficient control to effect these basic changes, there are lesser causes to meet immediate vital needs that I believe to be worth fighting for, and birth control is such a cause."

"For twenty-three years, Capitalist Society had done its worst to me. It gave me an underfed childhood, hemmed me in on all sides by the stone walls of No Opportunity, and, when I was hardly old enough to bear the burden, it began to turn my very heart’s blood into gold for others — sometimes for people I never saw and who never saw me. Whole seasons at a time worked me not only the long day but also far into the night, giving me in return semi-starvation, a starved body upon it, a few indecent rags, no schooling, frequently the hard floor for a bd, and the weight of an unnamable nightmare as each succeeding year added another moth to feed, then eliminated the father of those six little ones, in the unequal struggle for bread."

"Don’t look at the one who has somehow chanced to survive but look down into the pit where the millions struggle weakly, and where millions have succumbed."

"Capitalist society has not succeeded in making me bitter, but it has succeeded in making me unafraid."

"Be the penalty what it may, I here frankly offer to give out these slips with the forbidden information to those needy wives and mothers who will frankly come and take them."

"Surely there is not a capitalist or a well-informed person in the world today who believes that this war is being fought to make the world safe for democracy. It is being fought to make the world safe for capital, so that those who control the industrial machinery of England, France, America, Germany, Russia and Italy can dispose of the overproduction of the workers of those countries in lands less highly organized or not organized at all."

"If America had entered the war for the ideal of democracy our armies would have gone to Europe when Belgium was ravished, or at least when the Lusitania went down. But no, we did not start to fight until our dollars were in danger. We had to fight or revise our top heavy industrial system."

"When Russia deposed its czar we heard from a great deal of handclapping from the world but what did you hear when the real revolution took place? Not commendation at least. Russia is the threat against industrial serfdom and I have no doubt that there is a gentlemen’s agreement to bleed her to death and then, the capitalistic gentlemen, of, shall we say, any countries, sit around the green table and parcel Russia and the rest of the world into economic spheres, which our workers must slave to maintain."

""Wear a red flower, tonight." And when Grigory Gershuni stood before his vast audience in the evening, and saw Nature flaunting her scarlet beneath the multitude of pale faces raised eagerly for his message; he said: "I wanted you to wear this symbol of the joy and the beauty of life because we demand not only bread, but roses." Yes, Bread and Roses! When the Revolution was successful, did our fellow workers think only of bread? No. Great and terrible as the need was, they lost no time securing to themselves: in the fullest measure possible--Roses! Roses! The flowers of Song, the Dance, the Opera, Drama, the flowers of Science--of Knowledge."

"The king and queen of Belgium visited the United States. There is a great stir of interest in the ranks of the exploiters. The Opera House here makes a gala night of their visit to that temple of music. The Workers take control of Russia. Their Opera becomes the Soviet Opera. There is a great stir among the common folk. The workers fill the Opera House. It is a gala night. Just as it is natural for Capitalist America to give a special performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in honor of the king and queen--charging incredible prices for seats; so it is natural for Soviet Russia to give Opera daily for the Russian worker--where he is entitled to a seat by virtue of his useful labor."

"The masses, lovers of song, inspirers of all the great music that has ever been written--it is for them that the great artists of the Moscow Opera vie with one another to give their best."

"Tzars and Empresses, drainers of the people's life-blood are no more! and no more do they "grace" the "royal" box. All space is the people's. They grace the house from pit to gallery. The sparkle of diamonds and precious stones, symbol of tears and slavery, have given place to sparkle of happy eyes, new-lit with the fires of liberty."

"Industry, agriculture, yes. Bread, security, yes. But Roses, Roses, yes, a thousand times yes! Are we workers hungry for joy and beauty for art and culture? Today, Russia answers for us until the day when we shall answer for ourselves. The worker, starved through the centuries amidst the very plenty he created, is satisfying his hunger at last--in Russia."

"we workers are invited, by every subtle blandishment, to join with our capitalist Governments in a war of extermination against our fellow workers of Russia."

"We may not do the shooting ourselves, but we are no less guilty if their freedom is lost through the guns we make. Longshoremen load the guns on ships, railroad men bring them to the piers, sailors, workers too; carry them over seas, and soldiers, (also workers) receive them and use them to shoot down Bolshevist workers, (but what workers!) fighting in the front trenches of the world in the cause of the Social Revolution that will set the world's workers free!"

"But this surely will not be! Everywhere the workers are awaking to consciousness In Italy the workers forced their Capitalist Government to recall their troops from Russia. The transport workers refused to load the ships with goods or guns for use against Soviet Russia. In France and in England there is an awakening: here too, though less thorough, the protest is being made effective. There are workers everywhere who are refusing to destroy their own Hope of emancipation by destroying the freedom of the Russian Working Class. We are learning that if we rise to power, we rise by Russia, even as Capitalism has learned that it falls if Soviet Russia stands! The Associated Press and the Associated Powers may combine to lie about the Soviet-Government until they make old Annanias sound as truthful by comparison as a wireless message from Moscow. It will help them not one iota. If the Allies' workers stand by Russia, Russia stands--lied about or not. If Russia stands, Capitalism falls and the workers everywhere rise to power."

"Stand by Russia, Workers of America. Stand by your own cause. The issue is joined; the fight is on. Unite; use your power. For Russia--for ourselves--For Bread and Roses!"

"J. G. Phelps Stokes, recently married to Rose Pastor, a beautiful and talented working woman from the East Side of New York. There had been much publicity about this romantic marriage of a well-to-do Christian settlement worker and a Jewish cigarmaker, and quite a furor in orthodox Jewish circles."

"We were horrified, too, at the conditions we had never met in our travels elsewhere the prevalence of pests in the old slum houses, mice, rats, cockroaches and bedbugs. My poor mother carried on a desperate struggle to rid us of these parasites. And then something horrible happened to us in school-pediculosis is the scientific term; "lousy" the children called it. One child can infect a whole classroom, as every teacher knows. Yet often you will hear a smug prosperous person say: "Well, at least the poor can keep clean." I remember my friend, Rose Pastor Stokes, answering a woman who said this: "Did your mother ever look at a nickel in her hand and decide between a loaf of bread and a cake of soap? Well, mine did!""

"she and her husband became part of the most spirited group of radicals, reformers, and dreamers this country has ever known. Their friends included the anarchist firebrand Emma Goldman, birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, lawyer Clarence Darrow, "Wobbly" leader Big Bill Haywood, editor Max Eastman, labor crusader and socialist Eugene V. Debs, and writers Jack London, Upton Sinclair, W.E.B. Du Bois, Lincoln Steffens, and John Reed."

"There were a number of outstanding Jewish women among American socialists, chief among them Theresa Malkiel, who began her career as a union organiser in the 1890s, and Rose Pastor Stokes, who later became a leading figure in the Communist Party, but their involvement in union affairs was less important than their role as propagandists."

"Rose Pastor Stokes had lately been convicted, also for a speech, made in South Dakota, in which she said that "The government cannot serve both the profiteers and the employees of profiteers.""

"My fans see me as an angel, but I'm not an angel. I'm just a normal person from Norway who writes music. They expect from me what I expect from them. They would be surprised if I was ever mean or inappropriate, but I want to be a good role model. You become that immediately when you get fans."

"Well, I didn't have a computer in my house before six years ago. But I still got vinyl LPs and had an LP player, but I don't have iTunes or Spotify or Tidal or WiMP or anything. It's just because it just seems very confusing, and complicated. I've been a lot more into Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, which was a bit complicated for me to understand the language of each social media because they all talk in different ways. It's a nice way for me to tell people I appreciate them, which I forget to do sometimes. Because I want people to know I wouldn't be here without... people, right?"

"I feel like a city is strange when there is no source of escape. You need mountains, ocean, or forest. My parents have a sailboat and love being in the ocean. I am a forest person. I like to climb trees, to have things over me, to be isolated and hidden."

"I wrote "Runaway" when I was 11 years old. It's quite funny because the older I got, the more it made sense to me. It touched my heart, and now it reminds me of things that happened after I wrote it. It was kind of like a gift to myself. It's weird because my inspiration for the lyrics to "Runaway" came out of nowhere. A few years later, something happened to me (well, the whole of Norway actually), and then the lyrics made so much sense to me. I sat in my house on the usual piano I always write on and it look like an hour, I think. I remember it was completely quiet, it was grey outside. Not light, not dark, not dry, not wet, not cold, not warm – it was kind of one of those out-of-place kind of days. It was kind of like time was standing still."

"Yes, music for me is not about my own pain, relationships, or breakups, I write about the world around me. I want the music to be a nature force big like a mountain, ocean, or hurricane. Music for me is really big and the closest thing I've experienced to something divine. I want people to be reminded of their inner warrior. We're in an important time, fighting for nature and what you believe in. I think we're hungry for more. I write pop music and it's very intellectual and full of emotion. I have many different styles within pop in my songs. Every song has a clear identity and asks for its own colour, its own mood. I'm really missing meaning in pop music and I have been for the last 20 years. I miss the force that we need and I believe that it's up to individuals. We don't have a machine to clear the water of plastic, we have to do it by hand. It's up to us, the people. The true power lies within the people it always has but somehow throughout history, the rich leaders have made it seem like power lies with one person. But that's so old-fashioned, we're getting out of that now, the power lies with the people. I really want to remind people of the power they have that they may have forgotten about."

"I think once in a while we all need something to remind us of the good that exists in the world. And why we exist. Right now the world is going through a lot, together, but we are also isolated. You try to listen to the world when making music. And I felt like the world needed a little love right now."

"It's very hard for me. I don't see the meaning in numbers. I don't have the possibility to understand what they mean in terms of success. I don't get a rush out of them – I wish I did. It's a very hard question for me to answer without seeming ungrateful because I am very honoured that people have let 'Runaway' into their hearts."

"And I was running far away Would I run off the world someday? Nobody knows, nobody knows And I was dancing in the rain I felt alive and I can't complain But now take me home Take me home where I belong I can't take it anymore"

"A gift, a curse, they track and hurt Say can you dream, in nightmare seems? A million voices, silent dreams Where hope is left so incomplete"

"Broken me and broken them And you are broken too Open ears, their eyes are open Makes me call for you"

"The underdogs are my lions The silent ones are my choir The women will be my soldiers With the weight of life on their shoulders"

"If I am left with a rose in my hand, let it die It's the beauty in forgotten love And I don't care if you don't understand why I cry It's the beauty in forgotten love"

"Don't forget who you are even though you are hurt You are caught in a wire and soon it will burst"

"Let her save the world, she is just a girl Let him save them all, he is just a boy Let her save the world, she is just a girl Let him save them all, he is just a boy"

"You cannot eat money, oh, no You cannot eat money, oh, no When the last tree has fallen And the rivers are poisoned You cannot eat money, oh, no"

"I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora's "Runaway" music video. Something inside me clicked, like, that is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not."

"As women, regardless of our class, geographical location or educational status, we should be aware that we do not operate in a vacuum. We function within a context of patriarchal norms and values, which have been firmly entrenched over time, and which continue to be validated through culture, traditions and religious beliefs."

"Ekiti State became the first State in the country to domesticate the National Gender Policy."

"It is about squandering the commonwealth of the people, ostensibly for the benefit of the people but ultimately for the good of only a select few."

"Sadly, the combination of poverty and ignorance is toxic and deadly."

"Ultimately, it is the fabric that binds us together as a community of people that will unravel, when we can no longer talk to one another in civility, when young people can abuse their elders at will in the anonymity of cyber space, and when reputations built over years of hard work and service get tarnished with one stroke of the keys."

"We need to keep mentoring young women in ways that nurture them and prepare them for the harsh world of business, politics and public life. In doing this, we need to be able to set an example for them because they will practice what they see and not what they hear from us."

"All of us here have a sphere of influence we can operate from. Let us use our spaces wisely and purposefully. Let us all rise and set our sights on all the great things we know we can accomplish. Let us stop being complacent. Let us move out of our comfort zones. Let us stop passing things on to the next person. You are the person. You are the change."

"I have always held the firm conviction that Africans has the most generous communities in the world, and our culture of local philanthropy is very strong. It is not what we acquire a result of influences from elsewhere.The very rich tradition of indigenous philanthropy therefore should be nurtured to enable us create lasting Institutions and structure for the sustainable growth and development of our communities."

"It’s been a tremendous honour to work with such strong young women because they continue to teach and push me in various ways."

"Poetry is some people’s source of income."

"People do not understand how fast a culture can disappear without art especially a country whose culture is art in itself."

"I hope my writing can help people to see life in a different light and encourage mental emancipation."

"Poetry has the ability to open up the space for many Rwandans to participate in conversations about social issues, mainly those that are taboo."

"Poetry can push our boundaries of “speech freedom”, which will allow us to encourage a generation of critical thinkers."

"That I am that color USUALLY ARTISTICALLY COMPATIBLE with that of ancient the walls."

"To embrace “WHAT” I AM TO MANY NOT “WHO” I AM."

"I am a product of the hurt, chained, restless and once hopeless, but your grammar is wrong, there’s no full stop so don’t force it."

"Yes, we are proud, to be Rwandese So proud that we would burn our breasts like Ndabaga."

"Feminism is about granting women the grace to be angry about their trauma and pains the way they choose to, and being sympathetic enough to ask why they are angry and genuinely listen and understand their point of view."

"The oppression of women, economic or personal, is not solely a White-Black Race confrontation although the oppression of Black Women is deeply tied to the variable of race in the history of imperialism."

"The liberation of women is conceived as the desire of women to reduce men to housekeepers. Since most men despise manual work for feudal and middle class reasons, women’s liberation is feared as an effort by women to ‘feminise’ men, that is, degrade them."

"What we want in Africa is social transformation. It is not about warring with men, the reversal of role, or doing to men whatever women think that men have been doing for centuries, but it is trying to build a harmonious society."

"The transformation of African society is the responsibility of both men and women and it is also in their interest."

"We must remember that there were radical outlets for women in indigenous African cultures, and in our colonised societies, contact with Europe brought with it the inheritance of European movements and social concerns. So there were inheritors of the British suffragette movement in Nigeria, while my mother, a teacher's college professor, was a practitioner of many of the radical ideas of the Victorian period about women. My perceptions of gender hierarchies were sharp growing up. I was raised with a male sibling as well as female and male wards living with my mother. I was much of a tomboy then. I did not have any important position in my nuclear family of five children, meaning I was neither first nor last boy or girl. No position! I could also see that boys had advantages, even though my progressive mother made all the boys in her house, including my other brothers, do housework. They learned to sew, knit and embroider! She also made us share the housework with the house help or servants. She said her children could not grow up spoilt while others learnt to be effective and efficient. So from very young I had a healthy attitude towards class differences, having been raised to respect everybody in the work they did.Gender hierarchies were so sharp for me that I always wondered as a pre-teen whether marriage was a good idea. Many folktales and other forms of informal educational modes existed to help prepare women for accepting male dominance in marriage. I saw marriage in the Christian world I was in as restrictive, though my mother was a suffragette, if there was any such thing. I say "Christian" world because I could also see that women in the local, unWesternised society around us had different values and freedoms. Within Yoruba marriage, the woman was culturally expected to defer to the husband. Yet Christian marriage restricted Yoruba women of my mother's generation in an unusual way (dress, freedom of movement, association, and gainful work outside the home beyond the financial control of the husband). There were dignifying and structurally important roles for women in Yoruba culture, even within its patriarchal assumptions, and some would say, androgynous cultural practices and cosmology of the Yoruba, expressed in the philosophical fount to the culture that Ifa Divination Poetry with its thousands of verses. One argument is that women were weighted equally with men as human beings, but had to defer to men in certain contexts, while men deferred in others."

"My mother took her place very firmly as a leader in many structures, though in the"

"For us girls, there were no praises, just criticism"

"As African women, we don’t have to live up to other people’s expectations. We too can question the status quo"

"I’m a human being; there isn’t any number of cows that will determine my value"

"It’s possible to question cultural practices if they don’t align with our values"

"In Rwanda, there is good political will in terms of gender equality and women’s rights thanks to the President who advances women’s rights and is a believer in gender equality."

"Actually in most countries, women wish to get half of what Rwanda has."

"When we see African Union putting women rights at the centre of their deliberations, it has taken our push and advocacy over previous years."

"Gender rights and women rights ought to be understood and implemented holistically. You cannot ask women what right to have; they should enjoy all rights, rights to their reproductive health, leadership, education, food among other rights."

"Issues of sexual reproductive health continue to be a major challenge in Africa, especially issues that regard safe abortions, where there are issues brought about by religion, patriarchy, culture among other aspects."

"We continue to see women miss out on human rights due to lack of due attention."

"We need to have men understand gender equality and cease to be oppressors and perpetrators. This will increase the involvement of human rights affairs."

"Vampires that suck your shadow and confidence."

"This is what is happening in our society and people tend to shy away from talking about it. So as a writer I have found a niche"

"I was once housed, fed and protected by prostitutes when my life was in danger because of my activism during the liberation struggle. Up to that time I had not paid much attention to prostitutes as human beings"

"As writers we do it for the love of the art, but to then get nothing out of it while every street corner is littered with your books, it is heartbreaking and demoralising"

"I don’t care what people say though, the book’s champion declared. It is beautiful writing"

"I am from a background of women who are activists"

"Some were chiefs. My grandmother was a chief’s wife who influenced the chief in good governance. I had an aunt born in Bulawayo who married a foreigner in 1936. She started the burial societies. My paternal men were moneymakers, my maternal men were chiefs. I have always done things in my own way, since primary school"

"Aftrica is an oral culture. The orality of things is selective—we choose what we talk about. Black people in a black community are expected to behave in a certain way. Someone asked me ‘Are you still black"

"I believe in speaking for those who can’t speak for themselves. In the 1970s I was rescued by these women, by sex workers. Those people had a heart. They were women, mothers and sisters. They really felt for people. If a man wrote it, he wouldn’t understand how it worked. These women never have the time to sit and write their experiences. They are too shameful, too embarrassing"

"Keep calm and yes, I’m a feminist"

"Twenty-four years of noble struggle against so many morbid germs that would annihilate the collective effort, that terribly and vilely devote themselves to devouring mutualism"

"twenty-four years of joining souls through the principle of humanity, through the sentiment of innate altruism in the heart, and altruism that permits us to fulfill our obligation to our beloved comrade"

"That is mutualism, a noble mission of truth, sublime and holy mission mission of charity that nations ignore or have forgotten; nations, whose workers are dispersed, segregated, strangers to each other, and . . . how many times, sad to say, more than strangers, subject to ruinous enmities, that workers’ element divides instead of seeking [union], becomes offended instead of giving aid and, no, rejects with hatred its own [members] , rather than embracing [all workers] with love; [workers] reject each other without seeing that their blood and their anguish kneaded together become the bitter bread that they devour together; without seeing that their arms are what sustain the industry of nations, their richness and their greatness."

"Mutualism needs the vigor of struggle and the firmness of conviction to advance in its unionizing effort; it needs to shake away the apathy of the masses, and enchain with links of abnegation the passions that rip apart its innermost being; it needs hearts that say: I am for you, as I want you to be for me; mutualism has need of us workers, the humble, the small gladiators of the idea, it needs for us to salvage from our egotisms something immense, something divine, that can make us a society ,that can make us nobly human. And the worker should not think of his humbleness, nr of his insignificance, he should not reason that he is unimportant and so remove himself discouraged from the social concert. What does it matter that he is but an atom, what does it matter? The atoms invisible for their smallness are the only elements of the universe."

"The worker is the arm, the heart of the world."

"it is to him, untiring and tenacious struggler, that the future of humanity belongs. May you, beloved workers, integral part of human progress, yet celebrate, uncounted anniversaries, and with your example may you show societies how to love each other so that they may be mutualists and to unite so that they may be strong."

