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Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich Quotes

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Famous Louise Erdrich Quotes

“We have these earthly bodies. We don't know what they want. Half the time, we pretend they are under our mental thumb, but that is the illusion of the healthy and the protected. Of sedate lovers. For the body has emotions it conceives and carries through without concern for anyone or anything else. Love is one of those, I guess. Going back to something very old knit into the brain as we were growing. Hopeless. Scorching. Ordinary.”

KnowsWantBodyLove IsEmotionBrainHalfGrowingLoversHealthyOrdinaryIllusionConcernCarrieHopelessProtectedThumbsScorching
Author:Louise Erdrich
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“To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.”

KnowsMenHumansSometimesWholeMightEyeTurnsPrayerEmotionPiecesTearsPrayingSpeechCreatorTensionBlanketGarmentsNeedlesStitchesSalvage
Author:Louise Erdrich
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“Coming down off the trail, I am lost in my own thoughts and unprepared when a bear chugs across the path just before it gives out on the gravel road. I am so distracted that I keep walking towards the bear. I only stop when it rears, stands on hind legs, and stares at me, sensitive nose pressed into the air, weak eyes searching. I have never been this close to a wild bear before, but I am not frightened. There is no menace in its stance; it is not even curious. The bear seems to know who or what I am. The bear is not impressed.”

KnowsGivingSeemsEyeLostMy OwnPathAirBearsWalkingWeakLegsCuriousNosesStaringSensitiveFrightenedImpressedTrailsDistractedMenaceStanceUnpreparedGravelNot Impressed
Author:Louise Erdrich
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“In our own beginnings, we are formed out of the body's interior landscape. For a short while, our mothers' bodies are the boundaries and personal geography which are all that we know of the world...Once we no longer live beneath our mother's heart, it is the earth with which we form the same dependent relationship, relying...on its cycles and elements, helpless without its protective embrace.”

KnowsWorldHeartBodyEarthFormMotherElementsEmbraceAppreciationBoundariesLandscapeDependentCyclesHelplessInteriorsGeographyProtective
Author:Louise Erdrich
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