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Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler Quotes

Playwright

Eve Ensler is an American playwright, best known for her work 'The Vagina Monologues', which is based on her investigation into the issue of violence against women and has sparked a global movement for women's empowerment. Her works often focus on women's experiences and social justice issues.

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All Thinking Body People World Ifs Way Knows Feels Violence Want

Famous Eve Ensler Quotes

“People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer.”

People Needs Feels Enough Break Feel Good Broke Worried Rough Pretending Rough Times Veneer

Author:Eve Ensler

“Once you are diagnosed with cancer, time changes. It both speeds up insanely and stops altogether.”

Cancer Illness Speed

Book:In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

Source: In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

“Today the United States has the highest prison population in the world, over 2.1 million people. ... We lock people up at a rate that is seven to ten times that of any other democracy.”

People World States Today United Millions United States Democracy Ten Highest Prison Seven Rate Population Locks Prison Population

Book:Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World

Source: Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World

“I am not saying people shouldn't be held accountable for terrible acts. But holding people in prisons does not necessarily make them responsible or accountable. It makes them bad. It makes them evil. It puts an end to any process of transformation. It hardens them spiritually and psychologically.”

People Doe Ends Evil Process Terrible Transformation Responsible Prison

Author:Eve Ensler

“It is almost a guarantee that in the pursuit of security you will become more insecure. Inherent in the quest for security is its undoing.”

Security Pursuit Guarantees Quests Inherent Insecure Guarantees That Undoing

Book:Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World

Source: Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World

“I am worried about this word, this notion - security. I see this word, hear this word, feel this word everywhere. Security check. Security watch. Security clearance. Why has all this focus on security made me feel so much more insecure? ... Why are we suddenly a nation and a people who strive for security above all else?”

People Feels Made Nations Watches Focus Security Strive Notion Checks Worried Insecure Clearance

Book:Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World

Source: Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World

“Between the combination of Judeo-Christian religious 'be good be good be good' and Capitalist 'something's wrong with you, buy this' and the parental upbringing, which is 'you're wrong, you're not thin enough, you're not smart enough' I mean, hello! We don't have a shot.”

Mean Enough Christian Religious Smart Shots Be Good Combination Capitalist Hello Upbringing Parental

Author:Eve Ensler

“The mechanism of violence is what destroys women, controls women, diminishes women and keeps women in their so-called place.”

Women Violence Mechanism Diminish

Author:Eve Ensler

“It [the memoir "In The Body of the World"] wrote me. I joke about it, but this book was so unusual. It just started to come out. I really feel like it came straight from my body. I think it was both an expression of what I had gone through, but also it just felt like everything had come together in my body and it needed to tell that story.”

Thinking World Feels Book Stories Body Together Felt Gone Expression Needed Jokes Memoir Unusual

Author:Eve Ensler

“For me, so much of my life has been this attempt to find my way back into my body. I tried various forms, from promiscuity, to eating disorders, to performance art. And I think it wasn't until I got cancer, where I was suddenly being pricked and ported and chemoed and operated on, that I suddenly just became body. I was just a body. And it was in that, in that finally landing in myself that I really discovered the world in my body.”

Thinking World Way Has Beens Art Body Form Eating Performances Cancer Various My Way Disorder Landing Eating Disorder Promiscuity Performance Art

Author:Eve Ensler

“Cancer was the most terrifying, arduous, painful thing, but it was also a profound gift in the sense that I was holding so much in my body for so many years that was dark and terrifying which was preventing my coming back into myself.”

Years Body Dark Profound Cancer Painful Coming Back Preventing Painful Things

Author:Eve Ensler

“There's an underlying puritanicalness in America that is not that different to the prudishness of Britain - it just manifests itself in different ways.”

Way Different America Different Ways Britain Prudishness

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think what's been true across the board is the universal patriarchy, the fear of women ever being born back into complete sexuality and life-force. This manifests itself in different cultural variances, but that's really what's going on everywhere.”

Thinking Different Force Born Universal Sexuality Boards Patriarchy Variance

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think being an activist and an artist is an interesting contradiction, because so often they are at odds with one another. When you write as an artist you have to clean the palate of your own politics in creating characters and activism is kind of the exact opposite.”

