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Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy Quotes

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Famous Marge Piercy Quotes

“Depressions, local and larger strikes, boom times, wars, repressions, all impact a life as do epidemics such as AIDS and pollution that may take years off a person's life. We all, whether we like it or not and whether we acknowledge it or not, are impacted by the racial attitudes we carry within us, and experience in some form every time we turn on the television, the radio, go to a movie, read a magazine or a newspaper, or walk down the street.”

YearsMayPersonsWarFormTurnsWalksAttitudeStreetsTelevisionImpactRadioStrikesAidsNewspapersLocalsMagazinesAcknowledgePollutionTurn-onRepressionEpidemics
Author:Marge Piercy
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“I was a working class Jewish girl. In my girlhood, anti-Semitism was a daily fact of life in Detroit. I did not come from people who had many options in their lives or many choices open to them. I was a girl in a family in which women were, as in society at large, very much second-class citizens. I did not see why I should accept these forced limitations without a fight. Being free to make my own choices thus became very important to me at an early age.”

PeopleShouldImportantFactsAgeChoicesGirlFightingMy OwnAcceptingClassCitizensLimitationWorking ClassDetroitFacts Of LifeAnti SemitismBeing FreeMy GirlGirlhoodSecond Class Citizens
Author:Marge Piercy
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“One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.”

GivingLooksLongEnoughAbleStarsUnderstandingTreeRocksFieldsPoetBirdGuidesTinyButterflyMammalsBest GiftWildflowersReptilesAmphibians
Author:Marge Piercy
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“Listening is terribly important if you want to understand anything about people. You listen to what they say and how they say it, what they share and what they are reticent about, what they tell truthfully and what they lie about, what they hope for and what they fear, what they are proud of, what they are ashamed of. If you don't pay attention to other people, how can you understand their choices through time and how their stories come out?”

PeopleIfsWantImportantStoriesLyingChoicesPayAttentionShareListeningProudPay AttentionAshamedRough Times
Author:Marge Piercy
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“I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.”

PeopleWorldWantWellsDoneHandsMovingCommonFireFieldsShapesTasksCleanRhythmDustBagsEvidentHarvestMudWell DoneParlor
Book:Circles on the Water
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“Praise our choices, sister, for each doorway open to us was taken by squads of fighting women who paid years of trouble and struggle, who paid their wombs, their sleep, their lives that we might walk through these gates upright. Doorways are sacred to women for we are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out. Freedom is our real abundance.”

YearsRealMightChoicesFightingSleepWalksStruggleTakenTroublePaidPraiseSacredAbundanceGatesWombDoorwaysOur ChoicesSquad
Author:Marge Piercy
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“We're herded into schools and terrified into behaving. Taught how we're supposed to pretend to be, taught to parrot all kinds of nonsense at the flick of a switch, taught to keep our heads down and our elbows in and shut off our minds and shut off our sex. We learn we can't even piss when we have to. That's how we learn to be plastic and dumb.”

MindKindSchoolSexTaughtDown AndAll KindsDumbNonsensePlasticTerrifiedElbowsParrots
Book:Dance the Eagle to Sleep
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“Attention is love, what we must give children, mothers, fathers, pets, our friends, the news, the woes of others. What we want to change we curse and then pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can with eyes and hands and tongue. If you can't bless it, get ready to make it new.”

IfsWantGivingChildrenHandsEyeMotherFatherAttentionReadyNewsPicksToolsTongueCursePetBlessWoe
Book:The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme
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“A strong woman is a woman who craves love like oxygen or she turns blue choking. A strong woman is a woman who loves strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong in words, in action, in connection, in feeling; she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she enacts it as the wind fills a sail.”

NeedsFeelingsActionYoungTurnsStrongWindStonesConnectionsBlueSailStrong WomenTerrifiedOxygenCraveChokeNot Strong
Book:Moon Is Always Female
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