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Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler Quotes

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Famous Eve Ensler Quotes

“Rock-and-roll was an example of change in the body of the culture. I think it's really what helped bring the anti-war movement to its peak and moved people into the streets to seize the day - the movement was the embodiment of what was happening in the music. This is what taught me that it was possible to bring art and activism together. Without that piece, that energetic embodiment piece, the rest is just intellectual construct.”

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“Trauma dissociates us from the parts of our body that are wounded, so we have to leave our whole body. It's a journey you take your whole life, that coming back in, re-landing in your body, in your self, on the Earth. I think one of the reasons it's been so easy, in a way, for us to violate both women and the Earth is this profound dissociation that exists in everyone.”

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“In America, we have to really be working on two fronts right now. Immediately, we have to be rising in resistance and protecting our Muslim brothers and sisters [and] every marginalized person under threat and siege. At the same time, we have to be planning and envisioning where we're going. How we build moments and movements, how we come up with the vision we want of a progressive left - that's what comes in after.”

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“There are three billion women in the world who have vaginas. I don't think we can stop fighting for our sexual liberation, for our right to control our bodies. But at the same time as we're doing that, we have to also be fighting for the rights of trans women and standing up for them and making sure that we're always providing platforms for them and listening to their concerns in solidarity.”

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“I think culture is where things change in us deeply. But right now, I think that people are very traumatised. They are very scared. Having grown up in a house with a perpetrator who was violent every day and terrorising every day, I feel like that this country is suddenly very much like the house and the family I grew up in. Every day we are glued to our phones, glued to our television; "What is this psychopath going to do next? How will he embarrass us? Who will he bully or hurt or humiliate today? It's so easy to get locked into a syndrome where the perpetrator is ruling your life.”

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“This artistic uprising we had the other night in Washington Square park: there was poetry, there was dance, there was song, there was spoken word; and people left feeling so inspired and so energised. We have to get ourselves out of this syndrome of trauma and being re-traumatised. Art releases this energy. It exposes us to wonder again, and magic again, and ambiguity - all the things we need to really keep going and fighting and resisting in these times.”

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“There is a beautiful expression in Nicaragua: "struggle is the highest form of song". I love that. We are in the struggle. It's like a river. Once you step into it you become the river. It's not, you go out and click on a couple of charities that you believe in, march in the Women's March, and you're done. Struggle becomes your life, transforming a paradigm that is based on domination into a paradigm of co-operation. Fighting for the liberation of women, of people of color, of indigenous people, of lgbtq communities. Fighting to protect immigrants and assuring the safety of refugees.”

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“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.”

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“An activist is someone who cannot help but fight for something. That person is not usually motivated by a need for power or money or fame, but in fact is driven slightly mad by some injustice, some cruelty, some unfairness, so much so that he or she is compelled by some internal moral engine to act to make it better.”

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Book:My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl's Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize
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