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Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler Books

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The Good Body

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The Apology

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“Les pères qui ont déchaîné leur furie implacable sur le monde. Un chaîne de généraux, de conquérants, de PDG, d'escrocs, de tyrans, de voleurs, d'exploiteurs en tout genre et d'imbéciles. Ils meurent et meurent encore ici, de toute éternité et pour toujours. Voilà mes pères. Voilà les hommes. Avec l'allégeance pour vocation ultime. L'obéissance supplante la logique, la moralité ou la raison. Ils m'ont appelé ici. M'exhortant à cesser ces enfantillages avec toi pour reprendre de plein droit ma place dans la hiérarchie masculine. Quelle absurdité. Qu'est-ce qu'un homme banni du royaume des hommes. Peut-être ne peux-tu pas comprendre cette loyauté. C'est elle qui nous donne un but, un sens et une place. Quel territoire arpenterons-nous après l'exil ? Adam a désobéi une fois et on sait ce que ça a donné.”

“I was always reaching for love, but it turns out love doesn't involve reaching. I was always dreaming of the big love, the ultimate love, the love that would sweep me off my feet or 'break open the hard shell of my lesser self' (Daisaku Ikeda). The love that would bring on my surrender. The love that would inspire me to give everything. As I lay there, it occurred to me that while I had been dreaming of this big love, this ultimate love, I had, without realizing it, been giving and receiving love for most of my life. As with the trees that were right in front of me, I had been unable to value what sustained me, fed me, and gave me pleasure. And as with the trees, I was so busy waiting for and imagining and reaching and dreaming and preparing for this huge big love that I had totally missed the beauty and perfection of the soft-boiled eggs and Bolivian quinoa.”

“In the nineteenth century, girls who learned to develop orgasmic capacity by masturbation were regarded as medical problems. Often they were 'treated' or 'corrected' by amputation or cautery of the clitoris or 'miniature chastity belts,' sewing the vaginal lips together to put the clitoris out of reach, and even castration by surgical removal of the ovaries. But there are no references in the medical literature to the surgical removal of testicles or amputation of the penis to stop masturbation in boys. In the United States, the last recorded clitoridectomy for curing masturbation was performed in 1948-- on a five-year-old girl.”

“So much of life, it seems to me, is the framing and naming of things. I had been so busy creating a future of love that I never identified the life I was living as the life of love, because up until then I had never felt entitled enough or free enough or, honestly, brave enough to embrace my own narrative. Ironically, I had gone ahead and created the life I secretly must have wanted, but it had to be covert and off the record. Chemo was burning away the wrapper and suddenly I was in my version of life. Thus began the ecstasy - the joy, the pure joy of a spiritual pirate who finds the secret treasure.”

“What if, instead of being afraid of even talking about death, we saw our lives in some ways as preparation for it. What if we were taught to ponder it and reflect on it and talk about it and enter it and rehearse it and try it on?What if, rather than being cast out and defined by some terminal category, you were identified as someone in the middle of a transformation that could deepen your soul, open your heart, and all the while-even if and particularly when you were dying-you would be supported by and be part of a community?”

“I think there are so many children being brought up in some form of violence, be it violence of poverty or sexism or racism or homophobia or transphobia. That violence takes a life to transform or overcome. I don't think people should be spending their lives dealing with that. I think people should be thriving, playing, creating, evolving.”