Women Born In The 1930s

"Writing cannot be taught, no, but stimulated, yes."

"(How does Argentine feminism differ in its objectives and its methods to its American counterpart?) Well, feminism in the States was overpowering during the eighties, while it was quite isolated here. But now the scale has flipped, and it is important to point out that finally, here in Argentina, women’s struggles are intense and out in the open and that force is taking over the streets in a very courageous and powerful way, as you might have well experienced. What is absolutely fantastic here is the power of the women’s movement—the fight is very intense at this point. But we do have a history of courageous and combative women; think of the mothers and the abuelas of Plaza de Mayo. And now the young people are really joining in the demands; it is moving and very heartwarming."

"(Which other Argentine and Latin American writers do you appreciate? Or writers from farther afield?) Oh, the list is vast, a movable feast if we may say so. Cortázar is the one who is closest to my way of understanding the act of writing. And nearer to my heart. I admire Carlos Fuentes on the opposite extreme of the equation. That is why I wrote a book on both of them, Entrecruzamientos: Cortázar/Fuentes (Crossings: Cortázar/Fuentes). It is astonishing to discover how much they connect in their so different personalities. But if you ask me for a list, it can go from Clarice Lispector to Haruki Murakami, with innumerable names on the way."

"(Do you think hard times fuel creativity?) Let me separate this question in two. No, I don’t think that hard times necessarily fuel creativity. Often it silences you. Freud knew that very well. I had this ongoing discussion with Joseph Brodsky at the New York Institute for the Humanities; he used to affirm that censorship is good for literature but bad for the writer. But at home it could be seriously bad not only for the writer (who finally takes responsibility for his or her words) but also for everyone around us, even innocent people who appeared in our phone books. And, on the other hand, I did write a lot during those terrible times. But I was one of the very few, and it all started before the military takeover."

"(What changes have you witnessed in Argentina in your lifetime?) Far too many. This is a roller coaster country, with good moments and very upsetting times like the current one, though the civic-military dictatorship was worse. But we have an incredible, almost miraculous capacity for recovery, which I hope will at some point still save us."

"In these times there is no bigger liar than hegemonic journalism! So good fiction does a great job of teaching us how to read between the lines and explore the complexities and contradictions of language which are often manipulated."

"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. Costa Rica: Carmen Naranjo. Brazil: Clarice Lispector. Uruguay: Armonía Somers. Chile: María Luisa Bombal. Argentina: Silvina Ocampo, Nora Lange, Elvira Orphée, and (why not?) my mother Luisa Mercedes Levinson who was a very original writer. If we can stretch it a little I would add Sara Gallardo."

"I suppose El Mañana is my ars poetica."

"There are so many impediments and temptations to avoid writing. But self-censorship is never one of them."

"Those worlds erroneously called primitive have such rich cosmologies."

"My only real possession was a dream and they can't deprive me of my dreams just like that."

"he took me in his arms without saying a word, not even holding me too tight but letting all the emotions of our new encounter overflow, telling me so much by merely holding me in his arms and kissing me slowly. I think he never had much faith in words, and there he was, as silent as ever, sending me messages in the form of caresses."

"The cultural-political perspectives of Jewish feminists interacted with the ideas of many other pioneering women's liberationists in the city, Jewish and non-Jewish, including Kathie Sarachild, Carol Hanisch, Irene Peslikis, Peggy Dobbins, Anne Koedt, Pat Mainardi, Robin Morgan, Ann Snitow, and Vivian Gornick. Acting within a communal context, innovative theory and practice emerged from group interaction."

"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."

"all the liberationist movements have taken these classes of people, blacks, women, gays, and instructed them now in these years that not only is it your right to act like a whole human being, but it's your obligation. So I’ve watched, for much longer than you, how women have entered all of these professions that they never dreamed they could enter. And it's a thrill to watch people, especially the young, who take their place in the world without any perturbation, without being perturbed in any way about their right, much less their obligation, to occupy a space. And I feel it's our struggle that gave them this. If it wasn’t for what we went through, women forty years younger than me would never have... they go into it without thinking twice, as if there's no question. And it's always like that. Nobody lives historically, everybody lives in the intense present. So whatever we have supplied for their present is [received with] “hasn't it always been like this? Is there any other way to do it?” But it has to do with that assumption that a wholeness of being gives you the right and the obligation to make the largest sense of what you are about in the world no matter what you are."

