Women Academics From The United States

"But it would be anecdotal evidence only, undocumentable and, by definition, unrepeatable. Therefore, not science."

"An enormous amount of behavior grows out of genetic imperatives."

"She had to believe it; nothing else was bearable. Kaufman was looking at self-delusion in a character strong enough to elevate it to madness."

"That’s not a hypothesis, Lyle. That’s sheer speculation, expressed in gibberish. It says nothing."

"And wasn’t that a common pattern in human history! Greedy religious orders, wanting to keep power for themselves, using customs and myth and threats and murder to keep the people in line and then making them believe it was all for their own good so they wouldn’t challenge the supremacy of the priesthood. Some political thinker of a few centuries ago had nailed it exactly: “Religion is the opiate of the people.”"

"Cooperation was, in the long run, a more powerful evolutionary strategy than violence, once a species was high-tech."

"Judge not. No culture was better than another, no culture should be deemed in need of uplifting. Crap! It was the worst kind of moral laziness masquerading as cultural relativism."

"Serious thinkers pointed out that humankind was scarcely ready to colonize the stars, having solved none of its problems at home."

"How to reasonably object to artificiality, when all of anthropology spotlighted how artificial all cultural institutions actually were?"

"She regarded boredom as a moral failing, the mark of a mind insufficiently stocked to occupy itself."

"Science should remain above politics, if it’s to do its job."

"California was on a path to making what was an huge and bulging prison system to be bigger and bigger and bigger. And that’s where contemporary abolition movement in the United States took root. And we fought and fought and fought, throughout urban and rural California, making common cause with labor unions, healthcare workers, faith communities, environmental justice activists, and other, to denaturalize the notion that crime was the problem for which prisons and punishment was the right solution, as a result of which the number of people in California prisons is much lower than it was even imagined it could be in the year 2000, because of the work that abolitionists did."

"A conclusion is just the place where you got tired of thinking."

"I'm genuinely just so thrilled any time people are taking actions based on a principle and a belief that what does Ruth Wilson Gilmore say-where life is precious, life is precious. That makes me very excited and happy."

"The real thing—that’s not what you want in the theater. Illusion, magic, imagination. What should have happened, not what did. Reality doesn’t make good theater."

"Chicanas are being called upon today to put their thoughts down in writing, to share their emotions with others, thus beginning the process, the chain reaction that might spur others to self-expression and creativity. Our depth as Chicana women must be shared, in fact, is urgently needed so that others might hear the prophetic voice. This sharing is essential; it is the spirit of our people. This process creates a new awakening, a breaking out of silence, a revolutionary act. The burden is finally on us, on all Chicanas to break out of silence, to be present to all others who may themselves benefit from a voice, one that is both fearless and the penetrating conscience of the people."

"By becoming a writer, the Chicana has to have already rebelled against a socialization process that would have her remain merely the silent helpmate. Everything in her society, the schools, the church, the home, has sought this goal for her: she must be sheltered from the evils, noise, confusion, from the realities of the outside world, from sex to politics, even at times from intellectual dialogue, to be considered acceptable. In short, she should make no intrusion into adult or male conversation. Now, the Chicana, by voicing her own brand of expression has rejected the latter in favor of telling anyone who wishes to read her work, hear her voice, exactly what she is not, and who she, in fact, is."

"More and more the Chicana woman is emerging out of a traditionally imposed silence."

"Writing, breaking the silence, subjective as it may appear, becomes a monumental and collective act because it signifies over coming, freeing oneself from the confines and conditions of history."

"The Chicana writer, by the fact that she is even writing in today's society, is making a revolutionary act. Embodied in the act of writing is her voice against others' definitions of who she is and what she should be. There is, in her open expression and in the very nature of this act of opening up, a refusal to submit to a quality of silence that has been imposed upon her for centuries. In the act of writing, the Chicana is saying "No," and by doing so she becomes the revolutionary, a source of change, and a real force for humanization."

"As long as we remain silent, no voice exists. Our right to speak, to voice ourselves is stripped from us; if you do not hear us, no voice exists and no one will notice our absence. Verónica Cunningham through poetry admonishes our silence."

"“The trouble with having royal advisors,” the king muttered half to himself, “is that they’re always trying to give a man advice!”"

"The winter of ignorance could come, the cold stoked by a thousand bonfires. There would always be loveless souls ready to kindle such blazes with their neighbors’ books, or dreams, or children."

"“What a hero!” “What an idiot!” “What’s the difference?”"

"Growing up’s not something that just happens south of your belt buckle. It’s opening your eyes and taking on the nightmares yourself, without calling for Mommy or Daddy or even God. It’s facing down evil, even when you know it might be the last thing you ever do."