Thinking Writing Kind Character Artist Interesting Creating Opposites Clean Activism Contradiction Activist Odds Palate Creating Characters

Author:Eve Ensler

“When I was younger I was much more polemical and didactic, much less trusting. Inherently my own vision of the world would weave its way through the characters. Also, my concerns are changing. What happens is you write a few plays and get boxed into some idea of what your concerns are and what you're supposed to be writing about.”

World Way Writing Ideas Play Character Happens My Own Vision Concern Supposed To Be Didactic

Author:Eve Ensler

“I'm feeling a kind of liberty to write about what's interesting to me without worrying about what I should be writing about. And that feels good.”

Feels Should Writing Kind Feelings Interesting Liberty Worry Feel Good

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think so much of neoliberalism and capitalism has caused people to live in a state of greed, fear and consumption that is covering up so much of what we really want.”

People Thinking Want States Capitalism Greed Consumption Covering Neoliberalism

Author:Eve Ensler

“The devastation of neoliberalism is so multi-fold, whether it's violence against women or desperate economic inequality or the destruction of the planet.”

Violence Economic Planets Destruction Inequality Desperate Folds Violence Against Women Devastation Neoliberalism Economic Inequality

Author:Eve Ensler

“One of the things I think about when we talk about a violence,and relationship to spirituality is that it seems to me when you take something from someone that isn't yours or you hurt someone else, fundamentally, you actually do that to yourself. You actually unmake yourself, you work against your own being and your own matter.”

Thinking Matter Seems Spirituality Hurt Violence Hurts Someone

Author:Eve Ensler

“What I would argue is that real spirituality is the ability to keep encountering two opposite thoughts at the same time and still maintain some kind of morality and perspective in the world. It is not the elimination of one side of the equation or the elimination of what you don't like; it is the investigation of everything.”

World Kind Stills Two Real Spirituality Sides Ability Perspective Morality Opposites Arguing Investigation Equations Elimination Two Opposites

Author:Eve Ensler

“What I believe is that we have this extraordinary spirit inside ourselves, which for me is our Buddha nature. I believe we are in the process of opening and getting closer and closer to our Buddha nature and stripping away all that is covering it. I don't think I'm going to end up meeting this one being up there or out there.”

Thinking Believe Ends Spirit I Believe Process Meetings Extraordinary Opening Covering Stripping Buddha Nature Stripping Away

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think to be honest, that being is inside. I meet that being in so many people that I meet everywhere in the world and when I do meet that being, in other people, what I want to ask is "How do we keep opening ourselves so that we can become as vulnerable and as willing to live in the deepest complexity and ambiguity and truth that we can?”

People Thinking World Want Asks Honest Willing Opening Vulnerable Being Honest Complexity Ambiguity

Author:Eve Ensler

“I despise charity. It gives crumbs to a few and silences the others.”

Giving Silence Charity Despise Crumbs

Book:In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

Source: In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

“I think violence against women in America has become ordinary - it's been made absolutely acceptable.”

Thinking Made America Violence Ordinary Acceptable Violence Against Women

Author:Eve Ensler

“I really want to help stop violence toward women.”

Want Helping Violence

Author:Eve Ensler

“Since cancer, I feel like I have dreams rather than ambitions, visions rather than plans.”

Feels Dream Vision Plans Ambition Cancer

Author:Eve Ensler

“For many years now, I feel like my own body struggle has been linked and connected with women I meet in the world. I think we're in this together.”

Thinking World Feels Years Has Beens Body Together My Own Struggle Connected Linked

Author:Eve Ensler

“I would rate the fact that I get to be alive a big beautiful 10. Satisfaction with myself - work in progress.”

Facts Bigs Beautiful Alive Progress Rate Satisfaction Work In Progress

Author:Eve Ensler

“You will touch this joy and you will suddenly know it is what you were looking for your whole life, but you were afraid to even acknowledge the absence because the hunger for it was so encompassing.”

Knows Whole Joy Hunger Absence Whole Life Acknowledge

Book:In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

Source: In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

“Theater has an incredible capacity to move people to social change, to address issues, to inspire social revolution.”

People Moving Social Issues Inspire Revolution Capacity Theater Incredibles Addresses Social Change Social Revolution

Author:Eve Ensler

“The minute someone tells you you have cancer, it's kind of like you die. You really do die. It's like you get that you're mortal.”