"I will never feel I'm an intellectual, never in my entire life. What I call intellection has really to do with making a large sense of abstractions. Whereas I start so completely from specific, on the ground experience, and out of that I do think I have a feeling intelligence. It's not an abstract one, it's not an intellectual one. But I know how to, and want very much, to use my intelligence, to elucidate my feelings in such a way that it brings new life to the work at hand."

"What did I dream about at Boots? Well, the big ambition was to get onto the cosmetics, but I never made it...""

"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things."

"[On the absence of condoms in her sex scenes.] I can't do that. When do you stop to put it on? They're awful. You see, because I never had babies [her two children are adopted], I never had to worry about all that. Actually, that's not true. I did, because I didn't know [that she couldn't have children]. I wish I had known. God, I'd have had fun. But you were absolutely terrified of getting pregnant. I was too early for the pill. I had a dutch cap. They were terrible. It used to fly across the room. I left it behind when I went on honeymoon. My mother had to send it on. I was never very organised."

"[In her novel, Score, a male character is murdered while sexually aroused.] I rang Stroud police to ask whether the male member stays up at the point of death. They told me it definitely does."

"[On meeting the editor of The Sunday Times magazine at a dinner party in 1969.] I told him about being a young wife: screwing all night, then going to work, shopping, doing the housework, doing one's husband's dinner, then screwing all night again."

"I saw this bright orange flash and thought this is it, my number has come up. There was a man above me who was talking about his wife, saying "I love you, Ellen, I love you". The train caved over and there was this terrific crash. It was only after we climbed out that we realised the full magnitude of what had happened - there were bodies, trains turned over, massive smoke and flames. I think all you think about at the time is "get me out of here". I was very lucky really - my carriage was the last but one on the train and although it turned over, people did not seem too bad."

"[On her novels] I know they are frivolous imperfect But people love them — you should see the letters I get! Maybe one day I will write something more serious but I don’t want to come across like a ghastly actor who wants to play Hamlet. Basically my aim in life is to add to the sum of human happiness My dear is that pompous hmmm? Darling am I being boring?"

"People are going to be sent to prison for saying somebody's common soon, aren't they? Really. You can’t say anybody’s fat, you can’t say anybody’s anything, now. Not that one wants to say people are fat, but mind you, they are huge, aren’t they. Enormous. Enormous [...] I hate people being hurt. But nobody can say anything now. Anyway, enough of that [...] And all this [anti] wolf-whistling. I love being wolf-whistled at. I’m that generation. All contributions gratefully received."

"I learned an enormous amount from Massimo about how to be a good designer. But I learned how to be a successful designer from Lella."

"If you can't find it, design it."

"If you do it right, it will last forever. It’s as simple as that."

"There's hard porn, soft porn and Jilly Cooper. Not that Mrs Cooper's latest little nonsense would get any Portnoy award, but I do worry about the influence on young minds of this peculiar combination of romantic fantasy and permissiveness (Barbara Cartland without the iron knickers). Fired by such goings-on as are chronicled in Octavia, heaven knows what the precociously pubescent will get up to."

"This woke thing is awful. Have you ever been woked? You put a hand on somebody's shoulder and you're assaulting them. In the old days if someone was awful to you you'd tell them to eff off and that would be that. Still, I had some horrors in my time."

"I'm quite depressed about sex at the moment [...] I don't think people are having nearly so much fun. And everywhere you go, people are marrying their own sex, aren't they?"

"They are unbelievable the upper classes, aren't they? They just have to screw. They've always been like that. I suppose it has changed a bit today as they don’t want to get whatsitnamed [#MeToo'd]."

"Black-necked Cranes on the Tibetan plateau were my last of this family and left me with some unexpectedly ambivalent feelings—triumph at having finally seen them all, yet sadness that there were now no more left to look for."