"At the turn of the century, Sara Estela Ramírez, the Villarreal sisters, Leonor Villegas de Magnón, Jovita Idar and the staff members of La Voz de la Mujer and Pluma Roja were organic intellectuals of their times who revealed different discursive positionings of women within their societies, positionings informed by the master narratives of nationalism, religion and anarchism. Until now these women's work as publishers and their written contributions have remained virtually unrecognized. Either because of political affiliations or gender discrimination, their work has not been recognized in Mexico. In the United States, these factors, as well as linguistic biases, have relegated their work to oblivion. These women's stories and their publishing efforts, nonetheless, capture the realities of a people, the significance of whose daily existence transcends the limitations imposed by political and national borders."

"The U.S. -Mexico borderland saw mexicanas fighting for the revolution, often with the PLM, and also to win justice for tejanos. They included Sara Estela Ramírez, who lived in Laredo and became known to thousands of tejanos as a labor organizer, human rights activist and poet. She launched a revolutionary feminist newspaper, Aurora, in 1904. She died in 1910 at the age of 29 but her unique, visionary poetry rings true today."

"Tejana socialist labor leader and political activist Sara Estela Ramirez would not live to participate in El Primer Congreso Mexicanista held the following year. Ramirez's ideas, however, would resonate in the words of her compañeras. Composed of South Texas residents, this Congreso was the first civil rights assembly among Spanish-speaking people in the United States. With delegates representing community organizations and interests from both sides of the border, its platform addressed discrimination, land loss, and lynching. Women delegates, such as Jovita Idar, Soldedad Peña, and Hortensia Moncaya, spoke to the concerns of Tejanos and Mexicanos."

"I think that it’s very important, and what’s really crucial here is the memory of the victims and the search for the truth, and also the commitment to substantiate the truth. So the truth is foremost, because they accused us of being liars. They tried to denigrate the memory of the victims."

"It’s clear that there is no peace without justice. There is no peace without truth."

"I don’t want to be controversial, but I do see that under Ronald Reagan and Bush’s administration there was a fantasy created of a third World War. And this fantasy really damaged the mentality of the military in Guatemala and Guatemalan fascists, and they still believe that communism exists. I don’t know what they’re referring to, but the truth is that here in Guatemala, women were raped, girls were raped, they strangled children, they assassinated and wiped out entire indigenous peoples, just because they thought they were so-called subversives and communists. So humanity really has to look into what occurred."

"The Mexic Amerindian woman has inherited the sexism instituted by dominant Mexican and U.S. society compounded by the sexism within certain oppressed indigenous cultures. In neither the creative literature nor the ethnographic documentation, did I hear her speak for herself. Only in 1992, the quincentenary of European conquest, was the world delivered the voice of one Mesoamerican woman, the Mayan Rigoberta Menchu who received the Nobel Peace Prize for her ongoing activism on behalf of her people's human rights."

"One of the most interesting classes I took, "Europe and the Americas," detailed the systematic and brutally efficient decimation of indigenous peoples and cultures. One of the required books, I, Rigoberta Menchú, recounted the struggle of indigenous Guatemalans. Later on, in "Imagining the Holocaust," I heard the horrific account of what happened to Jews during World War II. At Stanford I was forced to pull back from my tight community and understand how a common thread ran through so many other cultures around the world where people had to fight for their rights."

"I think in some ways Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel Peace Prize winner-a Guatemalan human-rights activist-may be a good rallying force for all of us. She represents to me the very best of what native womanhood is about. I am awestruck by her life and accomplishments, as are many other native people in Central, South, and North America"

"Rigoberta Menchu lives on as a symbol of defiant survival."

"Chatterji is also a standard and predictable face at major events supporting Kashmir separatists, having declared herself to be working on ‘self-determination in Indian-administered Kashmir’. At one such conference on Kashmir, organized by the Pakistani Students Association at George Washington University, the Embassy of Pakistan, and Pakistan’s Minister of Kashmir Affairs, she spoke of the ‘growing concern among civil society groups about human rights crises in Indian-occupied Kashmir in the areas of social, political, cultural, religious, and economic rights’. She accused India of ‘continued occupation of [certain areas of] Kashmir’. Muhammed Sadiq... explains how Angana Chatterjee uses human rights concerns in a lopsided way to play in the hands of Islamic terrorists: [Angana Chatterji] announced the formation of the ‘International Peoples’ Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir’ on 5 April in Srinagar. Interestingly, this organisation too insists that the focus of HR investigations should be on the Indian side of Kashmir and not in PoK too. Moreover, this is a fault-finding mission. Its only aim is to slam the Indian security forces, further highlight HR issues and vitiate the situation. There is no attempt at reconciliation, offering succour to HR victims or working with the government to ensure that HR violations do not take place. Dr Chatterji, like many before her, are, intent on primarily demonising the Indian security forces and thereby fanning hatred."

"We women treasure faces; in fact at any given moment life becomes a single face that we can touch with our lips."

"According to the El Paso Morning Times, in 1914 there were seventeen thousand men and four thousand women in Pancho Villa's army, but there are many other statistics that show that, without the soldaderas, there would have been no Mexican Revolution."

"The locomotive was the main protagonist of the Mexican Revolution, but the Adelitas and Valentinas came a close second."

"Nellie Campobello, a great writer, published Cartucho (Cartridge) in 1931. Her explosive book was more like a grenade that laid bare the tragedy of the Mexican Revolution. In a succession of brief chapters, Nellie sketches a cruel, stark picture of the uprising as seen through the eyes of a little girl who was born before original sin. There are dead men-killed in battle or executed by firing squad-on every page. The girl eagerly watches from her window as men are shot down, and their corpses become her toys. When her favorite one is finally taken away, she misses it because it has entertained her for five days…If Nellie Campobello had not recorded her experiences, we would have been deprived of the most creative view of the Mexican Revolution ever written. Yes, I know, we have the writers Mariano Azuela, Martín Luis Guzmán, Rafael F. Muñoz, and the boring Francisco L. Urquizo, but there is no one as authentic as Nellie, no one who could say, as she did…Nellie Campobello-who wrote two novels, Cartucho and Las manos de mamá (A Mother's Hands)-was never granted the legendary status she deserves despite the fact that she is the only woman to have authored works about the Mexican Revolution. Her colleagues never acknowledged her nor paid her tribute of any kind, so much so that we are unsure exactly when and how she died."

"I write in order to belong."

"Widows used to go around the way the poet Jaime Sabines would like them to: "There is one way, my love, that you could make me completely happy: die." Now widows are not even merry."

"I absorbed Mexico through the maids. A system still persists in Latin America which consists of privileged people having at their beck and call the poorest of the poor."

"Without realizing it the maids provided me with a version of Benito Juárez; they were all like Benito Juárez. Like him they vindicated themselves: "Dirty foreigners." Like him they defended Mexico, as stubborn as mules. Like him they had no roof of their own and had eaten only poor people's food, and for me, a girl raised on French mashed potatoes, discovering them meant entering into "the other.""

"To this day, if I ask so many questions, it is because I don't have a single answer. I believe I will die like this, still searching, with a question mark engraved on my eyelids."

"in Latin America reality surpasses fiction."

"Life is very resistant. People-the same cannon fodder that nourishes great universal misfortunes, "the wretched of the earth," as Frantz Fanon called them. Suddenly, during an earthquake, one of them saves a life."

"I would like to return to earth because I love life."

"Carefully I asked them questions, visited them in their crowded neighborhoods, watched their kites cross the sky in February, treated them like kites, because that's how testimonial literature is. It fills one with anxiety, with insecurity. One handles very fragile material, people's hearts; their names, which are their honor; their work; and their time. And one tries to turn it into memorable material."

"I have always responded to challenges, followed apocalyptical personalities, apostles, Rasputins, Joan of Arcs who hear voices that come from Heaven, illuminated guides of humanity, holders of truth, priests."

"I live to the rhythm of my country and I cannot remain on the sidelines. I want to be here. I want to be part of it. I want to be a witness. I want to walk arm in arm with it. I want to hear it more and more, to cradle it, to carry it like a medal on my chest. Activism is a constant element in my life, even though afterwards I anguish over not having written "my own things." Testimonial literature provides evidence of events that people would like to hide, denounces and therefore is political and part of a country in which everything remains to be done and documented."

"I have always had questions, and to this day, I don't have a single answer."

"I have always been drawn to characters like Jesusa Palancares. María Sabina, the one who performed the ceremony of the sacred mushrooms (LSD in Oaxaca), Juan Perez Jolote (the Chamula peasant from Chiapas), Demetrio Vallejo (the railroad leader), all popular heroes, even if they are not recognized. I admire them because of their wisdom and the way they impart it, with great patience, great prudence, with respect for the ignorance of the person who asks the questions."

"That the poorest Mexicans don't deserve their ruling class is a truth that leaps out at once."

"We have all been made bad, we are all needy, all unwanted guests around the feast, invited at the last minute. In recognizing this lies our creativity."

"I learned, as they say, by doing. I began as an interviewer for the society pages of Excélsior—the only sort of thing a young woman could expect in those days...Since Excélsior is a daily paper, I had to produce these pieces every day with almost no time for review. Then I would read them in print and see that I had spent too much time on things of little importance and failed to ask about what mattered most. And so,with frequent embarrassment, that is how I learned. One also learns ­humility doing interviews, because people may not want to give you much time and so keep you waiting in an anteroom or are dismissive or in a bad mood, and all this has to be accepted."

"Of course, imaginative writing always contains elements of the writer’s lived experience, but there is a ­different sort of freedom in it than there is in reporting or in novels based on interviews."

"style, as I see it, is not an adornment added to a work. It is more, as Buffon said, that “le style c’est l’homme même”—style is the man himself...That famous line is actually the conclusion of a longer thought—“Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing well, of clarity of mind, soul and taste.” In my own words, I would say that style is a manifestation of the writer’s being, which, of course, changes over time but retains something essential of who he is...One does not develop a style. One develops oneself. Or, perhaps more accurately, one is born with a certain character and life shapes it. And then, if you write or paint or sculpt, you do those things with the person you have ­become. And that is style."

"if I had been, say, a French writer, I would have been free to write whatever I wished, which would have been writing of an imaginative sort. But in Mexico, because of the suffering that is the result of centuries of corruption, there is a moral obligation to write of this. I could not ignore it, and, because I have become known for it and have refined my ability to write this way through practice, it became my principal work."

"Boundaries, after all—of custom, of language, of what is and is not permitted—not only function to keep others out but also keep those inside from expanding."

"It is one thing to identify oneself as a citizen of a country and to love its landscape, its people, its arts and culture. It is quite another thing to assess the workings of its social and political structure—the degree of freedom and opportunity enjoyed by its people, its standard of education and quality of life. A Mexican peasant has virtually no chance of becoming anything else. The standard of education was low fifty years ago and, if anything, is even lower today."

"There is an immense abyss between the very few who have money and the vast number who are poor—and there is scarce concern on the part of those who have for those who do not. The politicians can be numbered among those who have. So my being a Mexican writer and loving my country has come to find its expression in opening up this reality to other Mexicans and to the larger world, expressed through the voices of the least empowered—women, especially, and poor people of both genders."

"The question of being encouraged or discouraged by this or that event cannot be asked if one is to go on with a certain moral conviction."

"The ultimate outcome of our ­actions cannot be known. But despite our limited awareness, I believe we must always act with compassion."

"Like the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska, I have tried to tell the stories my characters would tell if they were writers"

"(What moves you most in a work of literature?) I’m not yet the writer I aspire to be, but at my age, great books written by women over 60 give me hope. Diana Athill, Colette, Harriett Doerr, Marguerite Duras, Grace Paley, Elena Poniatowska, Jean Rhys, Mercé Rodoreda, to name but a few."

"(What Mexican books deserve greater attention in the United States?) I read Spanish too slowly to have any expertise here. But I do love and admire the works of Elena Garro, Elena Poniatowska and Rosario Castellanos, and, most recently, Fernanda Melchor and Cristina Rivera Garza."

"Working-class women's literature, women of color, specifically Latina women's writing like my friend Ana Castillo's, or my friend Cherrie Moraga's, Helena Viramontes's, Elena Poniatowska's, and Marguerite Duval's sends me all the way to my typewriter as much as Manuel Puig's stories."

"In light of her later books, we tend to read irony into Elena Poniatowska's claim of meek docility, but the lesson of her early interviews predicts Audre Lorde's eloquent and cautionary charge that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.""

"I would suggest that in its depiction of Mariana and Luz, La "Flor de Lis" offers a concrete and particularized version of what Adrienne Rich describes as the terrible ambivalence-love, anger, rivalry, desire, rejection-that the daughter feels for the mother in patriarchy."

"We should let the children learn about our history so that when someone speaks an untruth about the country, they can defend with the facts. History should be a compulsory subject for all. If you do not know your history, you will not know your identity and the future."

"For what does it profit a man (and in this case by "man" I do mean a couple of biological and social males) if he is considered to be a superstar but does not invest in his intellectual DNA?"

"History should be taught from the kindergarten level, adding that the current practice in some tertiary institutions where students undertook history as a course for one semester “is not enough."

"I urge parents, teachers, and religious leaders to read about the country’s history and teach their children."

"I urge the Ministry of Education to make history a compulsory subject in schools. That would enable young people to know their true identity as Ghanaians and Africans, and empower them to become responsible citizens."

"Stephan and I spent a lot of time working together online; we also held a few e-conversations as well as in-person meetings when he was in Ghana. We set very rigid timetables for ourselves, so that when we did lose momentum or got swallowed up by our day jobs, we didn't veer too far off our self-imposed schedules. We assigned ourselves concrete tasks to be completed in between our meetings—who would read what, who would follow up on what with whom, and so forth. I think one of the things that worked best for us was a mutual respect of each other's schedules, as well as ideas."

"If I might add, as this is a challenge for all journals, we also had our fair share of slow or even totally non responsive reviewers. Now that you ask us to look back, I remember a couple of senior scholars who promised, and I mean promised, us a review, and then went totally cold on us. I find this particularly disheartening because, one, everyone knows GS work is a real labor of love. But more importantly, I want to believe that most of us, especially our more senior colleagues, are invested in nurturing the next generation and not simply having their own names up in gold. For what does it profit a man (and in this case by "man" I do mean a couple of biological and social males) if he is considered to be a superstar but does not invest in his intellectual DNA?"

"This may be pie in the sky, but we should be looking for more money locally. There’s a lot of money in Africa – I’ll give one example: when the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy at the University of Ghana was putting together a sexual harassment policy in the early 2000s and needed to do some research, one of the women on our steering committee said ‘I’ll speak to my Church’. She comes back with some money for us – it’s an example we don’t normally think about. Many of the big churches are extremely wealthy, are very good at raising money. We haven’t approached them enough, with a proposal they would be comfortable with."

"Two people could be doing research on slavery, but what questions are they asking? Somebody could map out where people go, how many people moved, do a nice quantitative map, maybe say how many people in North America are related to people in Nigeria, but it wouldn’t get you to the heart of what people are feeling today, to the injustice, to the issue of reparations. If we’re crunching numbers, how about we try and calculate the cost, including the psychological cost? Who would fund that if it was linked to reparations? I suspect it wouldn’t be seen as serious science."

"But there’s also the ‘soft skills’, which we hardly ever talk about. Capacity building is always two way. Someone may come from LSE to do a workshop at the University of Ghana to build the capacity of young PhD scholars on how to write for a high impact journal, but that same LSE scholar might go into a small community with a Ghanaian scholar and learn how better to sit with them and how you speak to the chief, how you need to drink the water, even if you think ‘wow, that is going to kill me’! How to do those things so that the community will embrace you – that is mega, but it doesn’t appear anywhere."

"And this has a financial cost as well. You’re not only not recognized, but the ‘northern researcher’ then has their name on the report, puts it on their CV when they’re applying for the next research grant. As we say in Ghana, you use fish to catch fish. And the person who was the ‘research assistant’ is nowhere, they can’t claim credit, they are losing money now and in the future."

"But it doesn’t always work that way. You have researchers on the British side who are invested, sensitive, humble enough to recognize the knowledge that is in Ghana. But it means that if the person applying for the funds has to be from the UK, or Germany you have to have that respectful relationship, or the Northern partner ends up dictating the process."

"Just like with feminism, I would say step to the side or to the back. Allow the people for whom this is life and death to take the lead. We all live on this planet, need each other’s support. I’ve been supported throughout my life and career by people of different races, classes, genders. I would be lying if I said no, we can do this alone. We need support, but don’t want the white man to be the centre of the stage. Support us financially, give credit where credit is due – there’s power that comes with whiteness, and you have to acknowledge that. Say ‘you don’t need to invite me, I know this other person who would make an excellent lecturer."

"The African Studies Association of Africa: We’re still young – formed in 2013. The thinking behind this was that when African Studies became a discipline in Europe and North America, it wasn’t about centring African people’s lives; it wasn’t about how can we enable Africans to understand each other better. The agenda was how do we understand the natives so that we can better colonize them – to put it crudely, but realistically! The African Studies associations in UK, US, came out of that mould. They’ve changed a lot, but still don’t centre Africans enough – most of their members are not Africans, and the research is often about the researchers’ own interests."

"If you’re not careful, a movement can lose its edge. Other people can appropriate it for their own careers, It becomes devalued."

"All of us have capacity that can be built. We teach because we are building capacity we’re not the 'super knowers' but we do have certain experience, e.g how to do a survey or write a paper for publication and present it within 15 minutes. But the way in which capacity building is seen is very technocratic and Eurocentric in the sense that people all over the world have some of these 'hard skills', but they do them differently we may write differently, for example, but the standard for a journal article, supposedly international, is really Eurocentric."

"Step to the side or to the back. Allow the people for whom this is life and death to take the lead. We all live on this planet, need each other’s support."

"Women are forgotten individuals with disproportionate level of income due to poverty and deprivation."

"State's lack of attention to inequality and oriented petriachal rule as an underpinning viable that requires remedial action to provoke viable state society relations."

"We must center the voices and experiences of marginalized communities in our quest for social justice."

"Sustainable development cannot be achieved without addressing the structural inequalities that persist in our societies."

"Feminist don't only fight for their welfare but to make the entire society better, the only way to reduce the ill thoughts about feminism and it's goals is to encourage more young women to openly take part in the worthy cause."

"The struggle for land is essentially feminist."

"Anyone who declares himself/herself to be a feminist cannot fail to recognize the connection between women's rights and the right to land."

"Women's rights affect many interconnected spheres that cannot be separated. If one focuses only on one aspect and ignores the rest, women's rights are not realized."

"I believe there is a reason when we say that agriculture is increasing, but some of the most basic food security questions have not been addressed. In a country like Ghana, there are common illnesses related to food shortages and some people, at certain times of the year, do not have access to food. This is a very serious problem, particularly for children and women."

"Africa is a continent of farmers, of small producers who do not have a vast production. Which doesn't mean that this is a bad strategy, because I believe that small-scale agriculture is promising and often undervalued. For example, Ghana has become a world leader in cocoa production based on small-scale agriculture. This should teach us that small farmers can produce successfully for the market."

"But there is the mistake of deciding that it is not necessary to produce [other things] because, if you produce raw materials for export, you can earn enough money to buy food. So many farmers are not encouraged to continue producing and are not investigating how to produce, store, process and improve food security. Agriculture focuses on commodities."

"Therefore, there are many complicated issues that we have to face to ensure food sovereignty. The first step is to guarantee the access of small producers to the ground for their own production, on the ground for the market. Secondly, we have to guarantee the questions surrounding the land posession. Some groups of farmers, especially women, cannot independently acquire land for agriculture."

"We also have to consider labor concerns in agriculture. Many workers received little and came to agriculture as a transitory activity, from which they had to be released quickly. We have to solve this. And there is also a need to solve the credit problem in rural areas. Many small owners have deaths and are very common in cases of suicide caused by deaths."

"Most importantly: we have to support women in agriculture because many times they are not the only ones producing food, even though they are involved in all the productive activities that ensure the survival of the entire family."

"I believe that the land is connected with many fights. The main reason is that we are an agrarian country and the land is a crucial resource. For us, the land is identity, the land where we live is part of who we are. They may have political control."

