July, out of context
this month's quotables
Each day I pause to write down the things that bring me joy: the places where I experience happiness (‘found joy’) and the places where I contribute to the happiness of others (‘brought joy’).
I also use this notebook to collect random quotes that I find interesting or meaningful or that stand out. At the end of each month I’ll post these random quotes, shared out of context.
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them. (Assata Shakur)
The supreme principle of socialism is that [humans take] precedence over things, life over property, and hence, work over capital; that power follows creation, and not possession; that [humans] must not be governed by circumstances, but circumstances must be governed by [humans]. (Erich Fromm)
Fascism talks ideology, but it is really just marketing - marketing for power. It is recognizable by its need to purge, by the strategies it uses to purge, and by its terror of truly democratic agendas.
It changes parenting into panicking — so that we vote against the interests of our own children; against their health care, their education, their safety from weapons.
And in effecting these changes it produces the perfect capitalist, one who is willing to kill a human being for a product (a pair of sneakers, a jacket, a car) or kill generations for control of products (oil, drugs, fruit, gold).
(Toni Morrison, Excerpt from Charter Day Speech, "The First Solution": Howard University, Washington, DC, March 3, 1995.)
Living in a society structured to profit from our self-hate creates a dynamic in which we are so terrified of being ourselves that we adopt terror-based ways of being in our bodies. (Sonya Renee Taylor)
As long as the house of The Holy Spirit remains a haven for criminals, the reputation of the church will remain in ruins. (Sinead O'Connor)
Story makes the implicit explicit, the hidden seen, the unformed formed, and the confusing clear. (Robert Atkinson)
The thinking Subject cannot think alone. In the act of thinking about the object, [they] cannot think without the co-participation of another Subject. There is no longer an ‘I think’ but ‘we think’. It is the ‘we think’ which establishes the ‘I think’ and not the contrary. This co-participation of the Subjects in the act of thinking is communication. Thus the object is not the end of the act of communicating, but the mediator of communication. (Paulo Freire)
All dialogue is, in the deepest sense, moral because it is an acknowledgement of our existential longing to hear and be heard. (Nel Noddings)
Every Nazi who remains alive will kill women, children, and old folks. Dead Nazis are harmless. Therefore, it kill a Nazi, I am saving lives. (Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a WWII badass Russian assassin)
It is because we all live out narratives in our lives, and because we understand our own lives in terms of narratives that we live out, that the form of narrative is appropriate for understanding the actions of others. Stories are lived before they are told. (Alasdair MacIntyre)
Original definition of emotional labour (I had to look it up for a chapter): “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display [that is] sold for a wage” (Arlie Hochschild, 1983, p. 7).
The world is violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you.
We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love. (Tennessee Williams)
Does grief end with a narratively structured and narratively experienced understanding of our own process of grief, or does grief continue to question our capacity to be alone? (Line Ryberg Ingerslev)
Care is the antidote to violence. (Saidiya Hartman)
You know what we are finding out? That running a government is a helluva lot harder than doing a podcast. (Chris Christie)
The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a "circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. (Paulo Freire)
Every woman I have loved has been Atlas.
Holding the heavens on her shoulders, giving and giving until she is devoured.
(Nikita Gill)
I finally stopped avoiding fires long enough to let myself burn, and what I learned was that I am like that burning bush: The fire of pain won't consume me. I can burn and burn and live. I can live on fire. I am fireproof. (Glennon Doyle)
I said to the sun, ‘tell me about the big bang.'
the sun said, 'it hurts to become.’ (Andrea Gibson)
Radical simply means to grab something by the root. (Angela Davis)
Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else. (Maurene Comey)
Writing is one of the most peaceful ways of communication that I am aware of. Writing is a form of listening, a process of thinking, and the foundation upon which academic work is built. Writing is the heart of freedom of expression. Unbelievably, this single opinion piece, published in our student newspaper, would lead to my arrest and detention. (Rümeysa Öztürk, from the article “Even God Cannot Hear Us Here”: What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women’s Prison)
Sometimes I’m scared of being Ozzy. But it could have been worse; I could have been Sting. (Ozzy Osbourne)
If you had not attacked them in their sleep in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass. (Alivea Goncalves, Kaylee’s sister)
This is not a war [in Gaza] — it is the destruction of a people. (Francesca Albanese)
You don’t have to think about doing the right thing. If you’re doing the right thing, then you do it without thinking. (Maya Angelou)
These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb. (Najwa Zebian)
Maybe the journey isn't about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. (Paulo Coelho)
Your hometown's just the first place you don't understand
Your family's just strangers you know like the back of your hand
The higher you think you're above it, the harder you fall
It's a penthouse view of a brick wall
(Donovan Woods, Back for the Funeral)
People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of [humans], but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a [human], so artfully, so artistically cruel. (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Maybe being more alive isn't about escaping pain, but refusing to look away from it. Maybe what we are striving towards is the ability to feel the whole thing, and still choose to love. (David Gale, from Are we allowed to enjoy things while Gaza is starving?)
I experienced peace this morning while enjoying the view from your writing retreat.
And, I savor the quotes you choose and read them over and over. Thank you.