Women Authors

"I think of it often and imagine the scene clearly. Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are trying to do is wrong, that education is our basic right."

"In a situation where a lifelong school break was being imposed upon us by the terrorists, rising up against that became very important, essential."

"On my way from school to home I heard a man saying “I will kill you.” I hastened my pace and after a while I looked back if the man was still coming behind me. But to my utter relief he was talking on his mobile and must have been threatening someone else over the phone."

"I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taliban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools. Only 11 students attended the class out of 27. The number decreased because of Taliban’s edict."

"Sleep, with her tender balm, her touch so kind,  Has passed me by; Afar I see her vesture, velvet-lined,  Float silently; O! Sleep, my tired eyes had need of thee! Is thy sweet kiss not meant to-night for me?"

"The pine trees whispering, the heron's cry, The plover's passing wing, his lullaby."

"August is laughing across the sky, Laughing, while paddle, canoe and I Drift, drift, Where the hills uplift On either side of the current swift."

"I linguisti croati rifiutano le parole in uso presso la maggior parte della popolazione solo per dare artificiosamente corpo ad una diversità nei confronti della lingua parlata in Serbia."

"There is a large discrepancy between the linguistic reality and the language politics and relevant legislation in South Slavic countries. On the one hand, according to all criteria, the linguistic reality can be described as a typical pluricentric standard language with four standardized varieties. On the other hand, school children are being segregated in Bosnia-Herzegovina as if they speak different languages. In Croatia and Serbia, the segregation takes place in the name of minority language rights, ignoring that the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages gives a clear definition of a minority language that excludes the term ‘minority language’ in this case."

"The long-form endings have pushed away the short-form endings completely in the oblique cases. In the last few years, there are attempts in Croatia to bring back again the short forms in the usage. This attempts are the part of the new sociolinguistic politics to bring back the archaic words and forms in the usage and to construct new words, neologisms, in place of customary words - all that with the aim to make the language in the west of the Serbo-Croatian language community as different as possible from the language in the east of the Serbo-Croatian language community. Leaders of the new language politics proclaim as incorrect what was customary, and as correct what was rare, archaic or even did not exist in the usage, and then they carry it out in practice through the control of the media, text-books etc. Such inversion of the criteria for what is correct and what is not correct in the language usage makes the native speakers unsure and frustrated."

"Qui veut être un linguiste conséquent doit appliquer de manière conséquente les critères linguistiques, et non les bricoler pour les conformer aux besoins de la politique, créant l’illusion qu’on se place encore sur le terrain de la science."

"El purismo aumenta el nacionalismo porque enseña a clasificar todo como croata o no croata, y a que todo lo que supuestamente proceda del propio país se diga que es bueno, mientras que de lo que proceda de otras naciones se diga que es perjudical y malo."

"Fälle, in denen mehrere Nationen eine Sprache sprechen, werden in der Sprachwissenschaft als plurizentrische Sprachen behandelt."

"Sonho que sou a Poetisa eleita, Aquela que diz tudo e tudo sabe, Que tem a inspiração pura e perfeita, Que reúne num verso a imensidade!'Sonho que um verso meu tem claridade Para encher todo o mundo! E que deleita Mesmo aqueles que morrem de saudade! Mesmo os de alma profunda e insatisfeita!"

"Que filtro embriagante Me deste tu a beber? Até me esqueço de mim E não te posso esquecer..."

"Tenho por ti uma paixão Tão forte tão acrisolada, Que até adoro a saudade Quando por ti é causada"

"Todas as minhas cartas de amor não são mais que a realização da minha necessidade de fazer frases."

"As almas das poetisas são todas feitas de luz, como as dos astros: não ofuscam, iluminam..."

"Ponho-me, às vezes, a olhar para o espelho e a examinar-me, feição por feição: os olhos, a boca, o modelado da fronte, a curva das pálpebras, a linha da face... E esta amálgama grosseira e feia, grotesca e miserável, saberia fazer versos? Ah, não! Existe outra coisa... mas o quê? Afinal, para que pensar? Viver é não saber que se vive... Porque me não esqueço eu de viver... para viver?"

"Tudo é tranquilo e casto e sonhador... Olhando esta paisagem que é uma tela De Deus, eu penso então: Onde há pintorOnde há artista de saber profundo, Que possa imaginar coisa mais bela, Mais delicada e linda neste Mundo?"