"A system in which some people do not have full access, control or possession of the land can only be uneven. According to the law, everyone can have access to the land, but there is discrimination regarding how to access the land, which affects women, young people and immigrants as well."

"In Ghana, women produce in their communities until they get married. To live with their spouses, they leave their communities and go abroad in the new community and access to the land is mediated by their husbands. Then, when women grow old, if they don't have any men, they can lose access to the land. If they get divorced, they lose it automatically."

"Without land control, women are second-class citizens. They also deny the right to work as farmers, because it is unthinkable to be a farmer without access to land."

"There are no policies that consider women as farmers. Then women are left aside and a cycle of disadvantages is perpetuated. It is not an economic question, but a matter of citizenship and rights. Anyone who declares themselves feminist cannot fail to recognize the connection between the rights of women and the right to the land."

"For a long period of time, I paid attention to gender inequalities. Many governments over the years have made efforts to address the inequality agenda with some success. In the anticolonial struggle in Ghana, women were very active."

"Due to him, in the first years of independence there were many social and economic public policies to support women. The government advocated universal education, for example, which ensured that many children went to school."

"It was an important initiative because it opened up space for women to participate in public life. In the 60s there were many affirmative initiatives to ensure that women were represented in Parliament."

"However, some of these policies were very limited because there was talk of gender inequality, but women's rights affected many interconnected spheres that could not be separated. If one focuses solely on one aspect and ignores the rest, the rights of women will not be concreted."

"There is, for example, no system that allows women to be registered on land. But if we only do this, without paying due attention to credit and technology considerations, women will have rights to the land only nominally, but will not have them substantially. Therefore, it is very important to see that it is not just a punctual act, but a series of interconnected questions."

"There are many interesting initiatives being developed. There is a movement in several African countries to combat land grabbing. In many countries, there is a recovery of lands that were appropriated on a large scale. They are sabotaging activities, rejecting work and even sometimes destroying harvests. This is related to the idea that the government is not paying attention to the means of subsistence of these people. So they have to, basically, take care of themselves."

"For example, recently in Ghana, artisanal salt miners fought against a company that gained the right to exploit salt industrially in a large lagoon without paying attention to the people who, for thousands of years, made a living from mining artisanal on a small scale. This is one of the most recent interesting initiatives. Because of all these years of deprivation, small property owners are starting to organize themselves better in popular movements and are becoming more effective than they were."

"I knew that I wanted something different. So, instead of focusing on being intimidated, I focused on education. I focused on going to school and making sure I stayed there."

"If you want to get married, you can get married. You have to choose to whom you get married and when the right time is. Marriage is a lot of work. But there is no pressure, the time will come, and there are a lot of men out there!"

"But when you give a girl an opportunity, she will never, ever embarrass you or let you down."

"I could've easily given up but I didn't. All my breakdowns are breakthroughs. I believe I need them in order to push through."

"I wanted to continue with school because my mother was denied an education and she always told us if she went to school she would have been a different person, so I talked to my dad and told him I can only go through the genital mutilation if he lets me go back to school."

"I went through the genital mutilation not knowing what it was."

"I was told it's what will make me a woman. I didn't know that it's something that is done very... it's horrible, you are cut, your genitalia is cut, no anesthesia, you bleed and some people die out of it."

"I'm lucky, I only fainted and came back to life."

"My education has enabled me to learn about it and now I stand against it and stand so that no other girl can go through that."

"I am attentive to power in knowledge production and transfer processes and explore these dynamics through my methodological and pedagogical choices""

"How people experience the impact of harmful laws that criminalise behaviour is directly impacted by their racial, gender, and class positioning in [their] societies.”="

"You cannot think about being a woman only from the perspective of being a woman."

"The work that we should be doing is to excavate, to rethink the very robust and broad ways that our societies understood gender."

"My feminist politics evolved from childhood as I was raised in a family of strong women."

"I continue to be involved in civil society activism on women's rights and believe in fusing academic research and 'practical' activism."

"I hope of course that the women will be inspired by the lessons offered by those who are walking the path with them, and that networks of solidarity and connection would develop from this meeting. Practically, I am keen to work on a publication that would capture the insights and wisdom that emerged from the gathering"

"Equip yourself. I believe that knowledge is power. If you want to engage power and authority you need to equip yourself with knowledge. Don’t be ashamed of the knowledge that lives in your body. Equip yourself with book knowledge but also embodied knowledge."

"I went to stay with an older sister who lived in better circumstances. Her son was only three years younger than me so I essentially became like a daughter in the house."

"I became an overachiever because of my experiences of the mud. So I feel that my roots are firmly in the mud because those are the experiences that shape me…I hold the commitments that I have to gender justice, social transformation, to economic justice for women in particular…because of, and not in spite of, the muddy experiences."

"I confronted the man who had abused me. He denied abusing me, so I took him to court."

"I wake up at 4am every day; that is my work ethic. There are many things stacked against women in the workplace so we have to work doubly hard to prove ourselves."

"You have to build your own confidence and you need to do what you are passionate about, that job you would still do even if you were not getting paid to do it."

"All nationalisms are expressions of ideology that brings large numbers of people together to resist oppressive, dominant, intrusive systems."

"Feminists always create new languages. The normative language is inadequate to say what we want to say and to do what we want to do."

"Whites who continue to benefit from racism as institutionalized privilege don’t call themselves white Africans, but call us Black Africans. It’s so astounding the ways in which neoliberalism depoliticizes and erases our histories of resistance. It disowns us from the legacies that we should be protecting and mobilizing with to continue the struggle."

"Feminism is so powerful: because it is not an event that is just emerging now. It is embedded in the oldest memories of human consciousness about freedom. We are born with this instinct to be free and then begin the struggle to resist the attempts to appropriate our freedom, which we experience through the marking of our bodies and the commodification of our bodies."

"We can breed, we can labor, we are creative, we are the first mathematicians, the first scientists, the first agriculturalists, we are a treasure trove. In the moment of male awareness about how amazing and central women are in the creation of surplus and the re-creation of human productivity, then arises the notion of power, exercised through the ownership of women’s bodies."

"What were called “alternatives to capitalism”, like socialism, communism, and other expressions of egalitarianism were largely crafted, imagined and framed by males. We must bring our feminism to the alternative, with all its different energies and expressions not only of resisting patriarchy, but also of celebrating who we are and who we want to become as women."

"Contemporarity is about situating yourself in the new possibilities and opportunities that our world is offering us, based on the many struggles that women have engaged in since the dawn of patriarchal time. We cannot be told by the UN or by those who occupy the state, who we are and what our feminism is."

"This crisis of black survival is directly linked to the predation of big international pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations, which are mining the Black female body. We have become the latest and last capitalist frontier."

"The whole idea of buying and selling Africans was a brutal exercise in dehumanizing us, and the societies that benefitted from this brutality have remained essentially slaving societies. Africans everywhere held onto the ancestral spiritual traditions and practices of humanism within the self and community – and the ties with those who came before – so as to survive the brutality of hatred."

"When you are born, you arrive on this planet with everything you need. It is inside you, you just have to explore it and bring it to the collective human project of freedom."

"As females, we are under constant social and cultural surveillance. We are told that we belong to everybody else except to ourselves. This is the foundation of hetero normativity, and too many women have accepted this fraud."

"All humans have the capacity to experience pleasure, we have to understand its political significance and meanings. That is a feminist insight which we must return to, because in these contemporary societies that we live in, our bodies, our ideas, ourselves can become so easily commodified through the idea of pleasure as something that is for sale."

"We need to think about globalization as being much more than structural adjustment policies by the World Bank, or the economic policies of the IMF which have devastated so many societies and lives; or just the financial infrastructure through which life becomes financialized on behalf of speculative capital which currently rules the world; the markets and all that."

"White people have to give up their race privilege. Otherwise, Black people will have to continue fighting racism, which is really a distraction from the crucial healing and recovery work that we need to do among and inside ourselves."

"When we fight racism, we create spaces which are quickly occupied by white people, because they are still not giving up their privilege."

"As radical women we all come from traditions that minimize the individual because we understand that capitalism focuses on the individual, greed and accumulation."

"Eighty per cent of our newspapers are anti-PC. There is no area that is not up for discussion. I do not believe that people go around on their tiptoes afraid to offend women or ethnic minorities. But we have become worse at the exchange of ideas. We are not good any more at having really honest debates without upsetting people. We have become very good at abusive, hysterical exchanges and less good at intelligent debate. We do need to develop a healthy trade in ideas."

"Millions of people in the world – including in Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Uganda, Thailand, Egypt and Syria – are prepared to die for the vote and this dabbler is contemptuous of that right. Incidentally, Isis and al-Qaeda share that contempt. As for revolutions – has Brand ever experienced one?"

"Another fifteen days have gone by; in this life of uncertainty and anxiety our very soul seems suspended. Our struggles in the field of labor are in a lull, weakened by the crisis that hampers us in affirming any rights. Our educational work seems ironic, now that the war has so deeply disillusioned us about our strengths. Yet we must go on living and waiting; the best we can do is to keep alive in our hearts the ideal flame of faith that seems to blow out under the rush of the storm. Meanwhile let us follow the events of the terrible war: we cannot count the dead, hundreds of thousands if not already a million. The fate that seemed to smile at German audacity now turns against its very arrogance. Like the soul of the common people, we see here a sanction imposed by the justice inherent in things."

"It is true that what has pushed public opinion increasingly against the Germans are excesses committed against the rules of international law that had been established as preventive measures to make war (as it were) less barbaric. But why would we want to punish the authors of such horrors by spreading further carnage? Do we not have a similar burden on our consciences? Who does not recall the ears of Arabs brought back from Libya as souvenirs by our soldiers?"

"The judgment of the civil world will issue a sentence much more useful in its moral effects than punishment inflicted with weapons at our own risk and danger. Thus we must oppose these false enthusiasms, in whatever quarter they arise."

"We women, who feel most responsible for the broken lives and calamities of war, and who therefore are by nature and by logic the most averse to war and least responsive to the lures of patriotism and combat, we are the most vigilant. If in the modest milieux where we live, our modest word can be of any value, let us employ it to dampen false enthusiasms, to recall to reality those who pursue reckless illusions. We, first among all, defend our party against the accusation of cowardice leveled against it. Let those who want to show their courage keep it for other, more sacred and fruitful battles!"

"With few exceptions, every man of any social class, owing to an infinity of unflattering reasons for a sex that passes as strong, considers the privilege of his sex as a natural phenomenon and defends it with astonishing tenacity, calling on God, the Church, science, ethics, and existing laws, which are merely the legal sanction of the prevarication of a dominant class and sex. And it is for this reason that, in spite of the intimate connections between these various problems, it seemed to me that I could isolate that of the social condition of woman from all other morbid phenomena of the social organism, mostly generated by that terrible tragedy of life, the struggle for existence."

"All the dispossessed and pariahs of society are on the move; they beg for some light, air, and a life that accords with human dignity. It is therefore only natural that, in our century, a serious and vast movement has emerged among the last and most numerous of pariahs who form half of humanity-that is, women."

"Is there a woman scholar in Italy who does not know the persistent and courageous efforts of such intellectually and morally gifted women as Giuseppina Poggiolini, Anna Maria Mozzoni, Laura Mantegazza, Gualberta Beccari, and others, to whom they owe the acquired right of pursuing higher and professional education?"

"However, with the evolution of modern civilization, the element of physical strength was increasingly eliminated from social activities, industrial production, and even agriculture, so that women of the social classes who earn a living through labor gradually found themselves in a situation more or less the same as that of men. And it is especially in our century that, owing to the laws of political economy-which we will not here take into consideration-and by collaborating directly in the production of social wealth, woman could become aware of her equivalence with man."

"I have chosen the question of woman's labor because I think it is the kernel of the whole woman question, as I firmly believe in the following great and fundamental truth of modern ethics, which is valid for both man and woman: labor alone, of whatever nature, divided and remunerated with equity, is the actual source of the enhancement of the human species."

"Nowadays, everybody complains about the decadent character of great and minor men alike. Let woman's character and personality evolve, and you will see woman, the real mother, will raise not cream puffs but real men!"

"It therefore seems to me that only when labor is equitably remunerated, or at least remunerated like man's, will woman take the first and most important step forward, since it is only by becoming economically independent that she will withdraw from moral parasitism and conquer her freedom, dignity, and the actual respect of the other sex. I believe it is only at that point that women will have the moral strength needed not to put up with the pressures of fathers, husbands, and brothers, and will themselves be able to create, among their sex, that powerful weapon of modern social struggles, namely, association, in order to acquire civil and political rights-which are now denied to them, as they are to men interdicted for imbecility, madness, or delinquency. The existing laws inflict this atrocious humiliation on woman, because not only men but also women themselves consider woman as an eternal minor, and she will be able to come of age only when she will be sufficient unto herself through her own intelligence, skills, and moral strengths."

"It is true that man's fear of competition plays a great role in this, which is dissimulated through social ethics arguments, based mostly on religious biases and habit. But by far most influential is the unconscious fear of having one day to renounce, out of love or necessity, the authority and arrogance of his sex, which has been embedded in man since prehistorical times—and I concede that abdicating power is always a difficult and painful thing."

"For the triumph of the cause of my sex, I hope only that men will be slightly less intolerant and women slightly more supportive of each other. Perhaps, at that point, the prophecy of the greatest poet of our century, Victor Hugo, will be realized: he predicted of woman what William Ewart Gladstone predicted of the factory worker-that the nineteenth century would be the "Century of the Woman.""

"Character never joins forces with servility. And, indeed, men and women-especially the latter-who have an independent character are often regarded as rebellious, unsettled and troubled people, a danger to society."

""In Milan there is only one man, who is actually a woman," wrote Antonio Labriola in an 1893 letter to Friedrich Engels, reporting on the "state of the art" of Italian socialism. The woman was Anna Kuliscioff, one of the founding members of the Socialist Party of Italian Workers, whose cosmopolitan militancy in Russia, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, and Italy at the turn of the twentieth century actively contributed to the flourishing of the Socialist International and, above all, to the construction and "deprovincialization" of Italian socialism...The delicate and relentless task of combining-without reconciling-the distinct and at times divergent instances of women's emancipation and class struggle that Kuliscioff first developed in this speech remained through all her writings the hallmark of her much underappreciated socialist feminism."

"There are two types of men; the one who can spoil you financially now and the one who can do that in the future. Don't miss out on your soulmate cos you're blinded by material things!"

"Guys, don't let the internet rush you oooooo!!!!! Life is not a competition!!! Life is working for you in your own time zone. You're not too late or too early."

"My story is a typical grass to grace and from poverty to financial independence or success. Typically, mine is just from zero to hero, a nobody to somebody."

"When I started taking this journey, there was something that was my motivation and my motivation was poverty. I was a broke women, I was poor. There were days when I didn't know where the next meal was going to come from. I used to live with friends."

"None can be compared to me; whether the old or the new generation. I am second to none. My fans on various social media platforms are solidly behind me."

"There is this sudden craze for superficiality. This has resulted in women undergoing surgeries to remove fat from the tummy. Since when did we get here? It is something I can never do because let's just say I am an outmoded woman. I am just focused on my job. I am a very grounded and simple personality."

"My multiple identities empower me to fashion my writing into an effective weapon fighting against injustices meted out by holders of abusive power onto underprivileged groups in society."

"In my experience, there is much greater currency and power in my deployment of irreverent idioms of satire, mockery, and ridicule of oppressive power."

"The transgressive reversal of my role as an elite academic who chooses to write for (sexual and gender) minorities, poor people, and the political opposition party members further enhances the shock element within my audacity."

"Not only is an educated Ugandan woman expected to respectfully serve and sustain the status quo, but her methods of resistance are also expected to be polished, refined, respectable, and temperate—not abrasive, rude, and hard-hitting. I deliberately defy all these expectations."

"Codes of politeness demand that colonized, dominated, and subjugated peoples do not talk back to their captors, colonizers or oppressors. Politeness blunts the tongue of criticism, ridicule, satire or irony. On the other hand, radical rudeness breaks down the doors to the arsenal of verbal, literary, and linguistic devices available to launch a counterattack against corrupt militant brutes in government who use bullets, prison sentences, and mass graves to silence their opponents."

"In fact, as expressed in one of my poems written in prison, I wear my prison sentence for poetry as a badge of honor."

"Double standards demand that feminine respectability bars women from articulating, writing, or deploying words, concepts, and ideas deemed to be taboo subjects."

"Good girls and respectable women are trained to avoid taboo topics and “bad words” particularly in their public articulations."

"Using taboo topics to poetically break silences surrounding government failures and violations of human rights is unavoidably loud. Whoever hears or reads the poems in which I deploy taboo topics stops, stands still, and thinks for a while about the issues being raised. It is effective!"

"Custody and punishment for writing freed me of the fear I previously held of being imprisoned. Physical and emotional torture during my two terms in prison radicalized me in unexpected ways."

"I encourage emerging writers to practice writing daily if this is possible. Writing is a craft that gets better with practice. It is impossible to write a perfect script, and thus while editing and revision make finished products better, it is necessary to let go of revised drafts by submitting them to potential publishers."

"I think if I weren’t a mother, I probably wouldn’t do at least ¾ of the activism I’ve done."

"In a way, motherhood keeps me very grounded."

"Now, I am sure the poor woman in her grave… is shocked every time I perform my own version of womanhood and femininity"

"I feed my children with takeout, once in a while, and sometimes we even buy street food. But ‘a good woman’ doesn’t do that, for example. These stereotypes trap us, and they make us feel like failures if we cannot meet these very high standards."

"I think it is very liberating to embrace the many forms of motherhood in all its diversity. We must not be trapped by homogenous ideas of motherhood"

"I wear lipstick, I speak like an academic, I take off my bra… and this is usually not what politicians look like."

"When I die, I hope my children will be proud of me as a woman who at least tried to change things, instead of just waiting for the dictator to die."

"I learnt that politics is a dish I love to eat… No one is going to make the world what I want to make it to be, unless I do it myself."

"I don't get inspired by high and mighty women, it's everyday women. It's grandmothers, stepmothers, second wives, all swearing at their men."

"I fled to get my voice back. I fled to get my mind back. I fled to get my freedom back."

"That is another form of women’s participation in politics: that they may come and sit at the table, using whatever means, but when they get to the table, they forget the core values of women empowerment, feminist agendas, and they participate with those who oppress us through models of patriarchy and misogyny that must be combated."

"But do women have agency to enter politics on their own? Or must we be beholden forever to male patriarchs, and misogynistic dictators, to whom we are answerable for our political participation?"

"The third layer of participation for me are women who become enablers. They are not working with, but right from the word, ‘go’, they enter politics to enable those who are oppressed, suppressed, and abused."

"These women are working, no matter where they are placed within politics. They entered political participation with the heart of the masses, the heart of the people, with the will to work against oppression."

"For many women, there is a great cost to pay, to challenge the status quo, because they benefit from it. Their children benefit from it. Doing the sort of activism that I do, threatens to take away from one’s status, or privilege, or wealth, or whatever it is they benefit from."

"I am aching for the world I live in to become a better place for my children."

"A lot of what I do is really related to my position in the world as a woman for whom a lot of things don't come easy. Public health services don't work, the education doesn't work for my children, we struggle a lot and that's why I do what I do."

"The ultimate prize in the fight for freedom for my country is death. Many have been murdered. Many have disappeared and we don't know where they are. So the ultimate prize is death."

"Motherhood is important for me because everything I do is about creating a better legacy for my children."

"I use nudity because it's a weapon of the weak and the poor. The cost to pay is called shame, but I think I'm not ashamed of my body. It's a beautiful big mama body, and I am glad to deploy it for war."

"When I put my nipples on the frontline, I learnt they fight harder than any bazookas. Men don't know how to deal with that."

"Men with guns can't shoot at nipples."

"I also get a lot of motivation from my children because if I didn't have children, I would not need to change the world."

"I have been a victim of bad legislation and I want to change it. I want to make legislation that's for the people."

