Women Authors From The United States

"For anyone living in Paris, the Algerian war was inescapable."

"Our role was to convince the world that Algeria had to be independent and France had to stop this crazy war"

"In the 60s, we had the impression that what we did could have an impact"

"I stayed on after the coup that brought Houari Boumediene to power in 1965"

"How we did it I really don’t know, but it came off and it was a beautiful event"

"I’m a centrist—in San Francisco, that makes me the most conservative person in the room—and I’ve been disappointed by the rise of the extreme fringe on both sides."

"...If the Illuminati controls everything, then this explains why you are powerless, why your leaders are making decisions you don’t want them to make. There’s a lot of scapegoating that goes into who the villains are in some of these conspiracy theories. It gives people a simple, easy explanation for a world that seems very, very complicated."

"Everything is a marketing campaign now, even policy ideas—they’re just marketing campaigns for an issue. The power to influence opinions lies with those who can most effectively disseminate a message. We’ve democratized propaganda, and created dissemination channels in which it can be effortlessly delivered by fake people (bots, sockpuppets, etc). State actors and terrorist groups realize this, and so do political parties and corporations. We’re in the midst of an arms race; no one wants to be the one not using all of the tools at their disposal."

"... a secret inside myself was that I had to be a writer. Ever since I learned how to read when I was six or seven, I just knew: this was my thing — this was my calling. This is what I was going to do in the world."

"Nothing I have experienced prepared me for the very public and relentless implosion of my father’s life,"

"... For three months she hiked 1,100 miles alone along the , a continuous wilderness undulating from Mexico to Canada over nine mountain ranges – the to the . ... On her epic trek, this novice hiker faced temperatures of 100 degrees in the shade on the and record snowfalls in the high sierras, not to mention bears, rattlesnakes and failed waterholes. ..."

"It hadn't occurred to me that my mother would die. Until she was dying, the thought had never entered my mind. She was monolithic and insurmountable, the keeper of my life. She would grow old and still work in the garden. The image was fixed in my mind, like one of the memories from her childhood that I'd made her explain so intricately that I remembered it as if it were mine. She would be old and beautiful like the black-and-white photo of Georgia O'Keeffe I'd once sent her. I held fast to this image for the first couple weeks after we left the , and then, once she was admitted to the wing of the hospital in Duluth, that image unfurled, gave way to others, more modest and true."

"Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms."

"’Twixt the optimist and pessimist The difference is droll: The optimist sees the doughnut But the pessimist sees the hole."

"When a tree takes a notion to grow in California nothing in heaven or on earth will stop it."

"We have defined colonialism as the forcible takeover of land and economy, and, in the case of European colonialism, a restructuring of non-capitalist economies in order to fuel European capitalism. This allows us to understand modern European colonialism not as some trans-historical impulse to conquer but as an integral part of capitalist development."

"It’s amazing what a little maquillage can do for you, particularly if you don’t lay it on with a trowel."

"Nini Mo says that most courage comes from being too tired and hungry to be afraid anymore. If exhaustion and hunger were the hallmarks of courage, then I was the bravest person that ever lived."

"I shook my head. I had been too busy panicking to do anything that sensible."

"Crackpot Hall has eleven thousand rooms, but only one potty."

"If your head explodes, I am not cleaning it up."

"Life is a prison if you cannot leave it as you like."

"Panic poisons; levelheaded lives."

"You look all right to me, although may be a bit wiggly about the edges. But perhaps I just need coffee."

"The way to advance in the field of history is to do excellent research and writing and then get it published. This takes lots of time and the more experience you have, the easier it gets. But it is never easy."

"All successful grant applicants have gotten rejections. The way to guarantee that you won't get a grant is to not apply."

"When we experience confusion, we should wait rather than act. If circumstances make it impossible not to act, we should seek pockets of clarity and act only in those areas. (p121)"

"What it takes, at least from my experience, to do excellent work is long hours (not a hardship for me, I love my work), persistence, the willingness to take risks, to accept criticism, to stand by what you think if upon consideration, you believe you’re right, even if no one else believes it, and to head out into unknown places."