Kind Dies Minutes Like You Cancer Mortals

Author:Eve Ensler

“I'm a nomad. I have a place in New York in the Flatiron District, and I have a place in Paris in Ile Saint-Louis, and I spend a lot of time in Congo.”

New York Saint Paris Congo Nomad

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think all my work's been about how do women get back into our bodies; how do men get back. We're all disassociated.”

Thinking Men Body Get Back

Author:Eve Ensler

“Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection.”

Security Connections Hunger

Author:Eve Ensler

“Unless men are active allies, we'll never end violence against women and girls.”

Men Ends Girl Violence Active Allies Violence Against Women

Author:Eve Ensler

“Dance has a transformative effect on bodily trauma.”

Author:Eve Ensler

“Geography does not define you - love does.”

Doe Geography Define You Geography Teachers

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think we are seeing the absolute and utter collapse of male politicians in this [U.S] country and we're seeing what the underpinnings of the power structure are, which are sexist underpinnings.”

Thinking Country Seeing Politician Absolutes Structure Males Collapse Sexist

Author:Eve Ensler

“If you just look at the fact that a woman was central in twittering the Cairo revolution, and women were central to the Tunisian uprising. Women are at the center of everything right now and moving everything forward. And I do think in the next year or two, we are going to see such a woman spring, such a rising.”

Ifs Thinking Years Looks Two Facts Moving Next Revolution Right Now Spring Rising Next Year Uprising Cairo

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. I don't think it's one motion unfortunately - I wish we could say it's better, better, better - but I think it's better, bad, better, bad - you know?”

Thinking Knows World Wish Happenings Improving Always Improving

Author:Eve Ensler

“We have no idea how many women were raped in wars - because no one ever asked. So sometimes when people say statistics have escalated, I wonder if, that is true or are we just hearing about things now that we didn't hear about before.”

People Ifs Ideas War Sometimes Wonder Hearing No Idea Statistics

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think to be cut off from your heart is the greatest tyranny in the world.”

Thinking World Heart Cutting Tyranny

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think we just have to look at all the ways in which we are violating the Earth, each other, economic violence, racial violence, environmental violence - where we are dominating and not cooperating .”

Thinking Way Looks Earth Violence Economic Environmental Dominating Cooperating

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think we have to get bolder. Why after Fukushima didn't we all go out and shut down all the nuclear power plants and stay there until it happened?”

Thinking Happened Plant Nuclear Nuclear Power Power Plants Fukushima

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think the human species is very suicidal.”

Thinking Humans Species Suicidal Human Species

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think that's part of the whole denial and suicidal mechanism [ of the human's race] right "Oh my God, the house is on fire." You sleep through the smoke.”

Thinking Humans Whole House Sleep Race Fire Smoke Denial Mechanism Suicidal

Author:Eve Ensler

“I think what all of us have in common is that we've been taught and trained and programmed to focus on fixing and mutilating ourselves. That's a core reason why women do not have power in the world.”

Thinking World Reason Common Focus Taught Core Reason Why Fixing

Author:Eve Ensler

“I believe in irony. And if V-Day has taught me anything, it's that if you go out with artistic, outrageous irony and humor, people are drawn to it.”

People Ifs Believe I Believe Taught I Believe In Artistic Irony Outrageous

Author:Eve Ensler

“I don't get tired, because every time a woman doesn't die or doesn't get beaten or doesn't get raped or doesn't get honor-killed or doesn't get acid-burned, it's a huge victory.”

Dies Huge Victory Honor Tired Burned Beaten Acid

Author:Eve Ensler

“We have not yet made violence against women abnormal, extraordinary, unacceptable. We have not yet come to see it as a pathological issue.”

Made Issues Violence Extraordinary Violence Against Women Abnormal

Author:Eve Ensler

About the Author

Born: May 25, 1953
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 234

Related Topics

Thinking Body People World Ifs Way Knows Feels Violence Want

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Vagina MonologuesRelated source material

Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed WorldRelated source material

I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the WorldRelated source material

In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and ConnectionRelated source material

The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day EditionRelated source material

In the Body of the WorldRelated source material

The Good BodyRelated source material

My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl's Winding Path to the Nobel Peace PrizeRelated source material

The ApologyRelated source material

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