"When I was growing up, girls had no say. Your only use is to be married off for your bride price. I saw many girls taken out of the classroom and handed out to men - usually older men."

"I don’t go to church because the churches around where I stay currently make too much noise which doesn’t invite me to worship with them. I believe we go to church to worship God, sing and pray but what goes on in my area is beyond measure."

"I am a religious person but marrying a man of God won’t work for me. I do secular music and a man of God wouldn’t allow his wife to be doing that. I will rather marry a free thinker so that we manage, particularly someone who is not too much into church."

"I can do any kind or style of music I want...Reggae, Ragga, Ballad, African, Afro pop, even Pure pop. As an African, I still have my African thing and I don’t want to lose that because I just believe from day one that would make me stand out quick and I can never let that go."

"It’s true that my music is not always genre specific, but I always see it as Afro-centric. I will be releasing an album of my own songs later this year (2016) and I will be singing in my local languages of Sissala and Wale as well as English. Some of the songs will sound traditional and local to where I grew up, whilst others will be more mainstream influenced."

"All my life, I have dreamt one day I would climb international stages and showcase my talents on behalf of Ghanaians to the world. I say to all Africans, in whatever field you have talent, dream big and go out and live that dream. We can and will change perceptions about Africa."

"If you’re authentic, artificial intelligence can’t kill your career."

"I will be as popular as anything in the North but because it’s (Ghana Music Awards) an Accra-based program and most of the radio stations are Accra-based, it is normal that they only hear Accra songs. Most of the DJs don’t understand our songs and a lot of people are not willing to understand our songs."

"That is why in my opinion I think you would have to understand [the language in] rap music to enjoy it. Because rap is very similar to talking. If you are a rapper and you went to certain places and they don’t understand what you are rapping about because you are talking to them in a much faster pace."

"Every parent must teach their child their local dialect, if you don't do that, it's very embarrassing and when you go home they will be making fun of you... it is one thing you have to learn 'compulsory by force'."

"You need not copy people blindly, else you will find yourself wanting."

"I decided to let people know the real Wiyaala. Rock My Body happened because I was trying to join what was trending. That was because I just allowed myself to be influenced by some friends who said 'oh do this because it is trending. It is going to make you [popular]. [So, I said] let's get it [done]'. Deep down I'm not sure."

"Rock My Body, is a sex song but if it comes out people will just put me in a certain category that is not me. I'm versatile. I can sing any style but I really need to start well. If I don't lay the foundations well and I come with the wrong start, that's how the industry will receive her. Rock my body did that."

"If Wiyaala came from Funsi and has succeeded, then me too, I can make it."

"I always see Wiyaala on TV. I sing MzVee's songs everyday. Today I am seeing them. I think I am dreaming."

"Did Wiyaala say churches make unnecessary noise praising God and praying to him? How I wish there is sense in what she’s said. You play your secular music in very loud speakers for people to dance, sing and praise the devil by doing the unnecessary and you have a problem with those who will make a joyful noise unto the Lord? Well, I think you must put some clothes on to be taken serious. GOD FORGIVE YOU."

"I like the way she (Wiyaala) is doing her things because she has been herself and she only has to improve on her music. But her concept and the way she portrays herself is clear indication that she is on the right path."

"Wiyaala is a unicorn and hard worker in the music industry. We are from the North there are not a lot of us in this space so, when you find yourself here, you feel like you have a lot to prove. So, Wiyaala has really fought hard and I'm so proud of her because she gives me inspiration to do what I'm doing."

"There are also amazing female musicians like Wiyaala, whose powerful voice and unique style have left a lasting impression on me."

"The land is good, the land is fine Gold we have, diamonds we mine Yet we fight; we cover it all in blood Tell me why we wallow in the mud Africa! Africa! Africa!...Mama Africa We cry for peace...Africa! Tell me why you fight...Tell me why we fight"

"Not every man is greater than every woman, nor every woman inferior to every man."

"But to be fair, in any covenant and time and in any land and place, has it ever happened that someone was told "my darling…" and she replied "shut up"? If a man doesn't say thousands bad words to a woman and doesn't hurt her, that woman won't give an ugly answer even once."

"Cuerpo vivo, eslabón que asegura la cadena infinita de cuerpos sucesivos."

"yo temblaba estremecida como la tierra cuando la parte el rayo."

"Poetry is essential in the human being, is part of the human essence we all share."

"Many of the truths that poetry reveals are not accepted in this era of so much banality. In this sense, a poet is per se a social activist who, through poetry, shows something that should be acknowledged, but it’s usually overlooked."

"There were many women who fought to make a revolution within the Revolution, since power is held by men and they won’t give it away by themselves."

"women were “sold out” by the men that they fought alongside, because those men were uncapable of understanding — much less articulating — a different concept of power."

"I traveled a lot around the country in those first years working as Vice Minister of Culture and I witnessed that the cultural and artistic explosion that took place in Nicaragua right after the Revolution had no precedent: it was like a renaissance and rebirth of all of the cultural richness which had once been oppressed and buried under the weight of the Somocista dictatorship."

"Poetry makes us be in touch with ourselves, with our communities and with the world at large. It’s like a door we open to our inner self and to the outside and different realities; a bridge that connects us as species in a divided and constantly changing world. I try to express all that through my poetry and I am constantly looking to do it in a way I have not done it before. It is a permanent search for a better way of saying whatever I want and need to say. My poetry also evolves through reading the works of other poets, and through many other readings. It is like an endless personal revolution, an underground river, a relentless inner sea that must keep moving to avoid stagnation and repetition."

"poetry is about truth, about revealing something of our human nature and about the world."

"almost all women participated in Nicaraguan revolution. But after the revolution, there is a tendency to go back to old patterns, cultural patterns, especially in our countries. So, it was hard for us, women that have gained our space in the revolutionary process, to maintain that space. That’s why my poetry has to do also with the difficulties of everyday life being a woman, because to have a revolution doesn’t mean that – that, you know, it’s a miracle, then everything will change. It’s just the – the starting, it’s the beginning of the change."

"To be a woman is hard. In any, anywhere. And in all parts of the world, it’s hard."

"In Nicaragua, everybody talks poetry...We have two sports, two national sports. One is baseball, the other one is poetry."

"I believe that all of us are political, in a very broad sense, and – and if I write about a – a housewife that is battered or that is disdained, that’s politics, it’s my understanding of politics, you see. And if I write about women’s issues in general or about a – a waitress that – that has been mistreated by life, that’s politics. So I have been writing these poems through which I – I want to speak for women, you know, to ad, I pretend to – to interpret the feelings of my fellow women and translate them to poetry"

"I don’t believe in heroes and heroines of one day. I believe in heroes and heroines of everyday life, that it is hard enough, you know, to wake every morning and to do what you have to do, no matter what happens in your life."

"I feel that we are the lost generation. We didn’t want to be as our mothers were. We dreamed to be different, we are trying to be different, but we will never be the women we dreamed we were going to be, because we – we have all this burden of the past, calling us every day, we are in no-woman’s land, you know. With cross fire, but we are staying there, to – to be able to – to cross the fire. (BM: And poetry is a record of that journey?) DZ: Yes."

"She is a very good Nicaraguan poet—very, very good."

"Among the finest and most prolific of Nicaraguan poets today are a number of women: Michele Najlis, Vidaluz Menéses, Gioconda Belli, Daisy Zamora, Rosario Murillo, Ana Ilce Gómez, Maríantonia Henríquez, Olivia Silva, among others."

"She is a person who listens more than she speaks."

"Rwandan children need the Loss and Damage Fund because children are vulnerable. When you see what happened in Rwanda in May this year, schools were destroyed by disasters and children were much more affected. If the Loss and Damage Fund is there, they recover faster. The fund could help the country avoid heavy debt in rehabilitating the damages ."

"I am honoured and grateful because it is like a simple highlight and recognition of how much the world is ready to understand and take risks in investing in working with today’s generation."

"e are the generation that is past the phase of only blaming leaders because we are also pacing the solution."

"We are living in an era where climate change is interlinked with every sector, especially sustainable economic development sectors for communities, but then we are not having the same urgency of action in the political phase."

"The future for us is going to be achieved if we address the climate crisis to the full extent of its magnitude, that it is happening right now."

"We realised that, although people were being recommended to stay indoors, for some of us it was not the case. That was the same year that Rwanda experienced serious flooding, and people were not able to stay indoors to protect themselves from Covid-19."

"Also, minor research I did in 2016 showed that girls graduating in hospitality and hotel management did not have jobs because they do not know where to turn to. I thought of a sustainable and reliable project that can connect the two parties and create an open platform for the youth and help working parents feel better at work."

"When I finished secondary school, I had the option to go for civil engineering or water and environmental engineering but when I searched the Internet and saw the global wars of climate change, I realised that environmental engineers are the ones able to find solutions and that is how I opted to be an environmental engineer."

"During my course, I realised that in terms of land neutrality, Rwanda can do more, and that was my inspiration. The land environmental engineer is one that can take care of the environment and community because both of them can live in harmony in order to attain sustainable development."

"UNCCD stepped forward in opening a door for the youth around the globe in order to mitigate and adapt to this by also protecting the environment for us and the future generation."

"I am working hand-in-hand with the youth who graduated from University of Rwanda to design the project which will have a positive impact on the environment and the agricultural sector. This is the starting point in the process, to have more youth fighting for suitable land management in the region"

"In rural areas, for example, people just know that Rwanda is a beautiful country but they do not know how to keep the land sustainable, and how to practice more in conserving the environment. This is a big challenge because rural people are more vulnerable to global warming but they don’t know how to protect themselves from that."

"From my small research I realised that we do not have adequate information, like how desertification is affecting Rwanda, how we respond to this, how much are we saving or losing, the soil erosion going on and so forth."

"We engage with other youth through a series of events organised in schools; that is, capacity enhancement in different areas and elevating our country’s experience beyond our borders to advocate for proper youth inclusion in climate action."

"We work closely with the government on a vast level that allows us not only to augment our voice as active stakeholders but also by equipping us with a safe space to learn how to reshape our vision and engagement while receiving capacity enhancement platforms that help us contour an enhanced future."

"Through her unwavering determination and mobilization efforts, Ineza continues to inspire a new generation of environmental activists, empowering them to create meaningful change in their communities and beyond."

"The ceiling disappeared, and I remember being woken up and feeling like I was drowning because of the rain."

"“We see media not just as a platform, but a catalyst for social impact. We’re shifting mindsets, elevating community solutions, and putting women’s health squarely in the public consciousness.”"

"“We are laying the foundation for a future where no woman is left behind, no matter her income or location.”"

"“I hope women will say, this was the moment we became visible. This office wasn’t just symbolic; it was systemic.”"

"Live a life in alignment with their true passions and purpose, and create meaningful change in the world."

"I Am Not One Thing: Breaking The Mould to Achieve Your Full Potential."

"I had that accent which prejudices people against you so instantly, or makes them respect you so falsely."

"When asked which parts I would most like to play, I always say Richard III and Hamlet. But everyone expects me to say St Joan."

"I approach every character with the intention of making them as complicated as we all are."

"Find your identity, your true self and live your mission … Your power is your radical self. Find it."

"We have our own voices. We just need you to listen."

"As young people, you do not need permission to participate. You must occupy your space because there is no governance without citizen engagement and youth-led accountability."

"We cannot shrink the future of Africa in accepting its reality."

"We clearly live in an era where we have the most unequal societies of all time. The rich are becoming richer, the poor are becoming poorer."

"When injustice is perceived, young people look upon violent groups as legitimate fighters, not perpetrators of violence."

"Africa has the wealth to invest and the clearest path to reducing inequality is investing in African youth, our most important asset."

"It is my duty to make sure that young people hold governments accountable for the implementation of the frameworks they signed up for."

"I will always push for progressive, more inclusive and more empowered positions for young people across Africa."

"Maybe you're this or maybe you’re that. I lead with, “You’re African first."

"I am deeply grateful, honoured and humbled to be one of ten phenomenon world leaders chosen to serve as GoalKeepers Advisory Board at Gates Foundation."

"Pan Africanism was essentially supposed to strengthen the bond among African people and create unity. However, how are people supposed to unite if women aren’t yet seen as fully people/humans? This means, even on a continental level, women are still very intentionally made vulnerable and heavily marginalized. Female politicians must come to the understanding that Pan Africanism cannot be fully achieved in dominant patriarchal spaces. Dismantling the patriarchy and its complex power matrix is something they should all be very keen on because its hindrances are too grave."

"My major backlash was the constant rejection because the world labelled me disruptive and at some point, in my life I felt so alone because of it. This is why it’s vital to have human anchors; it’s easy to sink and lose focus hence my commitment to anchor other women today fighting the fight. I’ve learnt to pick my fights and not everything is worth a response or a reaction."

"Feminism gave my work a lot of clarity, grounding and purpose. I knew I always wanted to be a voice for the many injustices around me that were happening without anyone saying much about it. So, I set out to say it and feminism made me realize I wasn’t insane for wanting to speak. It affirmed me. My work at Ukweli Party is centered on building a political institution that doesn’t downplay the role of women in politics, harnessing the scattered voices of women and becoming actual alternatives."

"I love you, and I want you to love me. But I do not want you to lose yourself in me, or in anyone. Nor do I want you to draw your self-confidence and your trust in life from me or from anyone else. I want you to have your own individual, independent self, and the confidence that can only spring from the self, not from others. Then -When you have achieved that - no one will ever be able to crush you."

"There had been a time when she had regarded Gamila with a touch of disdain. She had considered herself stronger than Gamila, than her aunt, than her father - and stronger than their beliefs, their rules , their traditions. She had laughed with a certain superiority when her mother had said, 'The one who knows the fundamentals does not suffer.' Yes, she had existed for a time in the shadow of this silly illusion. But in truth it was she who was silly, trivial, conceited, and despicable. She was the doormat beneath people's soles."

"In the novel, I aimed at crystallizing three levels of significance. The first one deals with the development of the female protagonist, and its related to the second which deals with developments in Egypt at that period. As for the third level, it incorporates a commentary on the values of the middle class and its practices and how they prevent the country from a take off."

"I trembled with feelings of powerlessness, of misery, of oppression, as the bullets of the police killed fourteen demonstrators that day. I screamed for my inability to act, I screamed for my inability to go down to the street to stop the bullets from coming out of the black guns. I shed the child in me and the young woman came of age — prematurely — for I encountered knowledge that went beyond the home to include all of the homeland. My future fate was decided at that moment."

"You have to believe so strongly in what you are doing, to be so dedicated to it that you are willing to make the necessary sacrifices."

"Draw inspiration and courage from you own dreams and passions and never slack on them."

"There were so many friends who laughed when they heard about the bamboo bike idea. Some people will definitely discourage you, but one thing I've realised in life is that you have to be focused. People never understand your journey because it is not theirs to understand."

"Fortunately women who have gone before me have made that something I no longer fear."

"The first thing I figure out is the plot, and as it develops, the characters take shape. I believe the characters tell me their own stories."

"Playing with words, making up new ones, gifting your audience with a well written story is nothing short of magic."

"Turning an empty page into stories, making something out of nothing."

"seemed destined to make a mark in WWE, until plans for her main roster debut kept falling through."

"“I had one more thing I was supposed to go up for. It was when they were doing ECW still. I was supposed to go on a Tuesday to SmackDown because they were doing ECW before Smackdown then, but then the Thursday prior, I got released,”"

"241 quotes from Iyanla Vanzant: 'Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of sel."

"You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them"

"The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don't want."

"When you need to be loved, you take love wherever you can find it. When you are desperate to be loved, feel love, know love, you seek out what you think love should look like. When you find love, or what you think love is, you will lie, kill, and steal to keep it. But learning about real love comes from within. It cannot be given. It cannot be taken away. It grows from your ability to re-create within yourself, the essence of loving experiences you have had in your life.thumb|Visit of Iyanla Vanzant to HUD (cropped)"

"The only thing that can limit you is yourself at the end of the day."

"All that matters is who you are at the end of the day."

"Creativity should not have limits or boundaries. You should be able to push beyond what you think you can do or what you’ve done before."

"My feminism is rooted in love for Woman and love for myself. Love for humanity as well because feminism for me is directed not just at the ending of sexist oppression, but at ending all oppression including homophobic, transphobic, racist, capitalist oppression, etc."

"Feminism to me, is an ideology of love."

"If your belief system disagrees with my humanity then we can’t be friends. How can I expect you to love someone you don’t see as a human being?"

"I spend a lot of time dreaming of and trying to imagine a feminist future. My utopia has happy woman."

"Society has for long dictated what platforms are right for women to express their views on specific issues. This belief is slowly changing as a result of an increasingly boarder blurred global community."

"The word “prostitution” was not allowed to be mentioned in proper company.... How often have I tried in vain to throw down that wall of prejudice and routine! I am thinking, among other things, of a dispute with one of my professors. Completely in good faith, "Professor" proclaimed the position held by almost everyone at the time, that for a man satisfying his sex drive was a requirement of health and that it was therefore in the community's interest to ensure that by satisfying that drive no or minimal damage was done to his health. “If that is really your opinion,” I replied, “you are morally obliged to make your daughters available for this purpose.”"

"I would like to tell you about a not unpleasant experience that I had in the first years of my career... After prolonged treatment, I was able to assure the wife of an Amsterdam patrician that she was cured of a serious gynecological ailment, which she had suffered for many years. As was customary in those years, I submitted my account at the start of the new year. A few days later I received a visit from the husband of my ex-patient.... “What gave you the idea!” he shouted, full of indignation. “You must surely know that no one thinks of paying women's work as highly as work done by men.”.... “Did you then,” I asked very calmly, “when your wife was indeed seriously ill, seek inferior and therefore cheap medical help for her? I suspect that it was primarily good help you sought. I thought that was why you turned to me, the only female doctor in the Netherlands.” “Are you,” I asked further, “are you really seriously complaining about a bill based on the rates set by my male colleagues? You should rather appreciate that I adhere to this, instead of relying on the privileged position of being the only female doctor in the country for the time being and therefore being paid more expensively than the other Amsterdam physicians.” ....his wife came to pay the bill a few days later...."

"I thought everything was fine in our country, because I thought everything was fine for me. But on my visits to the United States, I began to understand the oppression of women. And as I became more aware, I realized that feminism is a way of life. Feminism isn’t only about support for women; it’s about support for everyone who is victimized or marginalized. I accepted that way of life."

"...for me, doing means contributing, doing for others."

"In her 2014 memoir, Dayan wrote that during her lifetime, she witnessed Israel transform from “a beloved, admired, victorious and just homeland, via an unbearable regression, to the dangerous sphere of ethno-theocratic messianic existence, which is so far removed from a peace- and justice-seeking society."

"For all the progress that has been made, the same old hypocritical notions are still used to fight gender equality."

"Cases of corruption come and go; the public anger they generate is inevitably diluted by the slow pace at which the legal system delivers justice. All the while, the country stays wrapped in a near-permanent bulletproof vest, preparing for the next war even as we recover from the last one."

"For years, we have believed Israel to be a country whose vast military power is tempered by moral strength, supported by social solidarity and guided by well-balanced leadership. The recent war with Hezbollah shattered, at great cost, what was left of this belief. However, to my perhaps overly optimistic eyes, the war may have finally taught us — for the better — the limits of power. Just as a president and a Cabinet minister cannot resort to coercive persuasion when the charms they allegedly exercise fail to convince, so too the government and the military cannot continuously insist that where power has already failed more power will win."

"It is inconceivable that we should still have to discuss the Palestinian right to self-determination,” she told The Star. “We are still doubting that they are people. This is so stupid, it is like an ostrich burying its head."

"We have not yet produced a universal literature in Israel, which doesn't detract from its quality...We are still in a localized phase, reflecting what is happening to us now, a mirror of reality."

"The patriotism, idealism, the caring for others, the sense of involvement are still there, but on top of this is a layer called normalcy...One of the bases of Zionism was called 'normalization of the Jewish people.' This has become a matter of individual preference: videotapes, cars, gadgets. It gives the impression of a change in priorities. It will not last, if only because of the economics that will not allow it...Now that we have normalization and have built a country where my children can wear a Walkman and listen to Michael Jackson, we are complaining: Where is the spirit of Zionism? With the flood of American culture, we, like others, are losing something special of our own culture...With all that, I think we will also retain much."