"It is important to consider in what ways we can bring forward the "good, true, and beautiful" that is carried in our heritage; and to know that the quality of our life contributes to the opportunities and challenges for future generations to come. (p115)"

"Our reactions to the new experiences we meet daily may well be a preparation for how we will handle or approach our death. Do we approach new experiences with curiosity, wonder, or excitement? Or do we handle the unexpected and unfamiliar by becoming controlling and fearful? (p115)"

"The principle Teacher of detachment in Nature is often Grandmother Ocean, who is the primary nature example of flexibility and resilience. (p119)"

"The way of the Teacher is a practice in trust. Trust is the container out of which the qualities of wisdom grow: clarity, objectivity, discernment, and detachment. Wisdom is at work when we are open to all options. (p109)"

"If we observe what causes us to lose our sense of humor, we can identify our point of attachment. Where we maintain our sense of humor is where we are detached and can remain flexible. (p111)"

"In the West we know almost too well the importance of activity and movement; we also need to understand that silence and periods of solitude are essential ways to open to inner guidance and to replenish our soul. (p117)"

"Many times, we are forced at an early age to hide our true selves in order to survive. At some point this hiding becomes unnecessary, yet we find it hard to break the habit. Every day we choose anew whether we will support the authentic self or the false self. (p80)"

"We express denial in our lives when we avoid certain people or issues and when we see things only as we want them to be rather than to accept them as they are. Underneath every denial pattern is the underlying fear that we will not be able to handle conflict and a deep human need to maintain peace, balance, and harmony at all costs. In deep denial we will abandon ourselves to keep the peace rather than communicate our feelings directly. (p81)"

"People who make scenes, throw tantrums, or blow things out of proportion actually have a strong need for acceptance. Because they are terrified of their own feelings of insecurity or vulnerability, they use exaggeration as a way to hide those feelings. (p81)"

"Every culture has ways of maintaining health and well-being. Healers throughout the world recognize the importance of maintaining or retrieving the four universal healing salves: storytelling, singing, dancing, and silence. Shamanic societies believe that when we stop singing, stop dancing, are no longer enchanted by stories, or become uncomfortable with silence, we experience soul loss, which opens the door to discomfort and disease. The gifted Healer restores the soul through use of the healing salves. (p54)"

"Healers in all major traditions recognize that the power of love is the most potent healing force available to all human beings. Effective Healers from any culture are those who extend the arms of love: acknowledgment, acceptance, recognition, validation, and gratitude. (p49)"

"the greatest remorse is love unexpressed. (p49)"

"Creative individuals are open to multiple ways of looking; and they are very facile in letting go and moving toward options or perspectives they had not considered. (p99)"

"Where we are not strong-hearted is where we lack the courage to be authentic or to say what is true for us. Strong-heartedness is where we have the courage to be all of who we are in our life. (p50)"

"When we can answer "yes" to the question, "Is my self-worth as strong as my self-critic?" then we are ready to engage our creative expression beyond patterns of denial or indulgence. (p82)"

"When we open to being powerful, loving, creative, and wise, we experience the world and ourselves as the many splendid things that we are. (from the Conclusion, p130)"

"My research has demonstrated that virtually all shamanic traditions draw on the power of four archetypes in order to live in harmony and balance with our environment and with our own inner nature: the Warrior, the Healer, the Visionary, and the Teacher. Because each archetype draws on the deepest mythic roots of humanity, we too can tap into their wisdom. When we learn to live these archetypes within ourselves, we will begin to heal ourselves and our fragmented world. The following four principles, each based on an archetype, comprise what I call the Four-Fold Way: 1. Show up, or choose to be present. Being present allows us to access the human resources of power, presence, and communication. This is the way of the Warrior. 2. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Paying attention opens us to the human resources of love, gratitude, acknowledgment, and validation. This is the way of the Healer. 3. Tell the truth without blame or judgment. Nonjudgmental truthfulness maintains our authenticity, and develops our inner vision and intuition. This is the way of the Visionary. 4. Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome. Openness and nonattachment help us recover the human resources of wisdom and objectivity. This is the way of the Teacher."

"The shamanic traditions, practiced by agrarian and indigenous peoples the world over, remind us that for centuries human beings have used the wisdom of nature and ritual to support change and life transitions rather than to ignore or deny life processes, as we so often do. (p9)"

"Spiritualism is the highest form of political consciousness. The native peoples of the West are among the world's surviving proprietors of that kind of consciousness. They are here to impart that message. It is important to use it wisely and well as we go into the twenty-first century-a time of bridging ancient wisdoms into the creative tapestry of contemporary times. (p11)"

"Where we lose our capacity to play or to maintain our sense of humor, we find ourselves either seeing only that which is not working, or becoming attached to our own perception as the only viewpoint to have. In either case, whether it's our blind spots or fixed perspectives, we lack spontaneity and become over-identified with our own ways of looking at things. (p99)"

"Those shadow parts of us will dominate or persist until they are integrated. (p96)"

"The way of the Teacher accesses the human resource of wisdom, and every culture has traditional and nontraditional means of education. Whether it is an established school system or an apprenticeship, the process of learning and teaching is universal. The principle that guides the Teacher is to be open to outcome, not attached to outcome. The Teacher has wisdom, teaches trust, and understands the need for detachment. (p109)"