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Jami Attenberg

Jami Attenberg Quotes

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Famous Jami Attenberg Quotes

“Girl, where you at," he texts me whenever he likes. And sometimes I am at work and sometimes I am walking out of yoga class and sometimes I am on a date and sometimes I am at a museum feeling nostalgic for my failed past as an artist and sometimes I am with a friend eating a big, delicious, expensive dinner and sometimes I am walking on the waterfront ducking European tourists asking directions and sometimes I am sitting on a park bench in the sunshine reading the paper and sometimes I am at home and it is a Sunday night and I am drinking a bottle of wine by myself, alone but not lonely, but definitely alone. And wherever I am, I text him back right away. Because I want him to know. Where I am at.”

“Look, you had it easier than me,' she says. 'You think Nana and Papa were busy supporting women's rights? No, they wanted me to meet a nice man and get married and cook and clean for him and give them grandchildren, and that's it. You were born into a world where feminism existed and was readily available to you. I had to acquire that knowledge. I didn't know I could be on my own.”

“The permanence of my impermanence. I stand in possession of it. I stand before him at the entrance to a subway station, in possession of nothing but myself. Myself is everything, I want to tell him. But to him it is nothing, because that's how he feels about himself right now. He is alone, and so he is nothing. How do I explain to him that what applies to him does not apply to me? His context is not my context. How do you blow up the bus you've been forced to ride your entire life? It wasn't your fault there were no other means of transportation available.”

“Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women.”

“And we all get mired in the bullshit, the personality quirks, the personality disorders (ours and everyone else's), the jealousy, the disappointment, the blocks, the financial struggle, our egos, I do it too, I do it too, but if you can't remember it is all about the work and nothing else then I can't help you and you can't help yourself and you will lose. I promise you. You will lose.”