"Nothing will be the same now. I have looked at cessation of life, destruction of matter, sorrow of destroyers, agony of the victorious, and it had to leave a mark."

"Though the predominant ethos of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel has been enlightened — in both the liberal and socialist senses — large sections of the Israeli society, whether Jewish or Arab, are still strongly patriarchal in their social structure and traditional in their attitudes, with strong religious influences."

"Given the level of education, professional talents and human qualities of Israeli women, it is difficult to understand why their presence is so sparse in the vital crossroads of Israel’s political life without taking into account the heterogeneity and complexity of Israeli society — a society, we shouldn’t forget, that is also struggling to attain peace and security. This social complexity forces those of us struggling to attain full gender equality in Israel to adopt a policy of compromise, bridging of gaps and patient educational work — rather than one of radical feminism, for which many of us may wish. The reality is that today in Israel, human and women’s rights are not yet fully accepted as normative, and are thus not adequately protected."

"Our goal is clear — to attain full equality for women, to prevent discrimination, abuse and violence against them, and to empower and advance the female segment of the population. We believe that in so doing we are not only serving women, but are also strengthening Israeli democracy."

"I have no doubt that once peace is attained in the Middle East, the struggle for the advancement of women and their equality will assume a high priority in our society, and become a subject of cooperation among women in the whole region."

"As I have become involved with the rights of all groups living in Israel, I’ve become more involved with women’s rights, too. Still, I think that women who are involved only in women’s rights are missing the point."

"we have a macho, male society which is not only engaged militarily but is dominated by male tradition religiously and sociologically...Women need to be represented in politics, in lobbying, need to try to achieve legislation. We need to get more women into politics and into the Knesset."

"Women lead the peace movement. They’ve definitely got positions of leadership there."

"If we really can advance towards peace, I see this as a springboard for other changes. Peace and war are irreversible, but other things are less absolute. Since we don’t have a constitution, if there is a change in the law it can be undone later. So it wouldn’t bother me to go along on some concessions and then in better times, say, try and change them. If there is peace, a lot of wrongs will be corrected."

"We started as a society of immigrants; the Palestinians started as people on their land. They’ve expected their state to be delivered to them by outside forces; we had to do it ourselves, and so on down the line. There is no comparison, neither in the time element nor in the content. The point is that they are not going to wait for 2,000 years to have a homeland. Where they are now is where we were before, and the way we demanded and got our rights, they deserve just as much."

"(Do you think that, in general, the large portion of the occupied territories will be returned?) YD: Oh sure, excluding the territory around Jerusalem."

"(How do you advise women who want to be part of the system making changes in present-day Israel? What can you say to women who want to enter politics?) YD: They have to work within the party system — every party — and on the national level with other parties. It cannot be only an effort within the party. The power of women has to be expressed by sheer numbers. It must be mobilization — whether it’s academic or grassroots."

"I finished working, satisfied with my new role as a victim, feeling slightly sorry for myself, somehow heroic. I wasn't just anybody, I was a betrayed woman. (chapter 4)"

"The country woke up on October 24, 1973, a Wednesday, as if it were a wedding day. Cease-fire was expected at any moment, and the words, "The war is over," though not yet uttered by anybody, were ringing in every heart. (beginning of chapter 7)"

"I sat and looked at the familiar living room. A low coffee table, four armchairs and a sofa, embroidered cushions and a whitewashed wall with two original paintings and a few lithographs. Yet, as my eyes examined the objects, I felt strangely out of place. As if the past few weeks had been spent in limbo, as if I were waking up from anesthesia, coming back to life from a shelter. I realized the paradox. I had escaped the war by plunging into the horrors of it. The burnt limbs and faces, the amputees, the invalids, the dead, they became abstract in the nightly duty, and the sound of guns and shells, the diving of aircraft and the roar of tanks advancing-this reality was so far away-sounds overcome and numbed by the silence of hospital corridors. I knew a terrible event had taken place, but I didn't feel it. People died, but I didn't know them. We claimed a victory, but I didn't rejoice in it, and when we were defeated at the beginning, I wasn't frightened. As if I weren't really there. (chapter 8)"

"All the intimacy in the world can't remove a slight sense of guilt when watching someone who isn't aware of being watched. (chapter 14)"

"Yael Dayan was an activist who rejected her father’s fate and life’s choice and sought peace. She spent her life making the country a better place for women, queer folks, refugees, Palestinians, everyone. Yael Dayan’s life describes a country growing more alive, with the passing of decades and generations, to human rights."

"A new woman’s voice in the darkness belongs to Yael Dayan who seems recently to have undergone a feminist metamorphosis."

"We have Yael Dayan and Shani Boianjiu to thank for bringing the Israeli woman soldier’s experiences to life for English readers."

"From the day whe arrived at her husband's home, no one called her by her name."

"The women are experts at waiting - for husbands, for rain, for unborn children."

"Yet, he knew that he did not understand anything about the place or its people or its problems."

"He said it all depended on his employer; but what did his employer know about her, or her body or their need for a baby? How could he plan their life without them?"

"It galled him that anybody should think him inferior."

"Things in the country moved at a snail's pace, but they did arrive in the end, and when they did they would crash in fury over people's heads"

"In one convulsive moment Zenzile died."

"And we do not want passes. They have enslaved our men—and we do not want to carry them."

"Happiness was when there was a balance between what you gave and what you took"

"Pessimism is the luxury of the powerful."

"Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of its beholder turn the educated modern Western women into a harem slave."

"Beauty is in the skin!"

"But when your situation is hopeless, all you can do is turn the world upside down, transform it according to your wishes, and create anew."

"There are many ways to be beautiful. Fighting, swearing, and ignoring tradition could make a women irresistible."

"She would take him to faraway lands to observe foreign ways, so he could get closer to the strangeness within himself."

"I asked Mina how would I know on which side I stood. Her answer was quick, short, and very clear - If you can't get out, you are on the powerless side."

"But since then, looking for the frontier has become my life’s occupation. Anxiety eats at me whenever I cannot situate the geometric line organizing my powerlessness.”"

"But it was the radio incident that taught me an important lesson. It was then that Mother told me about the need to chew my words before letting them out. ‘Turn each word around your tongue seven times, with your lips tightly shut, before uttering a sentence,’ she said. ‘Because once your words are out, you might lose a lot.’”"

"To make babies, the bride and groom had to dress up nicely, put flowers in their hair and lie down together on a very big bed. The next thing you knew, many mornings later, there was a little baby crawling between them""

"Sometimes, she said that to be stuck in a harem simply meant that a woman had lost her freedom of movement. Other times, she said that a harem meant misfortune because a woman had to share her husband with many others""

"The French do not imprison their wives behind walls, my dear mother-in-law,' she would say. 'They let them run wild in the local souk (market), and everyone had fun, and sill the work gets done'""

"Mothers should tell little girls and boys about the importance of dreams,' Aunt Habiba said. 'They give a sense direction. It is not enough to reject this courtyard--you need to have a vision of the meadows with which you want to replace it.' But how, I asked Aunt Habiba, could you distinguish among all the wishes, all the cravings which besieged you, and find the one on which you ought to focus, the important dream that gave you vision? She said that little children had to be patient, the key dream would emerge and bloom within, and then, from the intense pleasure it gave you, you would know that that it was the genuine little treasure which would give you direction and light."

"Whenever he felt himself beginning to fancy any girl, after the Ouleymatou experience, the memory of her mocking indifference and his own disillusionment had made him fiercely determined to nip any emotional attachment in the bud."

"Ousmane Gueye, who had mistrusted all women, threw himself at the mercy of a woman, and a white woman at that."

"Was he a possible partner for Mireille? Could he assume such a mutation."

"A Toubab can’t be a proper daughter-in-law. She’ll only have eyes for her man. We’ll mean nothing to her."

"We saw everything through the same eyes before we were married… But now we seem to be divided over everything."

"Love knows no bounds, but sometimes society does."

"The truth can be a harsh and cruel reality."

"In the face of misogyny and injustice, the only hope is escape."

"“Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love.""

"“The flavour of life is love. The salt of life is also love.”"

"“Each life has its share of heroism, an obscure heroism, born of abdication, of renunciation and acceptance under the merciless whip of fate.”"

"“The most humble of huts is pleasing when it is clean; the most luxurious setting offers no attraction if it is covered in dust.”"

"“Teachers – at kindergarten level, as at university level – form a noble army accomplishing daily feats, never praised, never decorated. An army without drums, without gleaming uniforms. This army, thwarting traps and snares, everywhere plants the flag of knowledge and morality.”"

"“Books saved you. Having become your refuge, they sustained you. The power of books, this marvelous invention of astute human intelligence. Various signs associated with sound: different sounds that form the word. Juxtaposition of words from which springs the idea, Thought, History, Science, Life. Sole instrument of interrelationships and of culture, unparalleled means of giving and receiving. Books knit generations together in the same continuing effort that leads to progress. They enabled you to better yourself. What society refused you, they granted.”"

"“The word ‘happiness’ does indeed have meaning, doesn’t it? I shall go out in search of it.”"

"“A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being.”"

"“A woman must marry the man who loves her, but never the one she loves; that is the secret of lasting happiness.”"

"“In a word, a man’s success depends on feminine support.”"

"“Try explaining to them that a working woman is no less responsible for her home. Try explaining to them that nothing is done if you do not step in, that you have to see to everything, do everything all over again: cleaning up, cooking, ironing. There are the children to be washed, the husband to be looked after. The working woman has a dual task, of which both halves, equally arduous, must be reconciled.”"

"[On the "contraceptive train" episode] I knew that this was something which had to be done, because it would make a point dramatically, sensationally, even historically. I was also wretched about doing it. I knew how upset my mother would be – how mortified to see her daughter in the headlines, even identified as a ringleader, in a stunt which involved buying French letters in Belfast."

"Yes, a musical entitled The Train has for its theme that notorious contraceptive train which ran from Belfast to Dublin in 1971 and is to open next week in Dublin. I participated in that original stunt, but I have declined any further connection with the performance in question and chosen not to appear on any radio or television programme associated with it. I do not endorse Rough Magic's enterprise in turning this episode into a musical, because, for me, it is not the way to explain the historical context of birth control in Ireland - and elsewhere. I also feel that an experience which belongs to my life has been stolen. It is for me to tell my story, at least while I am alive, not others."

"The inferiorization of human qualities and aspects of life associated with necessity, nature and women—of nature-as-body, of nature-as-passion or emotion, of nature as the pre-symbolic, of nature-as-primitive, of nature-as-animal and of nature as the feminine—continues to operate to the disadvantage of women, nature and the quality of human life."

"One of the most common forms of denial of women and nature is what I will term backgrounding, their treatment as providing the background to a dominant, foreground sphere of recognized achievement or causation. This backgrounding of women and nature is deeply embedded in the rationality of the economic system and in the structures of contemporary society."

"Dominant western culture has systematically inferiorised, backgrounded and denied dependency on the whole sphere of reproduction and subsistence. This denial of dependency is a major factor in the perpetuation of the non-sustainable modes of using nature which loom as such a threat to the future of western society."

"Is there anything else in this world other than love, that you will never get bored of recurrence?"

"The degree of a country’s revolutionary awareness may be measured by the political maturity of its women."

"Women's emancipation cannot be discussed in terms of the veil and customs; instead, we must provide them jobs."

"Fifty years after independence, it is disheartening to observe that women veterans remain underrepresented in this office. We stood shoulder to shoulder with men in the maquis, fighting with the same vigor and commitment. Now, we seek our rightful share, as guaranteed by the Constitution, which upholds gender equality. It is our plea that the sacrifices made by women veterans be acknowledged and represented accordingly. The struggle for equality was not limited to the battlefield, and it should reflect in the recognition of our contributions today."

"But it is true that we do not realise how much time passes; the world is moving faster today than it was then. And what is happening there is not encouraging. The situation in Gaza for example, literally makes me sick."

"It is one of my oldest commitments and it is central to my activism. I do not spend a night without waking up to follow the news feed and lament the fate of the poor victims. We are noe three months into the war and the situation is becoming truly unbearable. To go back in time, I even consider that the Palestinian question was one of the reasons for the political commitments of those of my generations."

"It was during this period that the Marxism-Leninist movements emerged and that protest against the regime increased. Young people already consider that the powers in place were unable to satisfy the political and social demands within their own countries, and that with the Palestinian question, they proved that they were also incapable of defending a cause that fascinated the entire Arab world in the midst of a Pan-Arabist surge."

"We were convinced that only Arab unity could get us out of the political lethargy in which we lived and that this could bring us freedom and democracy."

"In Morocco, the 1967 war came after the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barks and the establishment of the state of emergency, which exacerbated tensions between the government and the left-wing opposition and reinforced the revolutionary need in our country."

"The Moudawana reform is more than symbolic. It’s a substantial shift that impacts real, everyday lives. It represents a triumph of our struggle and a step towards real equality."

"But that day there was a pen, I took it and started writing. After a while, a certain calm came over me, I felt better. Maybe that was a survival instinct."

"I am now sure of myself and my place. I will never let anyone take it. I remain serene. No matter what wife comes, I will fight. No matter what weapons she uses, I will still win the battle."

"If you have been able to tame a lion, it is not your husband, a poor man, who will surpass you. Act exactly the same way with him and he will be yours forever. If you have been able to obtain these whiskers, it is because you have had the best qualities that a woman can have: patience and cunning. Take care of your husband like a child. Tame him like this lion that you have tamed. Be patient, cunning, intelligent. And he will never be able to separate from you. This is the secret to attaching a husband to yourself. No amulet would be worth it."

"We only die when our time on earth is over. A time already written by the Creator from the first breath of life. We cannot advance or rewind this fateful moment. Why then lament the implacable decision of Allah?"

"Treat your husband like a child. Tame him like the lion you have tamed. Be patient, cunning , intelligent . And he will never be able to separate from you. This is the secret to keeping a husband. No amulet could beat it."

"At the end of the patience, there is the sky"

"Seduce him with your generous behavior, your pleasant presence, your tasty cuisine. Show him that no woman will ever be able to surpass you. The advantage of polygamy is that it allows you to test his love and your power over him. You are his first wife. All those who follow will never be as precious as you. None will be able to live what you have lived. None will be able to give him children as you have given him. You are the privileged one and you will always remain so."

"What an old person sees while sitting, a child, even if he gets up, will not see!"

"Patience is an art that is learned patiently"

"In my view, citizens must understand that this poses a threat to everyone. It sets a dangerous precedent, implying that anyone who refuses to conform risks arrest. But what exactly did Louisa Hanoune do? She simply fulfilled her responsibilities as an activist and political party leader to the fullest. Her arrest was solely for exercising her political rights and performing her duties."

"This concept reflects a troubling shift towards totalitarianism, posing a serious threat to the entire nation. Those responsible for incarcerating Louisa Hanoune must reconsider their actions, as her arrest is not only harmful to the country but also damages the reputation of the ANP."

"The arrest of Louisa Hanoune does not tarnish her reputation—not in the slightest. Instead, it discredits those who imprisoned her and, by extension, the military institution, for which I hold the utmost respect. Her arrest occurred at the level of the military tribunal, yet I am confident the ANP as an institution is not responsible for this serious misstep, which involves detaining a political leader for fulfilling her duties. Do the individuals behind this unfortunate decision realize they are implicating the entire military institution? This is deeply unjust—not only to Louisa but also to the ANP and the nation as a whole. To correct this triple injustice, Louisa Hanoune must be released immediately."

"The decision to incarcerate a female politician, the leader of a legitimate political party, is utterly inexplicable—except for the possibility that those responsible hold an authoritarian view of political life and action. This cannot be a decision made by the entire military institution; that is simply impossible. To me, this choice is completely baffling. More importantly, it is unacceptable, scandalous, and intolerable."

"I know Louisa very well. In 1983, when she was arrested by the State Security Court for her political beliefs, I was with her, as we were part of the same association. This is not the first time she has been detained for exercising her political rights. Louisa is a remarkable woman and a towering political figure. No prison, whether military or civilian, can confine the greatness of Louisa Hanoune. The real shame is not that Louisa Hanoune is in prison as a politician—the shame is that, in 2019, there are still people in Algeria making such decisions. It is not too late to correct this grave mistake."

"I preferred to live as master of men, not their servant."

"Men claim they have superior intelligence, saying there have been more men of genius than women. They forget that only when people use their gifts do they develop. That is why poor men who have spent their lives as cooks or tailors have not excelled in the arts or sciences. How can we expect, therefore, to find women whose knowledge is confined to this sphere excelling as geniuses?"

"There was no religious prohibition of showing a woman's face, that Egyptian peasants do not cover their faces, and that the white transparent cloth barely covers the face."

"Since you men claim to be wiser and have better minds than women, then how come you are seduced by seeing their faces."

"[About prostitution and surrogacy] Both are industries that commodify women and turn what at the foundation of human life into products. In prostitution what is sold is sex without reproduction. In surrogacy, it is reproduction without sex. In both cases, however, it is the woman who is sold and she is denied the fundamental point of the activity itself: she does not get pleasure from sex and she does not get any children from reproduction. In both cases she is totally dehumanized."

"We need change because the APRC regime has failed Gambians, leading a country facing economic hardship, unlawful arrests and detentions, and high youth unemployment."

"I urge all Gambians to actively participate in the elections to vote out the APRC regime."

"The broom is a bundle of sticks bound together, with each stick representing an individual Gambian or group of Gambians who, while maintaining their individuality, are united in purpose. Together, they aim for one goal—to bring change and progress, symbolizing the unity and shared aspirations of the Gambia."

"Over the past two decades, I have traveled across this country, meeting hardworking men and women in cities, towns, and villages. I have listened to your frustrations and am deeply inspired and motivated by you, the people of Gambia, and by your desire for change despite immense economic hardship and limitations on our freedom and personal liberty."

"I have witnessed a Gambia in decline, with deteriorating institutions where those in authority misuse state power to spread fear and hopelessness among the people. Today, Gambians are not free to express their thoughts; fear and terror, fueled by the abuse of state power, have taken such a hold that most people look over their shoulders before they speak."

"If elected, I am committed to serving only a single five-year term, working alongside all those with the capability and dedication needed to rescue Gambia as it stands on the brink of collapse."

"I want us to create a Gambia that embraces the hearts and minds of all Gambians in the Diaspora, including those who left due to the hardships, persecution, fear, and abuses they experienced as private citizens, entrepreneurs, academics, politicians, and artists. More than anything, I envision a new Gambia marked by economic prosperity, freedom, the rule of law, peace, and stability."

"Twenty years of APRC rule has deprived them of opportunities to fulfill their aspirations and achieve their goals. The jobs, quality education, healthcare, and decent living their country failed to provide have driven many to risk everything by crossing the treacherous Mediterranean, where tragically, many lose their lives."

"Your votes have the power to defeat the APRC and are the tools to bring about the change you desire."

"We will encourage and motivate the private sector to create opportunities for young people to earn a decent living and achieve their dreams. We must protect The Gambia for our children and future generations, and open doors to development."

"The human rights framework will remain central to our approach as we work to restore the dignity and integrity of all Gambians and those who choose to live in The Gambia. We are committed to democracy and good governance as we tackle the emerging challenges facing the state, ensuring that The Gambia takes its rightful place in the world."

"When the government of the First Republic was unconstitutionally overthrown in a military coup in 1994, Yahya Jammeh, then a young officer, claimed he wanted to end self-perpetuating rule and criticized what he called the extravagant lifestyle of the previous regime. However, in an ironic twist, he amended the constitution to remove term limits without consulting the people, allowing himself to remain in power for twenty years."

"I reject any call to transform The Gambia into an Islamic State, which seeks to divide us and pit us against one another. I will defend and strengthen the secular republican nature of our constitution, ensuring that every Gambian is free to practice their religion according to their beliefs. In a Gambia where democracy, good governance, and human rights prevail, I will restore the pride and spirit of the 'Smiling Coast' for all its people."