"I desperately wanted to continue running my own life, because I was healthy and, physically, felt just fine. I accepted the fact that my life wasn’t going to last long, but I very quickly came to the conclusion that I preferred a short span of quality living under my control, followed by a quick death, to a longer life protracted by various all-consuming medical treatments and their effects, probably followed by a lingering death."

"“How can they ever get food into those fuzzy chicks without stabbing them to death with their bills?” Watching those creatures do what they had been doing successfully for millions of years, without any help from us, finally let me learn not to judge everything by human standards."

"The triggers for turning points in one’s life are mysterious things. A whole spectrum of different factors with complex physical, intellectual, and emotional overtones is involved, and all of them have to merge in the same place and time to form the blinding white light that urges one along a new path. Sheer chance plays an enormous role, unless one is programmed to believe (as I do not) that it was all meant to be."

"Phoebe’s legacy in the world of birding is larger than life. She possessed a hard-earned, near encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s birds. Her drive to observe, and observe well, as much of the world’s avifauna as possible, with a special emphasis on its diversity, is well-known, clear from her writing, and, in some circles, the stuff of legends."

"Phoebe did not hesitate for a second as she plunged off the trail and down into the thick undergrowth that filled the steep ravine. I hustled after her, and we swiftly picked our way into the darkness and unknown. In the end, the bird did not call again, and the fog was too thick, so the partridge eluded Phoebe that night. Regardless, I will never forget the wonderful time we shared. The sight of her disappearing down the ravine after the Long-billed Partridge sums up Phoebe for me—committed, fearless, and never looking back."

"Phoebe was a legend among the professional bird guides who guided her around the world. A non-birder may imagine that high-level birding is just like regular birding except more expensive. In reality, birding at Phoebe’s level requires an Olympian’s level of concentration, dedication, and effort, along with a level of risk-taking that no non-birder could ever understand. She had some horrific experiences along the way, but the non-fatal ones never stopped her."

"Of course, as my husband points out, this game never really ends. It’s simply a matter of perspective; as I see it, one of the wonderful aspects of birding is that it is endless. There’s always, as long as one lives, some new place to go, some exciting new thing to find. No one knowledgeable will ever say, “I’ve done it all – now what?”"

"There were indeed human hazards in this country—but not to go there at all because of the possibility of encountering them? Unthinkable! It has become ever more clear to me that if I had spent my life avoiding any and all potential risks, I would have missed doing most of the things that have comprised of the best years of my life."

"Emotion and personal desire really do reign in all passionate endeavors, not objectivity and reason. And sometimes we’re just plain lucky enough to get away with it."

"I hadn’t done much traveling in Arab countries, and it’s certainly not my favorite culture (a common enough viewpoint among emancipated western women), but both geographically and ornithologically I found it fascinating."

"Chances are, if I can feel a lump, there has already been some spread to internal organs, in which case my time of health is probably limited to a few months. Now may well be my final opportunity to go birding on a foreign trip, and I can’t just throw that away. If it’s my last trip, so be it—but I’m going to make it a good one and go down binoculars in hand!"

"Other contestants were fighting among themselves. There was money exchanging hands. I went into the primaries with 26 delegates and my delegates were literally bought off me and I was reduced to nine."

"The greatest lesson life has taught me is to fear God. Once you fear God you will approach everything in life with the fear of God, therefore you wouldn’t do what you are not supposed to do."

"One will not expect a human being to behave the way he behaved especially to someone who had never done anything wrong to him."

"Politics teaches one about life. It also teaches one about human nature because you meet all sorts of people in politics, as a result of that you learn about life."

"The things I didn’t do right can no longer be corrected. So, there is nothing I can do about it. We all make mistakes, we all take wrong steps, so, I think one should not dwell on things that one did not do right but dwell on things that you want to do."

"We are a resilient people and we don’t give up when we fight for just causes until we triumph."

"Mandela was a unique human being, you don’t have many like him; I think he was like a ones-in-a-lifetime person. I must say I am very happy to have lived during his lifetime. He was a marvelous person, very courageous, he had vision for his people and he carried that vision through. I only pray that we have somebody like Mandela in Nigeria to lead us to the promise land."