"Se tu viesses ver-me hoje à tardinha, A essa hora dos mágicos cansaços, Quando a noite de manso se avizinha, E me prendesses toda nos teus barcos... [...] E é como um cravo ao sol a minha boca... Quando os olhos se me cerram de desejo... E os meus braços se estendem para ti..."

"Meu amor! Meu amante! Meu amigo! Colhe a hora que passa, hora divina, Bebe-a dentro de mim, bebe-a comigo! Sinto-me alegre e forte! Sou menina! [...] E à volta, Amor... tornemos, nas alfombras Dos caminhos selvagens e escuros, Num astro só as nossas duas sombras!..."

"As tuas mãos tacteiam-me a tremer... Meu corpo de âmbar, harmonioso e moço É como um jasmineiro em alvoroço Ébrio de sol, de aroma, de prazer!"

"Eu quero amar, amar perdidamente! Amar só por amar: aqui... além... Mais Este e Aquele, o Outro e toda a gente... Amar! Amar! E não amar ninguém! [...] Quem disser que se pode amar alguém Durante a vida inteira é porque mente!"

"Ser poeta é ser mais alto, é ser maior Do que os homens! Morder como quem beija! É ser mendigo e dar como quem seja Rei do Reino de Áquem e de Além Dor!'É ter de mil desejos o esplendor E não saber sequer que se deseja! É ter cá dentro um astro que flameja, É ter garras e asas de condor!'É ter fome, é ter sede de Infinito! Por elmo, as manhas de oiro e de cetim... É condensar o mundo num só grito!'E é amar-te, assim, perdidamente... É seres alma, e sangue, e vida em mim E dizê-lo cantando a toda a gente!"

"Beija-me as mãos, Amor, devagarinho... Como se os dois nascessemos irmãos, Aves cantando, ao sol, no mesmo ninho...'Beija-mas bem!... Que fantasia louca Guardar assim, fechados, nestas mãos, Os beijos que sonhei pra minha boca!"

"The criteria of art are the imponderable, the immeasurable."

"One suffers work, even if one enjoys doing it."

"I don’t know if it’s enough for a whole life, a man wants to enjoy many women, a man is different."

"Happiness happens by chance, and is not a law or the logical consequences of actions."

"if someone has a fate, then it's a man, if someone gets a fate, then it's a woman."

"sewing in itself is already in the women's blood."

"often these women marry or they are ruined some other way."

"nothing comes of nothing after all."

"Death the Laveller annihilates all distinctions."

"There are photographs under the pistol, showing his mother genitals. These genitals make no perceptible impression on him, though it was through them that he first entered the world."

"There is no such thing as the universal ‘Man’ never has been, never will be, there is the worker and there is the one who exploits the worker and those who abet him."

"Money is unimportant, but it is reassuring to have it."

"Murder and assault are not lunacy; they are the logical conclusions if you live a life without an assured financial foundation."

"The poet is a king in his realm. His is empire of imagination, in which there are unlimited mansions."

"Time stands still for man and woman alike, it is a good moment, because Time usually makes everything worse, poor people grow old, rich people can buy a little time but they can'hold it up for good, it always catches up with them. In the last analysis, Time is democratic."

"Every man would like to possess all the women in the world, but a woman only wants the man she loves and to whom she is faithful."

"weak are defeated by the strong in the world of Nature. A reed by the north wind, for instance. And silence by the forest."

"Work is not a constraint.Man's activity provides his true fulfilment. True fulfilment however,can only be achieved if one man is not another man's slave."

"Intellectuals will still go on emphasizing free will even when they’ve got nothing left to eat."

"In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance."

"The most powerful urge known to Man is the urge to be free of manual labour. Any means that accomplishes that end is fine. Some people erroneously imagine that they have a birthright to non-manual work."

"Stifter tells us that people are not free, that they are slaves to the laws of Nature. So you have to commit violent deeds (if you don’t have anyone to do other kinds of deeds with), actions that ordinary people would call crimes but which we define as the norm, though of course it is our norm and no that of the rest."

"Rainer [protagonist in the novel], who is reading The Outsider by Camus, says he would like to put the hostility of the world behind him. Once your hope for something better is taken from you, then at last you have the present all in your hand. Then you yourself are reality. Others are extras. When Rainer contemplated san evening he says that evening is melancholy ceasefire where all life has come to and end."

"We are monsters, even if we disguise ourselves as ordinary people. We are the children of ordinary people but we are not content with that. Inwardly we are consumed with wickedness, outwardly we are grammar school pupils."