"I am unable to make any decision at this time,"

""I need to return to the people to consult with them."

"I want to make it clear to the world that all these efforts are aimed at promoting democracy in The Gambia, because we all seek change, and those in the diaspora also desire positive change for our country."

"I did not pull out of the coalition; what actually happened is that I was sidelined. I joined with the intention of working in unity to achieve the common goal of bringing change to The Gambia—so that we could build a young generation ready to take on leadership and responsibility in the future, while creating an environment that enables the people to thrive."

"I have not shared them with the public because I believed it was an internal matter. It was important for us to address these issues privately, as it is all about promoting good governance, managing the process, and working as leaders to move The Gambia beyond its current situation."

"During that meeting, after making my presentation, there were comments. I took them into consideration, and when I returned the third time, I brought everything they suggested, as I believed it was critical, important, and addressed the need at hand."

"I was sidelined, marginalized, and discriminated against, but that didn’t affect me because I believed I joined this space to advance democracy for the people."

""I explained that I am available and still a reliable option they can trust. I am here to work for the country's progress, not for personal gain."

"I entered the presidential race as an independent candidate to champion the will of the people, addressing the concerns of Gambians both at home and in the diaspora."

"Despite all my efforts, I realized that I was not being recognized within the space. I understood that it was the same trust or lack thereof, that has existed for 22 years, a longstanding mistrust between the parties, and that this same feeling was now being directed towards me."

"I have come to understand the nature of the system during the process. Although I was present, it was unfair and undemocratic; there was a lack of transparency, and I was marginalized for not being included in it."

"For you to hold a convention that I was supposed to be part of, and then only present the document meant to legitimize my participation afterward, shows that we are not promoting good governance."

"We are not upholding transparency and accountability. If we begin like this, it's a non-starter, because we aim to bring about positive change."

"I was kept in the dark throughout the process, despite making every effort to fully participate. However, Mrs. Fatoumatta Tambajang, for reasons unknown, was not forthcoming."

"I am Dr. Isatou Touray, an independent candidate running for the office of President of the Republic of The Gambia."

"Over the past two decades, I have traveled across this country, meeting hardworking men and women in cities, towns, and villages, and listening to your stories and aspirations."

"I have also heard your frustrations, and I am inspired and motivated by you, the Gambian people, and your strong desire for change despite the severe economic hardships and the restrictions on our freedom and personal liberties."

"Driven by a profound concern for The Gambia and a commitment to our nation's progress, free from repression, abuse, impunity, and persecution, I have closely observed the current situation over the years."

"Those in power are ignoring calls for political and economic reform. The conditions for political participation have been designed in a way that limits political pluralism, leaving many feeling powerless. Excessive power is concentrated in the hands of a few, and we need a new approach to governance that includes the people in decisions that impact them. Decision-makers are often not held accountable for their actions on behalf of others."

"If elected, I will restore the sovereignty of the people, end impunity, and decentralize power and authority. I am committed to serving only one term, during which I will collaborate with all political parties and Gambians who are ready and willing to guide the country in a direction that addresses the needs and aspirations of the people."

"In this mission, I seek your support to help build a brighter future for our country."

"...to develop society without the participation of women is like having a bird who wants to fly with one wing. The education of one woman means the education of all the people."

"If I don't start now, my people will remain backward. I have to start, and I'm sure it will require a lot of sacrifice from me. If my brother can do it, why can't I, his younger sister? If men can do it, why can't women?"

"This suggestion is highly appreciated by the board and teachers, but for the time being, the women will try to send the thief by themselves to the edge of the land, and when the female power is no longer able to save the thief, then with all my heart the teachers and the management will ask for your suggestions how, to you who we think we deserve to give up that hope."

"Mr. Governor, my breath is almost gone, it feels like it has reached my neck. Please, Mr. Governor take a look and pay attention to the Diniyah Girls' School."

"The curriculum innovation introduced by Rahmah El Yunusiyah at Diniyah Putri not only gave women the opportunity to learn, but also educated them to understand the world in its entirety."

"Figures like Rahmah El Yunusiyah prove that women can be agents of change in education and society."

"The education for women that combined religion and general knowledge introduced by Rahmah El Yunusiyah at Madrasah Diniyah Putri has become a model of modern education in Indonesia."

"I'm not familiar with the procedures the army follows, but if they asked him, that's acceptable. As an MP, he has the right to express his views, though unfortunately, he found himself in a difficult situation."

"How are these weeds entering our country? Are they being imported? We need to identify their origin so we can stop their spread."

"We’re not here for competition. We are all growing at our own pace"

"We can sense and imagine what others might see."

"I thought it was the end of my life."

"After that, it depends on what my people decide. I won’t give up until they say no."

"The man and the woman enjoy, in equality, the rights and freedoms of civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental character, enounced in this Title and in the other provisions of the Constitution, as well as in the international conventions and pacts duly ratified by Morocco and this, with respect for the provisions of the Constitution, of the constants of the Kingdom and of its laws. The State works for the realization of parity between men and women. An Authority for parity and the struggle against all forms of discrimination is created, to this effect."

"Moroccan women’s battle for their rights has been an uphill one. Yet, they fought it with valor, steadfastness and self-abnegation."

"Lack of public housing, poverty, illiteracy, street violence, rape, lack of opportunities and entrenched corruption are all aspects of the Morocco that Oum Hamza is fighting against."

"This type of grievance cannot be resolved by legislation only or by paying lip service to women’s rights in the most solemn of ways. The resolution of these issues requires realpolitik and practical results."

"I was one of the first women to occupy a slot in the Legislative Assembly of this city. Presidió el Consejo Estatal de la Condición Femenina; I was coordinator of the Education, Culture and Environment Committee."

"I was a refugee in Paris, France. He died in Río de Janeiro on December 27, 2012."

"I was a feminist leader and fought for social rights in Brazil."

"Participated in movements to support women in his country."

"Funded the State Council for Women's Conditions in the State of São Paulo and coordinated the State Commission for Education, Culture and Environment in the State of São Paulo"

"I call myself a feminist because I am staunch believer in justice for women and the validity of women’s perspectives."

"A fresh struggle to overcome new manifestations of patriarchy is constantly beginning; and it seems a matter of perpetuity."

"Rural women inspire me. They are the passion of my life and I will do everything and anything for their empowerment. Their knowledge and expertise are crying for a receptive ear, for powerful questions that will unearth and challenge their wisdom."

"The change has been tremendous. People now know what the gender agenda is, they might fear it in some places, but they now know."

"If anything were to happen to me today, I have no worries because I know these young women will carry this struggle until we get it right."

"You have to keep your eyes sharp all the time and be very analytical. When you see something coming, you have to ask what it is and how it will affect women."

"Be persistent! Be professional! You don’t have to be aggressive; be persistent, and people will know who you are, where you stand, and what you can’t compromise on. Walk the talk!"

"Build on the strength of women!"

"Thank you for such a stimulating and often controversial presentation. As they say: "Three Jews, four different opinions"."

"We apologise for holding this meeting during the month of Ramadan. We have begun at 6.30 to allow the Parliamentarians to arrive. One of the functions of the Trust is to promote intellectual debate in post democratic South Africa. We produce a pamphlet of these monthly meetings. Many thanks to Leslie Liddell."

"Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) will open the discussion. He has studied Architecture and Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is published in newspapers and educational magazines and in fact is "the cartoonist for most newspapers." Milton Shain is Director of Jewish Studies at UCT and has written and edited many books on Jewish History. He has also received numerous awards both at Jerusalem and Yale Universities."

"As current and past events show us, this is an extremely apt point. Let us not forget Germany's international human rights campaign ad which depicted a woman in a blue burqa posed next to blue trash bags. This picture and its role in advocating for women’s rights is discussed by Maya Dusenbery in Feministing, an online platform run by and for young feminists dedicated to viewing the world through a feminist lens."

"The picture couldn’t be any more clear; women wearing veils, hijabs or burqas are in need of the West’s superior morals, education and protection. Dusenbery aptly terms this campaign and the message behind it as ‘paternalistic bullshit.’ Campaigns such as this do the opposite of help women, they only serve to burden them with another obstacle to overcome, imposed by Westerners who refuse to listen with respect."

"Instead of women of colour not being recognised within the movement at all, they’re now being ‘othered’ to such an extent that the white Western feminist is cast in the role of educated saviour, and women of colour cast in the roles of uneducated victims in desperate need of feminism as the white woman sees it."

"We have reached a point when the female circumcision is discussed in the community and demystified"

"It involves cutting off the clitoris of girls of the same age in the community, usually by a traditional practitioner with crude instruments and without anesthesia."

"We are confirming on this day our firm determination to fight a non-stop battle so that no single Burkina girl will be threatened by this practice of another age."

"One thing I learnt, I've never listened to people. It made me realise I'm a bad listener, it has tended to help me check on that. And as a facilitator it is important that my listening becomes very, very powerful. It helped me enormously to improve relationships between me and my son. We listen to each other a lot now."

"Of Course, also, we were surprised that those young people were there, but they had grouped themselves and they wanted to stay and of course our immediate reaction was 'these are too young' but their parents also said they wanted them to be involved. Now a number of them were orphans,who were being assisted by some of their relatives. Some, maybe one or two, had their parents, but the older people felt that these girls should be involved, because they know most of the facts from their health education program which is in their school curriculum. In their primary health education they meet with these things. So their involvement in this workshop would not only address some of their immediate problems, but also the future. They found it very useful."

"Those of the 14-16 year olds seem to have all been sexually abused, not that they have boyfriends, but they have been abused by men in society, in their community."

"What the boys are saying, is that any boy seeing a beautiful girl would be excited, would be attracted to that girl, but the mini-skirt exposes so much of them that they find that they want to see more of the girls! That was their request. But then the community said of course, that there is freedom, freedom of what people can do: but that the young girls should know, they should not jump on any fashion that comes, they should know the risks they are taking in putting on things like that."

"The older men's request was for the women to be faithful. This is an urban situation, and one of the problems we found out about early on in Entebbe, was that the man would come back and go to the beer place and drink. The woman, of course, being neglected at home would walk out and go to another place to drink and the children would be left alone. One of the women’ dramas showed that: one of the boys became a drug addict, the girl got pregnant and the parents had to resolve all the problems by getting back together."

"As I see it, the universal is besieged by the hegemony of the commodity and that of the religious. Two faces of globalisation that have nothing to do with the universal, that is anti-universal, which is a thesis I worked on in my book La Double Impasse, in which there are extensive sections on the culturalist and the essentialist."

"How do I introduce myself? Every work, academic or research-based, rests one way or another on a personal make-up. If I wasn’t who I am, or I didn’t receive the make-up that I did, perhaps I wouldn’t have written what I wrote.”"

"I believe that in Tunisia, and perhaps in all the Arab countries, the communist parties — for all their many mistakes and shortcomings — were the only place in which ethno-religious affiliations were overcome, which is an element that can’t be overlooked in my personal make-up. My childhood was not at all marked by that kind of segregation."

"Then history took its course, and the lives and fates of individuals were tied to the collective history, as is always the case in our countries, and the Jewish minority left the country, for numerous reasons."

"The Arab world doesn’t want to know it, and this comes out clearly today, when we see what’s happening in Libya with the return of the slave trade. This is the dark part of Arab history. Africans know it and remember it perfectly well."

"Only a new government can bring equality for women."

"We must tap this reservoir of intellect to re-energize our workforce and bring much needed skills to our fragile economy."

"This has not been helped by the politicization of the current government’s Diaspora office. Staffed entirely by members of President Koroma’s All-Peoples’ Congress party, it has become a largely partisan operation."

"So it is understandable that many in the Diaspora are uncertain whether to engage more substantially in investment and support for Sierra Leone under its current government, despite their love for their country."

"Other leaders, not least the current president, have offered visionary words but few have the track record of Julius Maada Bio of acting on their pledges."

"And we will ensure that contracts and business dealings by the government are made transparently, allowing for members of the Diaspora to have the confidence they can invest in their country knowing it is a nation led by an administration committed to transparency, equality and fairness."

"Only by opening up civic institutions, government and business to all, and challenging the unwritten rules that exclude so many from political participation, can we ensure lasting change in Sierra Leone."

"My work is for my own pleasure and fulfilment. I like to give form to my emotional and visual responses and to explore themes which reflect my attitudes as a socially concious woman artist."

"When I've travelled I've been attracted by the human presences imprinted in inanimate objects and structures and I prefer the freedom and directness of watercolours to recall these associations. (discussing the merits of watercolour as an art medium)"

"Both. I think it causes problems, but it's something we must work with, as the North American women did. They included everyone instead of being exclusive. They had so much energy, and they were going parallel to the women's movement. It's a very difficult time now in Australia. We don't want to identify with North America because Australian women have a very different experience. (reflecting on her experience living and working in North America versus Australia, and as a direct answer to the questions: How do you feel at the thought of having contact with women in a Women's Art Movement who are not feminists? Does that seem exciting, or do you see it as causing a lot of problems?)"

"Women are the consumers in society, but they are also the consumed. My purpose in the work (Down Under Among The Women) is to confirm more than to deny and if women are still portrayed as sex objects in art and society, my aim is to recreate them as sex subjects. I use sexual imagery in the context of the female body in an attempt to reveal the tragedy and comedy of women's lives."

"There is not nearly enough change here, the men have not kept up with the women's movement. In America I found that male artists used feminist ideas in their work. I don't see that here at all. (Hillcoats' experience with the women's movement whilst living and working in North America versus Australia)"

"Women artists need to consider the basic attitudes underlying censorship of women's art work and how it reflects a deep-seated fear in the community. During the past 15 years feminist artists have worked to change patriarchal attitudes towards women. As well, feminist art historians and critics have re-instated many women artists lost in history and made their imagery visible again. The struggle to produce new imagery and to interpret and defend such statements and ideas has often been at considerable personal cost."

"For the past 20 years I have been deconstructing 'the nude' through drawing, painting and collage. Collage is a perfect medium for reappropriating and juxtaposing images from many sources and rearranging them as personal metaphors, analogies and ambiguities."

"At the time of my writing, 30 years ago, I felt the works of artists like Frida Kahlo and Dorothea Tanning were not sufficiently known or appreciated. The Bulletin provided a way of bringing these artists to the attention of a much wider audience. (about the importance of the Women's Art Register Bulletin and her own regular column ‘A Look At Books’ in it)"

"And once again, the three of us find ourselves together, just as we have in many times and decisions: refusing to be shadow, sedative, or warrior’s rest. Warriors, we—women whole in body and with a steady hand."

"A commune of women or suffragists—that’s what they already call us, with a cold laugh born of the insecurity of seeing us together: an insurmountable barrier, the group of us three."

"I never thought I was at home [in Algeria], nor that Algeria was my country, nor that I was French."

"My own writing was born in Algeria out of a lost country of the dead father and the foreign mother."

"Woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display."

"I shall speak about women’s writing about what it will do."

"As a feminist I understand the necessity and beauty of women’s struggle for autonomy and choice, and the need to transform society for the benefit of all people. And I am re-born as a feminist every time I see a woman or girl resist social limitations and master the art of spreading her wings."

"It is because of this reality that for every Amílcar Cabral and Thomas Sankara, you also have a Freedom Nyamubaya. There have always been women who have really shaped ideology and who were also brave in shaping their praxis. It is really about patriarchal memory."

"I also think about how important it is for people who have children and are around children for us to expand on our radical politics with our children because that is what framed us. If we want that legacy of radical politics to continue, it is really vital that we keep working on it with the next generation. It is important if we are going to build this movement. We have to start with the babies"

"It is interesting because African women are at the heart of radical movement building, particularly African feminists who have been core allies in all the struggles that shaped the past couple of decades. African women were central to liberation movements but it is about who writes those histories and who is interested in those stories. Some African women were spectacularly erased because they were vocal and public. There is erasure because of neoliberalism and economic status because women are the most marginalized in these structures. African women are actually the majority food producers of the continent but it is in smallholder farming and it is not protected. The reason why African women are not centered is because of patriarchy and it is a preference for thinking or presuming that men are the shapers of history. When things are documented, they are not documented in the way that tells that story. I spent a lot of time in African feminist space trying to uncover those histories. I have been quite obsessed in regards to documentation and getting those names out there."

"There is also language. So much happens in English. I think we need to put more intention in language and support translation and engaging each other and reaching out across the language divide. I do understand that sometimes one’s local struggles are so big that it prevents one from being able to reach out beyond one’s local space. However, I also think it is inspiring to get a sense of how different people have done different things. Heritage-wise, we come from so many different places and we have migrated from so many different areas. It is important we learn from each other across the oceans of Black existence. We are linked"

"Some of the things we see now that are a part of the methodology of feminist care, African women were already doing. They also imagined care in ways that were accessible because a lot of well-being discourse is really elite and it requires access to services that most people don’t have or cannot afford. It is important to look at those models of collective care, which are really about community and tapping into resources that are available to us"

"We came to the realization that what traumatizes us is not an individual experience of exposure to one violent act: it is living in environments that deny you your basic dignity."

"A radical approach is a willingness to stay learning because you really have to be humble. You really have to commit to going to the root. You also have to stand up and be counted when it matters"

"You only have to travel around the world, especially in Africa for example or in the Maghreb, to see how much of an appetite there is for French."

"My first mission will be to de-age the very notion of Francophonie, to restore its luster, its youth, its dynamism."

"I speak French, English and an Arabic dialect. This is something that is very natural for me and that I don’t think about."

"Abroad, French often has the reputation of being a difficult, highly literary language. A rarified language that belongs to intellectuals. However, it is important to show young people that it is also a language of modernity, a language of rap and slam poetry, for thinking about the world of tomorrow and inventing. And also that French is also a useful language through which you can find work."

"It is a fascinating and very rewarding job on a human level. French is a global language, which lives and flourishes on all the continents, with accents, turns of phrase and metaphors which belong to each landscape. It is quite extraordinary to see the flexibility of this language and to understand its constant creolisation and transformation."

"( Emmanuel Macron)The President of the Republic has decided to entrust, as of today, the function of Personal Representative of the Head of State for the Francophonie to Ms. Leïla Slimani. According to the mission letter she received from the President of the Republic, Ms. Slimani will represent France on the Permanent Council of the Francophonie"

"I came to understand that Mali has such a rich musical culture that is not being exported as well as it should. It felt natural that I should bring my know-how, the experience I’d gained around the world over a twenty-year period to Mali, to create a viable music production platform here."

"When you try to do things well, it’s not perceived as trying to be more rigorous, it’s perceived as being “bossy”"

"I felt the need to utilise my experience, the network and access I had gained in the US, but it had to be done from my own premises. I knew that I had the ability, as a young African woman, to sustain a music management company that would cater to international artists."

"I realised how few of us were able to evolve in the top strata of the industry."

"I knew that I had the ability, as a young African woman, to sustain a music management company that would cater to international artists."

"I was among a first generation of African women researchers who, after independence, have given a voice not only to African issues, but also to women. My encounters in the 1980s, and during the UN Women’s Decades with Women’s Studies and feminist critiques in North American universities as well as feminist organisations from the South have enriched my own analysis on various topics ranging from environmental issues to women’s leadership, from reproductive and sexual rights to the impact of religion and culture on women’s citizenship."

"In my own life, I tenaciously fight prejudices and inculcate feminist principles in my children. I draw my inspiration from the solidarity and company of other feminist sisters and from the key principles of honesty and modesty."

"We decided that in order to shift the power and to put resources in the hands of young feminists, we would need to turn the traditional funding model on its head. This meant that we would need to make space for feminist perspectives, methodologies, ideas and demands—as well as for our physical selves—in the philanthropic world."

"Solidarity as a strategy of resistance reminds us that we are the sum of many parts and, as bell hooks reminds us, “Solidarity is different than support.” Solidarity is about showing up and sticking with things for the long-run. It is about being committed and making bonds with each other in real and deeply personal ways. It is about standing at the intersections and bringing everyone along."

