Quotessence
Home / Authors / Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler Quotes

Playwright

Filter quotes by topic

AllThinkingBodyPeopleWorldIfsWayKnowsFeelsViolenceWant

Famous Eve Ensler Quotes

“Maybe being good isn't about getting rid of anything. Maybe being good has to do with living in the mess in the frailty in the failures in the flaws. Maybe what I tried to get rid of is the goodest part of me. Think Passion. Think Age. Think Round. Maybe good is about developing the capacity to live fully inside everything. Our body is our country, the only city, the only village, the only every we will ever know.”

ThinkingKnowsCountryBodyAgePassionCitiesCapacityRoundsBe GoodOur CountryMessDevelopingFlawsVillageFrailty
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“I really do think how we frame things determines so much of our experience, and I've been talking to a lot of oncologists, like, why don't we call them transformation suites and give people transformation juice and have guides that support people when they're going through chemo so you could actually burn away what needs to be burned away, as opposed to this dread, terror, horror, which is a very different experience.”

PeopleThinkingNeedsGivingDifferentTalkingSupportHorrorTransformationDetermineTerrorGuidesDreadBurnedJuiceDifferent ExperiencesOncologists
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“I think it was a realization of this cancer, an understanding of the broader implications of what cancer is. The greed, the ravaging of lands and seas for profit, the taking of things that don't belong to us; what we've done to the environment in this fast-paced, careless hunger. I think all of that was happening in my body.”

ThinkingDoneBodyUnderstandingEnvironmentSeaLandHappeningsGreedHungerCancerProfitRealizationImplicationsCarelessFast PacedLand And Sea
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!"”

ThinkingBodyEarthCertainWatchesDyingBearsIntellectualHappeningsSickCancerBeesOrganismsTheoreticalPolar Bears
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“But my body was telling its story. I have read a lot of stuff about cancer. I needed this book. I wish I'd had this book when I had cancer. I wanted someone to be talking to me about "fart floors." I wanted somebody telling me what it was like to have a colostomy bag. I felt so alone. And if you're a person who's been traumatized by past abuse, it's so potentially re-traumatizing. You slip right into "oh my god, this is the only person this has happened to before" mentality: "I'm especially bad and I have especially bad cancer..."”

IfsPersonsBookStoriesBodyWantedPastWishFeltStuffTalkingHappenedNeededAbuseCancerBagsSlipsMentalityFartWanted Someone
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“I really believe that is helping people. I've been talking to oncologists about how we can re-frame and re-think the chemo process, so it becomes a much more spiritual, psychological journey. Where people really could burn away what needs to be burned away. It's happening anyway. Why not frame it in a psychological way where it can serve as a transformation?”

PeopleThinkingWayNeedsBelieveHelpingSpiritualProcessTalkingJourneyHappeningsTransformationPsychologicalWhy NotBurnedHelping PeopleOncologists
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“Why aren't we looking at the causes of breast cancer? Why aren't we spending our energy on looking at what we're doing to the earth? On the pollutants we're putting into the earth? And the pesticides we're putting into the earth? What we're releasing into the air? Instead, we just cut off more organs! That's where metaphor comes into it - not even metaphor as much as reality.”

RealityEarthEnergyCausesCuttingAirMetaphorCancerSpendingBreastsOrgansBreast CancerPesticides
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“We get off track. Capitalism takes us off track. You get off the "real" and get on the "wheel." The "wheel" becomes the winning and losing, the succeeding and failing, the "I will achieve." All that stuff becomes so preoccupying, particularly if you're born with low self-esteem, or no sense of yourself, or even if you're just born in the consumer culture. It's very powerful.”

IfsRealSelfCultureWinningStuffBornPowerfulFailingAchieveSelf EsteemSucceedLosingLowsCapitalismTrackEsteemConsumersWheelsVery PowerfulLow Self EsteemWinning And LosingConsumer Culture
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“What I would say to young women is: Pay attention to the real. Pay attention to what you're really thirsting for. What do you really want? And I think that's much harder to decipher in a culture that has no interest in it. What interests me is, are we going to wake in time? Are human beings going to wake up to ourselves, to the incredible poverty that's on this planet, to what we're doing to the earth, to what we're doing to women, to what we're doing to boys? That's what's important.”

ThinkingWantHumansImportantRealEarthYoungCultureInterestHuman BeingsPayAttentionBoysPovertyPlanetsHarderWake UpIncrediblesPay AttentionYoung WomenWhat's ImportantDecipher
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“I was a young feminist in the '70s. Feminism saved my life. It gave me a life. But I saw how so much of what people were saying was not matching up with what they were doing. For example, we were talking about sister solidarity, and women were putting each other down. We were talking about standing up for our rights, and women weren't leaving abusive relationships with men. There were just so many disconnects.”

PeopleMenYoungTalkingSawsRightsFeminismExampleStandingLeavingFeministSavedSolidarityAbusiveMatchingAbusive Relationship
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“What I feel now is connected to people. I feel connected and I feel a lot of love for people. I feel the possibility of what building social movements and what working together in struggle creates. Whatever that energy is, it feels a lot better than what I felt when I was younger - which was worthless and disconnected and isolated and alone.”

PeopleFeelsTogetherEnergySocialFeltStruggleMovementPossibilityBuildingConnectedWorking TogetherIsolatedWorthlessDisconnectedSocial Movements
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image

“If you look at capitalism and patriarchy, they're both such hierarchical, competitive, oneupmanship systems. They've trained us all [to think] that power means having all the goods or having the most money or having the most attention or having the most fame. That's not the power that interests me. Actually, the deconstruction of that power is what interests me.”

IfsThinkingLooksMeanInterestAttentionFameCapitalismGoodsPatriarchyDeconstruction
Author:Eve Ensler
Create image