First Quotes (page 234)
From the time I arrived on the Cape, one of the things I chose explicitly was to put my writing first. Everything else in my life waxed and waned, but writing, I discovered during my restructuring, was my real core. Not any relationship. Not any love. Not any person. I had become more selfish and less accessible. I ceased to be the universal mommy of the tribe. I wanted to see people when I was done with my writing for the day, and not in the middle of my work time.
Marge Piercy
He was decisive and wholehearted in everything he did, so intent non the task at hand that he never looked over his shoulder, even if his cloak got caught in a thorny bush. When he did turn to speak to somebody, he used to swing his entire body and dress him full face. When he shook hands, he was never the first to withdraw his own. He inspired such confidence that he was known as al-Amin, the Reliable One.
Karen Armstrong
How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time of delicious silence.
'Let me speak to her.'
'Oh, no! I owe it to her, - but what will she say?'
'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man!" '
'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, "That woman!"
Elizabeth Gaskell
Count up the almonds,
Count what was bitter and kept you waking,
Count me in too:
I sought your eye when you glanced up and no one would see you,
I spun that secret thread
Where the dew you mused on
Slid down to pitchers
Tended by a word that reached no one’s heart.
There you first fully entered the name that is yours,
you stepped to yourself on steady feet,
the hammers swung free in the belfry of your silence,
things overheard thrust through to you,
what’s dead put it’s arm around you...
Paul Celan