"A feminist foreign policy must be radical, innovative and intersectional. It moves beyond the notion of “add women and stir” and seeks to be transformative. It challenges power by paying attention to and challenging the systems and institutions, such as governments and corporations, that benefit from the oppression of women. A feminist foreign policy is one that moves beyond limiting language, and centers women and all marginalized voices, including trans and intersex folks"

"We must move in these spaces to encourage increased support to young women and girls not simply because it is ‘smart economics’ but because gender equality is a right"

"I truly believe that art (and I use this term loosely here to refer to all forms of creative expression) provides an incredible opportunity for people to bring their full selves to their activism. We are not one-dimensional beings and thus we are affected and influenced by all of the things around us. I see art as an opportunity to take some of the very complex concepts and issues that we face on a daily basis and break them down in ways that are more palatable and easily digestible by young people."

"Amina Doherty, Changing Lives,https://wadadlipen.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/amina-doherty-changing-lives/"

"Our parents taught us rigor."

"And to never think something is due for us, to always deserve what we wanted."

"I always finish my battles."

"I was marked by feminism even before I discovered its principles."

"I had a very strong mother and I learned from both my parents’ intellectual rigour, to have the courage of my convictions and to speak the truth."

"I will leave politics when I leave life."

"Nothing they could do would be worse than what already happens here to women, the way women are forced to live every day. Ever since we are small they tell us to be calm, to behave well, to dress a certain way, everything to find a husband. We must also study to be able to marry, because young guys today want a woman who works."

"Have reached the height of self-determination: we no longer obey any authority, neither family nor religious. We know what we want and we make our own decisions."

"I’m afraid for my life and the lives of my family."

"My body belongs to me, and is not the source of anyone’s honor."

"You have to find where you are needed.You cannot wait for other people.You would be waiting forever,” my mom adds.“Same with the island. It was us.It was the grandmothers. The mothers.It was you, Isa and Eliza, who started this organization.It was the women who saw the need and met it.Face forward. Unafraid. Who showed up. It was us."

"After the storm,what is left behind?"

"I am waiting to be the me I am proud of and not the one I am scared of beinghttps://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3294807.Ellen_Hagan"

"There are low times and there are high times. Something as simple as feeling overwhelmed, can get you down."

"It is very easy to do what everybody else is doing, especially when it is a shortcut."

"it is clear that as a leader, you have to think about how you are leading, how consistent you are, how inspiring you are, and how effective you are."

"It is only leaders who will create other leaders."

"This is how legacy is made. To live a life that will outlive you."

"It’s us who carry the pregnancy to term, us alone! We have to decide whether we want to get pregnant or not!"

"If you’re a woman, you may be denied contraception, simply because you don’t have your husband’s permission. And if you do manage to get contraception, you may be forced to use it in secret for fear of being accused of adultery by your partner or in-laws – just because you want to prevent an unwanted pregnancy."

"If you’re a rape survivor, pregnant as a result of that assault, you must pay for your own emergency medical care – something that is out of reach for most victims."

"Wearing a headscarf is not, in itself, a spiritual target. Those who do not “feel” the need to do so have the freedom to live their spirituality outside of this standard “garment.” And those who feel a need to follow this prescription and see it as a profound experience of intimacy and inwardness with the Creator also have the freedom to live their spirituality within the “garment” standard. In both cases, it is a matter of living one’s spirituality according to the same liberating approach. The headscarf is a part of the ethic and is, before all, a woman’s right. Women must have the right to choose to wear it or not to wear it, knowingly (an informed decision), because the right to wear it is inevitably linked to the right not to wear it."

"I did not want to express myself, from abroad, where I was participating in an academic seminar, on the reasons that led to my resignation."

"To avoid any malicious instrumentalization that would disguise my patriotism, my values, and my deep convictions."

"To those who would like to burden me, I would say that my action, as a volunteer in the Rabita, for almost ten years had no other ambition than to serve my country and to promote this third way, that of a peaceful Islam, contextualized and in tune with universal humanist values compatible with our cultural values."

"I have a responsibility towards the next generation, not just an African American but for all of humanity who need someone’s shoulders to lift themselves up."

"If we are still using the old method we shall continue to get the same results as we did in the past."

"These are just some of the issues that have not become better, but in many parts of the world have become worse including in our own country …so this suggest that we are not at the stage where we can rest, we need to continue."

"This demonstrates the importance of being united …we realise that sisterhood matters… it actually does not matter what political party you represent, what matters is standing for the truth."

"We had… congressmen who were either affiliated with militias or who were themselves militias… We started seeing that congresswomen were threatened and bullied physically and verbally by other representatives"

"The root cause… it’s the unchecked militarization, it’s the flow of arms, it’s the arms anarchy"

"The need to demilitarize, demobilize, and to have a rehab programme for those who are traumatized by war has not been addressed by the UN-led peace process"

"focuses on rushing to elections and having a multi-party system when you don’t have real constituencies or comprehension of the idea of political parties and programmes"

"actually caused a further divisiveness and polarization in society"

"We’ve been appeasing warlords"

"It’s only created a weak centralised government that is not addressing any other issues"

"Nobody attacked the issue in Libya from a holistic approach"

"By that I mean, addressing the humanitarian crisis in Libya, addressing the human rights violations, addressing the lack of justice in Libya, the lack of a rule of law in Libya"

"We need to have a fair representation in terms of gender, a fair representation in terms of generation, a fair representation in terms of culture, a fair representation in terms of all Libyans of diaspora and inside of Libya, a fair representation as well of urban and rural areas… of the capital and more disenfranchised regions and cities. I cannot only focus on women’s empowerment; I need to address the other issues as well"

"We need to end the unilateral interference in Libya… Libya is not a piece of cake"

"It’s about time we had either a commission of enquiry or a panel of experts that monitors the situation and ends impunity in all of Libya"

"Gaddafi left behind a heavy burden — a legacy of tyranny and corruption. For four decades, Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime destroyed the infrastructure, as well as the culture and moral fabric, of Libyan society"

"I was keen — along with many other women — to rebuild Libyan civil society, calling for an inclusive and just transition to democracy"

"However, bit by bit, the euphoria of the elections — and of the revolution as a whole — was fading out, for every day we were waking up to the news of violence"

"Our society, shaped by a revolutionary mindset, became more polarized and driven away from the ideas and principles — freedom, dignity, social justice — that we first held. Intolerance, exclusion and revenge became the post-math of the revolution."

"In marriage, woman is a serf. In public instruction, she is sacrificed. In labor, she is made inferior. Civilly, she is a minor. Politically, she has no existence. She is the equal of man only when punishment and the payment of taxes are in question. I claim the rights of woman, because it is time to make the nineteenth century ashamed of its culpable denial of justice to half the human species; Because the state of inferiority in which we are held corrupts morals, dissolves society, deteriorates and enfeebles the race; Because the progress of enlightenment, in which woman participates, has transformed her in social power, and because this new power produces evil in default of the good which it is not permitted to do; Because the time for according reforms has come, since women are protesting against the order which oppresses them; some by disdain of laws and prejudices; others by taking possession of contested positions, and by organizing themselves into societies to claim their share of human rights, as is done in America; Lastly, because it seems to me useful to reply, no longer with sentimentality, but with vigor, to those men who, terrified by the emancipating movement, call to their aid false science to prove that woman is outside the pale of right; and carry indecorum and the opposite of courage, even to insult, even to the most revolting outrages."

"The rights of Guinean children are in an alarming situation because they are neglected, and every day we participate in the violation of their rights, despite the efforts made by Guinean child rights advocates, ratified conventions, and adopted laws"

"We must denounce violence; it's the only way to stop this cycle," the young activist chanted at the time. "The shame of rape must change sides"

"They call me the girl with the headscarf who breaks marriages"

"Every day, I receive calls from women who have been abused by their husbands. This encourages me to continue the fight, because, by talking to me, they demonstrate that something is changing in Guinea. Today, women dare to speak out"

"They say that the environment makes the man, but in my neighborhood, everyone does whatever they want"

"There are many unwanted pregnancies among young people"

"All these girls take care of their children and no longer go to school, or their parents reject them"

"I found myself face to face with an old woman who circumcised me"

"Since July, we've prevented fourteen early marriages"

"People tell my father, 'You've lost your daughter; she's fighting against tradition and religion!' He's scared but supports me"

"Our struggle must become everyone's: parents, neighborhood leaders, judges, imams... We are not fighting for money or fame, but because we have experienced this violence. Women deserve to have a pure and complete body, not to be deprived of their rights"

"Children are always excited to go on vacation, but here, many parents take their daughters to stay with their grandmothers or aunts and tell them how fun it will be. Instead, they cut them or amputate them. I say “amputate” because that’s what it is. Some genital mutilation also takes place in the city, in Conakry. You see little girls dressed in red for the ceremony. Little girls are not protected during the holidays and that terrifies us"

"This year, we are trying to raise awareness among mothers and aunts, who are complicit in the ritual and whom we feel often don’t understand the repercussions. Many didn’t have the opportunity to go to school or learn about their rights"

"Some women think that genital mutilation is a religious requirement, which is not true. We explain to them that traditions today are based on positive, not negative practices"

"It’s also important for us to go and talk to the fathers, even if the topic is taboo and hard to talk about. Sometimes it’s clear that we are unwelcome. We get chased out of some neighbourhoods by residents who are angry at us"

"The authorities need to stop supporting tradition and instead support the law. Everyone needs to wake up, including religious leaders, community leaders and other influential public figures"

"In the morning, I start with the gardening. And I've discovered I still know how to crochet"

"It's not very feminist of me but I've realised it's a pleasure and not an obligation. Today men are sewing and cooking, we can't have complexes about these things. If it's done for pleasure, it's a luxury"

"The question is whether this will continue and become normal or whether it is just temporary"

"Men already had an issue with women accessing the public space, but now they are forced to remain in a space typically reserved for women, many men are struggling to accept it"

"I am shocked that in Tunisia or elsewhere, violence against women would be an issue to be relegated to the minister of women"

"We lack the collective will to redefine the family and review our priorities"

"Citizens must take charge"

"I have experienced harassment, smear campaigns, defamation, death threats and calls for my assassination"

"We didn't see a drastic shift in public opinion on women's rights, prior to this appointment"

"allowed people to say: 'Guess what, women can be just as effective as political leaders as their male counterparts"

"There has been absolutely no addition in terms of rights secured for women"

"Homosexuality was part of the plan of nature and creation just like normal love."

"The more we delve into the essence of personality, the more we learn that in this world, certainly rich with natural beauty and things worthy of seeing, nothing is more attractive and worthier of knowing and experiencing than people."

"In the ranks of a relatively small party, the anarchist, it seemed to me as if proportionately more homosexuals and effeminates are found than in others."

"The persecution of homosexuals belongs to the same sad chapter of history in which the persecutions of witches and heretics is inscribed... Only with the French Revolution did a complete change come about. Everywhere where the Code Napoléon was introduced, the laws against homosexuals were repealed, for they were considered a violation of the rights of the individual... In Germany, however, despite more than fifty years of scientific research, legal discrimination against homosexuals continues unabated... May justice soon prevail over injustice in this area, science conquer superstition, love achieve victory over hatred!"

"Emma Goldman has campaigned boldly and steadfastly for individual rights, and especially for those deprived of their rights. Thus it came about that she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public."

"From the very inception of the Gulf Crisis, the dominant US media failed to fulfil the role of independent journalism. Instead it acted as public relations for the State Department, assimilating the language, terminology, and the assumptions of the administration, thereby undermining any critical perspectives upon the conduct of the war. Any attempt to discuss the media's coverage of the Gulf War must examine some of the ways in which it structured identification with the Pentagon's agenda, and the interests of an international elite."

"Hussein as the villain, Bush as the hero, and the US rescuing the victim is typical of colonial narratives...The analogy insists, furthermore, on a Eurocentric approach to Jewish history. In seeing Jewish history through a Euro-American Jewish perspective, the US media have presented Israel simplistically as a Western country populated by European Jews. Reading and watching media images from the Middle East, one is led to believe that there are only Euro-American Jews in Israel and only Moslem Arabs in the rest of the Middle East. One finds few images of Iraqi, Moroccan, or Ethiopian Israelis, even though Oriental Arab Jews compose the majority of the Jewish population in Israel."

"While the celebrations of Columbus' "discovery" have provoked lively opposition, the Eurocentric framing of the "other 1492" has been little questioned."

"Eurocentric historical discourse tends to paint a flattering picture of Europe during the "Age of Discovery" while denigrating the newly colonized peoples. At the time of the onset of colonialism and conquest, Europe was a rather brutal and superstitious place, dominated by a "demonological discourse" (Delumeau). Church-sponsored brutalities towards Jews and Muslims have to be seen therefore on the same continuum as the forced conversions of indigenous peoples of the Americas who, like the Jews and Muslims in Catholic Spain, were obliged to feign allegiance to Christianity."

"The elision of comparative discussion of the Muslim and Jewish situations in Christian Spain is rooted in present-day Middle Eastern politics. The 1992 commemorations reflect present-day battles over the representations of history. Subordinated to a Eurocentric Zionist historiography, they lament yet another tragic episode in a homogenous, static Jewish history of relentless persecution."

"The uniqueness and common victimization of all Jews at all times is a crucial underpinning of official Israeli ideology. The genocides of indigenous Americans and Africans are not a point of reference, while the linked persecution in Iberia of Jews and Muslims, Conversos and Moriscos, is rendered irrelevant. This selective reading of Jewish history hijacks the Jews of Islam from their Judeo-Islamic history and culture and subordinates their experience to that of the Ashkenazi-European shtetl, presented as a "universal" Jewish experience. In the Zionist "proof" of a single Jewish experience, there are no parallels or overlappings with other religious/ethnic communities. All Jews are by definition closer to each other than to the cultures of which they have been part. The Jews of Islam, and more specifically Arab Jews, problematize this Eurocentric representation."

"This picture of an ageless and relentless oppression and humiliation ignores the fact that, on the whole, Jews of Islam-a minority among several other religious/ethnic communities-lived relatively comfortably within Arab-Muslim society. My point is not to idealize the situation of the Jews of Islam, but rather to suggest that, with a few exceptions, the agendas of Zionist and anti-Zionist historians have either subsumed Islamic-Jewish history into Christian-Jewish history or ignored the status of Jews in the context of other minorities in Islamic societies."

"For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been “Muslim,” “Jew” and “Christian,” not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that “Arabness” referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences."

"Now that the three cultural topographies that compose my ruptured and dislocated history – Iraq, Israel and the United States – have been involved in a war, it is crucial to say that we exist. Some of us refuse to dissolve so as to facilitate “neat” national and ethnic divisions. My anxiety and pain during the (1991) Scud attacks on Israel, where some of my family lives, did not cancel out my fear and anguish for the victims of the bombardment of Iraq, where I also have relatives. War, however, is the friend of binarisms, leaving little place for complex identities."

"To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion. This binarism has led many Oriental Jews (our name in Israel, referring to our common Asian and African countries of origin, is Mizrahi or Mizrachi) to a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms."

"Intellectual discourse in the West highlights a Judeo-Christian tradition, yet rarely acknowledges the Judeo-Muslim culture of the Middle East, of North Africa, or of pre-Expulsion Spain (1492) and of the European parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish experience in the Muslim world has often been portrayed as an unending nightmare of oppression and humiliation."

"Although I in no way want to idealize that experience – there were occasional tensions, discriminations, even violence – on the whole, we lived quite comfortably within Muslim societies. Our history simply cannot be discussed in European Jewish terminology."

"The same historical process that dispossessed Palestinians of their property, lands and national-political rights, was linked to the dispossession of Middle Eastern and North African Jews of their property, lands, and rootedness in Muslim countries. As refugees, or mass immigrants (depending on one’s political perspective), we were forced to leave everything behind and give up our Iraqi passports. The same process also affected our uprootedness or ambiguous positioning within Israel itself, where we have been systematically discriminated against by institutions that deployed their energies and material to the consistent advantage of European Jews and to the consistent disadvantage of Oriental Jews. Even our physiognomies betray us, leading to internalized colonialism or physical misperception. Sephardic Oriental women often dye their dark hair blond, while the men have more than once been arrested or beaten when mistaken for Palestinians. What for Ashkenazi immigrants from Russia and Poland was a social aliya (literally “ascent”) was for Oriental Sephardic Jews a yerida (“descent”). Stripped of our history, we have been forced by our no-exit situation to repress our collective nostalgia, at least within the public sphere. The pervasive notion of “one people” reunited in their ancient homeland actively disauthorizes any affectionate memory of life before Israel. We have never been allowed to mourn a trauma that the images of Iraq’s destruction only intensified and crystallized for some of us. Our cultural creativity in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic is hardly studied in Israeli schools, and it is becoming difficult to convince our children that we actually did exist there, and that some of us are still there in Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and Iran."

"Western media much prefer the spectacle of the triumphant progress of Western technology to the survival of the peoples and cultures of the Middle East. The case of Arab Jews is just one of many elisions. From the outside, there is little sense of our community, and even less sense of the diversity of our political perspectives."

"every child is born into a web of multiple affiliations, intersecting identities, and potential identifications."

"After World War Two, with decolonization and partitions, life shifted for many communities. There were transfers of populations, wherein one identity was transformed into another identity. A Muslim Indian became a Pakistani. In our case, Arab-Jews became Israelis. All of this happened virtually overnight. These new official identities did not reflect the feelings of the displaced people, and could not translate the contradictions on the ground. This new situation did not necessarily reflect those communities` sense of belonging. Hence, a crucial tension was generated between one`s official documentation and one`s emotional map of identity and sense of home and belonging. I have tried to explain this historical context in order to make sense out of our brutal rupture in the wake of partition. I grew up in Israel as a Jew, in a country that defines itself as a state for the Jews and as a Jewish state, which was presumably a solution for “the Jewish problem.” But for which Jews, and a solution for what? Being schooled in Hebrew in a Jewish state required that I completely reject everything associated with my home: namely, the Arabic that we spoke at home; my Iraqi parents; my Iraqi grandparents who didn't speak a word of Hebrew. The fact is that many people in my community missed Baghdad. But in this context, Iraq and the Iraqis were the enemy of the state to which we now officially belonged. I often describe my experience as a child as one of virtual schizophrenia, where I had to simultaneously live two identities, one outside of the home and another inside the home...The conflict between Israeli Zionism and Arab nationalism generated a situation where we had no place."

"in recent times, largely because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there has been a construction in the public sphere of Jews and Muslims as always already enemies. In the media, journalists often appeal to the cliché that “this conflict goes back thousands of years.” But historically that is false; it largely goes back to the late nineteenth century and the emergence of Zionism. For many centuries and even millennia, Jews and Muslims often faced Christian prejudice together...The two stories/histories of Jews and Muslims are often told in isolation, but in fact the two groups were subjected to the same inquisition and continued to live together within Muslim spaces. In my work, I have insisted on the Judeo-Muslim hyphen, because while the Judeo-Christian hyphen implies a legitimate meta-narrative, the Judeo-Muslim hyphen has been elided. Yet, historically the Judeo-Muslim hyphen could be seen as the norm rather than the Judeo-Christian, which is a relatively recent phenomenon, going back to the Euro-Jewish enlightenment and reinforced by Zionist Eurocentrism."

"The particular/universal dichotomy often gets enlisted into a rescue narrative. We cannot forget how colonial discourse often represented colonialism as not simply conquering and exploiting, but also as advancing a universal civilizing mission, rescuing those barbaric people–especially, of course, their women and children–from their own horrible traditions, rituals, and culture. This idealist discourse was framed by the arrogant imperialism that saw itself as bringing light to dark places. This is unfortunately one side of the enlightenment. And addressing the intersection of the Enlightenment metanarrative with colonial discourse does not mean rejecting the Enlightenment in general. The Enlightenment is a complex phenomenon featuring contradictory discourses; what is required, therefore, is to highlight its philosophical contradictions as wells as its imperial dark side “on the ground.” In the colonial context, the Enlightenment often meant cultural subordination and psychic devastation. So the question is, what is a “barbaric practice,” and who has the right to determine what is barbaric? Who has the right to say, “I am the savior of these children?”"