"Have lunch. It wasn’t anywhere near noon, but for food like this, they weren’t about to quibble. Suddenly the idea of going forth and smiting the heathen didn’t seem that attractive. Life is too short and sweet to waste it bludgeoning your brother into accepting your way of seeing Heaven."

"Raleel let his head tilt back as he filled his nostrils with the satisfying reek of small hearts and mouldering souls. Selfish greed for their own salvation pulsed from those fifteen in waves he could almost touch, and damnation take anyone who dared to stand between them and the Heaven for which only they were good enough."

"It was an edifice that combined high tech and low taste to an astonishing degree."

"The shortest way to multiply damnations is to divide mortals. Fear’s a great one for that—fear the stranger, fear the different, fear the afflicted—long as you can keep your pigeons so damn scared there’s no room in them to even try to figure out whether there’s anything real to be scared of in the first place."

"“What is it about L.A.?” “The Great Cosmic Belly Button that attracteth the spiritual lint of the universe,” Faith replied."

"His salvation flunkies. Mouthing off a hundred and one misapplied Biblical justifications a minute for why they can split heads, kick butt, and burn anything or anyone who tells them No. They are still going to Heaven. They’ll be the only ones there, but what the hey!"

"Listen, Noel, I don’t believe in the occult—not the dime store demonism all the right people are barking about. They see devils everywhere but in the mirror, and they raise such a hunting howl about it that they distract attention from the real evils. What I do believe is that there are great powers walking this world—forces for true good, forces for evil we can’t begin to imagine. Too many of the small-souled can only feel good by proving how bad everyone else is. They find it easier to turn a searchlight on some imaginary wickedness outside than to strike a single inner spark that might show them their own hearts."

"Yesterday’s sin is today’s trendy must-do."

"“We are all doomed, condemned to have the flesh seared from our bones, our blood gouting from our headless necks as the dragon rends limb from limb!” “Wait a minute,” the first guard said. “How can the dragon rend us limb from limb, blood gouting and all, if it’s already seared the flesh from our bones?” Another Gorgorian guard gave him a smart thwack in the head and said, “It’s a holy vision, you clod. Things don’t need to make sense when they’re holy visions.”"

"A high-handed air of command was one of the first symptoms of increasing power-hunger."

"That didn’t really fit the facts or make very much sense, but as a theory it had a certain perverse appeal."

"“I’m not a Freudian.” Dr. Fitzgerald pronounced the word as if it were axe-murderer."

"Like many a freshman with dangerous leanings toward the Humanities, Noel circled the topic of choosing a major cautiously, occasionally poking it with a stick to see which way it lunged and which way he should jump to avoid it."

"“This—this guy is dead now, right?” Marguerite shrugged. “Death is such a fragile thing. Who knows? I’ve heard rumors, but you can’t depend on anything these days. The greatest wizards of antiquity turn up with less warning than Hamptons houseguests.”"

"“You don’t have to go by anyone’s rules but your own. Everything about you is special. The only trouble is, no one but you ever seems to see it that way.” “I don’t think I like your attitude.” “I don’t think I care.”"

"Adulthood is not just gauged by years survived. An adult is able to act independently, to resist manipulation, to make his own decisions. And to take the consequences."

"Innocence is only a matter of not being able to believe in a possibility you can’t imagine."

"Faith gagged again, in earnest. Amanda had let her to believe that she was anything but pure, purity no longer being the fashion. Yet here was Geordie, carrying on over her in a style that was popular in the Middle Ages, when you had to adore your lady from afar because if you did it from anear, you’d get her Daddy’s sword in your belly."

"Hell is full of incompetent rebels."

"Amanda gave him the freeze, too. The blue demon hesitated, unsure of whether this snub was a rejection of his leadership or his dubious social standing. There were only a few demons in Debrett’s."

"The wind had blown since before time had a name and it would blow until time lost all meaning. It blew the dwindling sands of the desert across the encroaching greenness of the fields and forests, past the teeming cities with their needle spires, silver in the glaring sun. It sang a dirge for all the waste that once stretched past the edge of imagination, and it moaned a lament for all who wandered, lost and outcast and alone."

"Few hearts are brave enough to stand between old newspapermen and their liquor. Fewer still would defy the thirsty hordes of the electronic media."

"He did not know the proper name by which to call preshrunk designer jeans, yet if left to his own lexical devices, he would name them Paradise. Like many another man of faith, he yearned for entry thereto."

"“Satanism? In Whitman?” “Mmm-hmm.” She threaded her arm through his. “You can find Satanism in everything if you’ve got the right sort of mind and you look hard enough.”"

"There went a young lady with what most people would call a healthy attitude toward self-advancement. Anything for money, short of her body. The trouble with plunging into indefinite pronouns—anything, anywhere, anytime, anyone—is that no one knows how deep the water is until it closes over your head."