"Zionism, to my mind, can be described as an effort to whiten the Jew philosophically and even literally."

"One will see a layer of smooth stones, popularly called fluitati [diluvium], and over these another layer of smaller pebbles, thirdly sand, and finally earth, and you will see this repeatedly...up to the summit of the Mountain. This clearly shows that the order has been caused by many floods, not just one."

"Many have observed and many still expect to observe, but not everyone has observed well, and others do not know how to observe, nor perhaps do they know how tricky the art of observation is, easily misunderstanding one thing for another, being blinded by the light, or not looking with due attention and diligence at what is to be looked at."

"We’re not talking about creeping fascism here. This is full on police state tyranny from the gangster President Donald Trump."

"I’ve received hundreds of messages of concern and outrage from Canadians that a convicted felon, sexual predator, and a man who threatened our nation’s sovereignty, is being allowed into our country."

"Donald Trump poses a clear threat to American democracy, to Canadian sovereignty, and to the international rule of law."

"Canada can no longer view the United States as an ally. We know that Donald Trump doesn’t believe in liberal democracy."

"Canada must be focused on containing this clear and present danger to our nation and the rule of law."

"This love that had come to her was a kind of madness. It owned her. It created a wreckage of her body. The way, after a long climb, there is no longer searing pain and the muscles give up and all that is left is a deep and silent quivering. All else is blurred and each breath is a sacrifice. The way when the body finally finds itself. This madness moved inside, not the heart, but a place more hidden, yet more omnipresent. A place where one should never find it. It had found her; claimed her in the way it did to make her become what she must. This love. This is a map."

"The idea of indigeneity is to create that kind of process, and to mimic, this is where the idea of eco-mimicry comes in, and to be able to mimic what nature does in those interactions in order to stabilize how we have to participate in that interaction of what constitutes the place we live. So, we become a healthy part of that interaction rather than isolated from it, or aggressive toward it."

"Indigeneity describes principles of how to be in a specific place, and the kinds of laws or rules or protocols that human beings could practice within those principles. Indigeneity can still apply in a contemporary context, without humans having to go back to the woods of a thousand years ago. (Mind you, that would be nice too.)"

"the idea of complete regeneration has to be underpinned by an idea that every life form has as much right to exist as the human lifeform. That idea of the human being having dominion, or the human being having more right or more privilege, in terms of the field of ethics, is no different than saying one race having more right and more privilege. So, that is a profound principle to think about. How do you enforce that? How do you create that? How do you act responsibly,if that were the bottom line? How would you create a government? How would you create an economic system? How would you create an education system around that?"

"Globalization is foundational to destruction because of the competitive nature of corporations, extraction of resources, mobilization of peoples as a labor force,, and countries segmenting the world to own and commoditize. In contrast, indigenous peoples, valuing long term residency and knowledge, work within the conditions appropriate to whichever place they are located. They develop social structures to live sustainably, not only for the environment but for the community itself. To be indigenous to a place is to have adapted to the conditions present over a long period of time, to have learned not only how to thrive, but how to survive the catastrophic interventions and changes that threaten lifeforms on the land."

"if we were to look at how the cells in the body operate, they are interdependent. If you look at how an ecosystem operates, any ecosystem, there is this mechanism of interdependency, which means one part could not exist without the cooperation and the help of the other parts that surround it. So, if we look at communities in that way, as an interdependency, and we look at what, therefore, it might mean in terms of governance, or a social structure, then it becomes really exciting research. Because, in a lot of ways, the opposite ideas are in place in regards to governance and government. Where governance and government is largely exclusionary, and largely protectionist, in terms of trying to isolate and protect"

"Knowledge should be mobilized for all people. It’s not something that is held only by one group"

"I don’t believe that we could exist with one foot in two worlds. We have to be able to synthesize and be part of whatever that world is, from within our identity."

"one of the questions that I had in my writing was not so much about how to reorganize the material, but also how to write the material in a written form and retain the integrity of how we perceive oral literatures and how they work."

"As human beings, we have to learn; we have to become knowledgeable enough to be able to accomplish that continuum of life, and also to make life natural. When we can’t do that, we are not learning; we are not knowledgeable; we are parasites on the earth and we destroy life rather than create life, work with life, embrace life, and uphold life."

"How many times have I asked myself whether it was possible to tie oneself to a mass without ever having loved anyone .. whether one could love a collectivity if one hadn’t deeply loved some single human beings . . . Wouldn’t this have made barren my qualities as a revolutionary, wouldn’t it have reduced them to a pure intellectual fact, a pure mathematical calculation?"

"I asked her] if she really thought colored women would be allowed to vote if the ballot privilege was conferred on them, as it is to the colored men of the South. She assured me that if it were made the law that women might vote, the right would not be denied them"

"I am American. I am Black. And I am proud that I’m Black"

"Patriarchy is not an archaic relic but a living, breathing structure that is co-constitutive with capitalist exploitation. The crisis of social reproduction we see today is a direct result of this partnership."

"The labor that produces life—the cooking, cleaning, caring, and nurturing—is the invisible infrastructure upon which all other 'productive' economic activity depends. To ignore it is not just an oversight; it is an ideological commitment."

"Our political imaginations have been captured by the very structures we seek to dismantle. A feminist politics must be, first and foremost, a project of decolonizing our desires for power and freedom."

"Lyn Ossome's work relentlessly exposes the gendered fault lines of capitalist accumulation in Africa. She forces us to see that the 'economy' cannot be understood without centering the violence and valorization of social reproduction."

"The popular idea of an advocate of women's rights is this:—she is an angular hard-featured withered creature with a shrill, harsh voice, no pretence to comeliness, spectacles on nose, and the repulsive title, "blue-stocking" visible all over her. Metaphorically she is supposed to hang half way over the bar which separates the sexes, shaking her skinny fist at men and all their works. I don't think it will be difficult to unseat this idea as soon as we can get people to think about the subject at all, for it is remarkable that almost every thinking man who does investigate the topic seriously, at once hands in his allegiance."

"O que podemos com elas em nosso favor e de mulher em mulher nos dizermos e contarmos do domínio que ainda somos, despojo hoje de guerreiros que se fingem companheiros em ajudada luta, mas que apenas pretendem montar-nos e serem cavaleiros de Marianas de outros cativeiros presas e monjas de diferentes conventos, sem disso se darem conta?"

"We always think that if we believe in certain things, there is only one way of true believing, which I think sometimes will collude with the powerful way. We think everybody should believe like that. Why? Because we have power. We have the power to coerce. We have the power to discipline."

"This country, Venezuela, is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money."

"I accept this is as a recognition to our people, to the millions of Venezuelans that are anonymous and are risking everything they have for freedom, justice and peace and I’m absolutely convinced that we will achieve it."

"The Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 goes to a brave and committed champion of peace — to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to María Corina Machado. She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times Ms Machado has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided — an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government. This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy: our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree. At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground."

"Venezuela’s authoritarian regime makes political work extremely difficult. As a founder of Súmate, an organisation devoted to democratic development, Ms Machado stood up for free and fair elections more than 20 years ago. As she said: "It was a choice of ballots over bullets." In political office and in her service to organisations since then, Ms Machado has spoken out for judicial independence, human rights and popular representation. She has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people."

"In its long history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has honoured brave women and men who have stood up to repression, who have carried the hope of freedom in prison cells, on the streets and in public squares, and who have shown by their actions that peaceful resistance can change the world. In the past year, Ms Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions of people."

"Maria Corina Machado meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy. Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace. She embodies the hope of a different future, one where the fundamental rights of citizens are protected, and their voices are heard. In this future, people will finally be free to live in peace."

"Adagala was my aunt, teacher and mentor. She taught me the meaning of infatuation. I had always assumed it meant deep love. But she corrected that infatuation was maddening obsession with or for something or anyone usually ending in disaster."

"Eschatological hope is “the midwife of new beginnings."

"Prosecute us if you will, but I am convinced that the day will soon dawn when our sleepy and lazy society will wake up and be ashamed that it has allowed itself to be humiliated for so long … and when this day comes, society will avenge us. Go on prosecuting us, physical force is still on your side: but moral force and the force of historical progress is on ours: ours is the power of ideas, and ideas cannot be impaled on the points of bayonets."

"Yes, we are anarchists, but, for us, anarchy does not signify disorder, but harmony in all social relations; for us, anarchy is nothing but the negation of oppressions which stifle the development of free societies."

"“I heard someone explain once why people buy books. They said when people buy a book, they are not just buying that book, they are also visualising that they are buying the time to read it. So when you hold that thing in your hand you are not only anticipating the story between the covers, you are picturing the kind of life that allows space for you to lie about and read. Those unread volumes on your shelves represent a glorious future moment when you will spend time with them"

"I had thought, as many parents do, that ‘one day I am going to sit down and talk to you about this, but right now, we need to get you to dance class, then I have to go to a show or we have to go to school,"

"And then it turns into, ‘Another day I will talk to you about tattoos or pay equity – I’m sure that day will come.’ But then she was gone."

"It resonated with them as they were or had been on the same journey,” You have this idea of what parent-hood is going to look like. Then it comes along and you haven’t even been able to finish a sandwich without someone taking a bite out of it. Being a parent is busy."

"It was kind of strange, really, seeing it all unfold,, who lives in Auckland with husband comedian Jeremy Elwood. “These were a lot of issues that I talk about in my book, the gender pay gap being one of them. And now we’re finally saying, ‘Actually, we know what fair is and this isn’t it."

"I always love having Holly in the audience because I’ve always done stand-up about her. My first stand-up set in 1993 was about giving birth and breastfeeding."

"I don’t know if you’ve met anyone to whom nothing bad has happened. They are the most tedious people in the world."

"I’d like to be a primary school teacher one day, but right now, I am happy being a mum"

"Society wants women to be understood. To be moderate. We can’t be full human beings. Society cannot deal with our liminal complexity. From our early socialization, we are taught about virtue, being nice, being respectful and of course all this is tied to being palatable for men. On the other hand, men are taught how to want and get, to speak up, to be served, to desire and take and to decide things on their own. For instance, to date, for those women who decide to enter marriage and have children, the blunt of child care falls heavily on them. There are so many stories of women giving up on their careers and being “strong” because of their children or to keep the peace in marriage. Women’s suffering is romanticized and normalized as a part of our womanhood. For men, it is majorly not a consideration. Women are judged harshly for putting their careers first with questions like “upita ku school, ana akhala ndi ndani?” that are laced with guilt tripping and the assumption that a woman must remain the primary caregiver at home."

"It doesn’t get any better in the political space. I’m angry that women’s stories continue to be erased. The secretaries who made major contributions to the freedom struggle. The women who mobilized against the one-party state…where are their holidays? when do we celebrate them? It is also very interesting to me how in this day and age, when a man fails, he is judged in his individual capacity but when a woman fails we still claim all women have failed. The best example is our former president Dr Joyce Banda. Because she was voted out, many people (read men and pick me women aka patriarchy princesses and gate keepers) bundled women as a homogenous group who had all failed. But I also find this argument factually untrue per Malawian standards and the presidents we have had so far. Did she really fail? Who are we comparing her to? I understand that we can’t measure leadership based on other failures but neither should we base it on gender."

"If I can do it, you can! There are so many people who are willing to help, reach out to them, including me! Remember; “You are going to want to give up. Don’t.”"

"Resurrection does not simply spell the survival of the soul but requires the transformation of the world as we know it."

"God remains silent so that men and women may speak, protest, and struggle. God remains silent so that people may really become people. When God is silent, and men and women cry, God cries in solidarity with them but doesn’t intervene. God waits for the shouts of protest."

"I aspire to be an author, and a fair criticism, conducted without prejudice of sex, I am willing to submit to."

"The right, as thinking, reasoning beings, to decide for themselves what is best for their own happiness. If they were satisfied with man’s decision, this agitation for change would not be."

"And then how black, how bitter, how real the yoke it, none can know but those who feel it. What a risk there is in marriages! What a perilous step to take."

"I said that I did not think that women in any great numbers would ever concern themselves about politics, but I think those who have proved good queens regent and self-helpful women demonstrate the capacity that is in women for government."

"The real grievance must be that there are men who object to women having brains or daring to use them."

"...but let a woman once think and be daring enough to give the world the benefit of her thoughts, and great is the indignation of many who can witness quite approvingly all sorts of nonsensical acting in charades."

"To the other sex, to whose fault the existence of this terrible class of the community must be charged, are those who have the means; and though they claim to be the protectors of woman, the boast must be considered an empty one in many cases, since it is a notorious fact that fallen women find it easier to make a living than honest ones do."

"The truth is, any attempt to teach religion in public schools is an attempt to force our views on others; and, as all should be fairly considered in return for a tax that all must pay, I hope that strictly secular instruction during school hours will in all fairness be upheld in State schools."

"My goal is not to take something away from a place with my work, but to give something to it."

"The question is often asked, "What do women want?" We want men "to stand out of our sunshine"; that is all."

"The New Woman is she who had discovered herself, not relatively as mother, wife, sister, but absolutely...she recognises her restrictions, and she further recognises that these restrictions must be struggled against, not in the direction of denying her nature, but rather of shaking off every artificial restraint and repression which will in any way hinder her own full and free development..."

"...I would rather have this new woman - even in her occasional perversity, exaggeration, and revolt - than the female oyster who discovers no interest in life outside the limits of her own shell."

"We want to grow as flowers of the field are permitted to grow, whether they be of male or female form. We want to develop as do the mothers of the animal world where infanticide or female subjections are alike unheard of and undesired. Let woman but have free course and she will glorify not only herself, but the whole race; and in order to her having free course our request for woman is only this, that she may have a fair field and no favour, freedom to give expression to her own powers. Our New Zealand University has been thrown open to women on the same terms as men, and nothing but good has eventuated. Our professions have been thrown open to women, and neither have the skies fallen nor wedding bells ceased to peal.Our polling booths have been thrown open to women, and drunkenness and rowdyism, bribery and corrupt practices have in great measure given place to decency, good order and kindly camaraderie. Let the Civil Service, and other posts, appointments and positions in the colony-or beyond it for that matter-be thrown open to women. In a word, let disability of sex be withdrawn, as have those other disabilities of colour, race, caste and class, and only good will result..."

"...The political head of this colony says women do not want the removal of their disabilities. I can believe that a few women, through sheer ignorance, say they do not want it. I can believe that some dare not admit they want it. But that the majority do not want it is, I believe, simply untrue. We women of the National Council do not pay annual visits to the towns of the colony for our own amusement. There is no royal road to the capacity for real service, as there is no royal road to any supreme attainment, and we who have taken up the white woman's burden of responsibility in this corner of our great Empire are bound to do what we can to put an end to this hell born conspiracy of silence which is eating into the very vitals of our humanity. We crave for education and free and unhampered life-a life of wholesome economic independence. It is perhaps too much to expect those who have grown up in indifference or ignorance to adjust themselves to the new conditions which a century of scientific discovery has rendered inevitable, but surely our younger brothers who have grown up side by side with our girls in the happy comradeship of mixed schools and colleges will range themselves, as I believe they are already doing, on the side of justice and right."

"Jealousy is the homage that inferiority pays to merit."

"In retailing slander, we name the originator, in order to enjoy a pleasure without danger."

"One seeks new friends only when too well known by old ones."

"Men are so unjust that to be unhappy is to be wrong."

"A great name without merit is like an epitaph on a coffin."

"Would you know how to give? Put yourself in the place of him who receives."

"The theorist should not let us forget the poet."

"No longer is it a matter of the narrow roads where traditional beauty is offered in its clarity and obviousness to the admiration of the crowds. The crowds were taught the victory of intelligence over the world and the submission of the forces of nature to man. Now it is a question of seizing and admiring a new art which leaves humankind in its true condition, fragile and dependent, and which nevertheless, in the very spectacle of things ignored or silenced, opens unsuspected possibilities to the artist. And this is the domain of the strange, the Marvelous, and the fantastic, a domain scorned by people of certain inclinations. Here is the freed image, dazzling and beautiful, with a beauty that could not be more unexpected and overwhelming. Here are the poet, the painter, and the artist, presiding over the metamorphoses and the inversions of the world under the sign of hallucination and madness....Here at last the world of nature and things makes direct contact with the human being who is again in the fullest sense spontaneous and natural. Here at last is the true communion and the true knowledge, chance mastered and recognized, the mystery now a friend and helpful."

"Our problem now is to determine whether the Ethiopian attitude that we discovered was the very essence of our whole way of living can be the point of departure for a viable cultural style, however grandiose this may seem. It is exalting to imagine on these tropical islands, restored finally to their inner truth, a lasting and fertile harmony between humankind and the earth--under the sign of the plant. We are at last called on to know who we are. Splendors and hopes await us. Surrealism has restored to us some of our chances. Now it is up to us to find others. In its light. Understand me well: It is not at all a question of going back, to resurrect an African past which we have learned to know and respect. It is rather a question of mobilizing all the mingled living forces on this soil where race is the result of an endless mixing, of becoming conscious of the formidable mass of diverse energies that we have heretofore locked up within ourselves. We must now put them to use in all their fullness, unswervingly, and without falsification. So much for those who think we are mere dreamers! The most troubling reality is ours. We shall act. This land of ours can only become what we want it to be."

"Surrealism lives! And it is young, ardent, and revolutionary. In 1943 surrealism surely remains, as always, an activity whose aim is to explore and express systematically--and thus, neutralize--the forbidden zones of the human mind, an activity which desperately tries to give humankind the means of reducing the old antinomies, those "true alembics of suffering," and the only force enabling us to recover "this unique, original faculty, traces of which are retained by the primitive and the child, and which lifts the curse of the insurmountable barrier between inner and outer worlds." But surrealism, further proving its vitality, has evolved-or, rather, blossomed. When Breton created surrealism, the most urgent task was to free the mind from the shackles of absurd logic and of so-called reason. But in 1943, when freedom herself is threatened throughout the world, surrealism, which has never for one instant ceased to remain in the service of the largest and most thoroughgoing human emancipation, can now be summed up completely in one single, magic word: freedom."

"Such is surrealist activity, a total activity: the only one capable of liberating humankind by revealing the unconscious, an activity that will help free the peoples of the world as it illuminates the blind myths that have led them up till now...far from contradicting, diluting, or diverting our revolutionary attitude toward life, surrealism strengthens it. It nourishes an impatient strength within us, endlessly reinforcing the massive army of refusals. And I am also thinking of tomorrow. Millions of black hands will hoist their terror across the furious skies of world war. Freed from a long benumbing slumber, the most disinherited of all peoples will rise up from plains of ashes. Our surrealism will supply this rising people with a punch from its very depths. Our surrealism will enable us to finally transcend the sordid antinomies of the present: whites/Blacks, Europeans/Africans, civilized/savages-at last rediscovering the magic power of the mahoulis, drawn directly from living sources. Colonial idiocy will be purified in the welder's blue flame. We shall recover our value as metal, our cutting edge of steel, our unprecedented communions... Surrealism, tightrope of our hope."

"No important figure in the history of surrealism has been so overshadowed by a spouse as Suzanne Césaire, wife of poet/playwright Aimé Césaire. In view of her undeniably crucial role in the development of surrealism as well as of Négritude, it is astonishing how rarely she is mentioned in the voluminous critical literature on these movements."

"surrealists had questioned technology, "progress," and the dominant Euro-American attitude toward nature long before 1940. However, it was this young Black woman, Suzanne Césaire, and her surrealist friends on a tiny island in the Caribbean during a time of imperialist world war who, more than anyone else, made these issues paramount concerns of surrealists everywhere. In Tropiques the need for radical change in the relations between humankind and nature was presented with special urgency, as an inseparable component of poetic activity and revolutionary struggle. Interestingly, the first appearance of the word ecology in a surrealist publication turns up in this journal."