“The telephone conversation is, by its very nature, reactive, not reflective. Immediacy is its prime virtue. ... The letter, written in absorbed solitude, is an act of faith: it assumes the presence of humanity: world and self are generated from within: loneliness is courted, not feared. To write a letter is to be alone with my thoughts in the conjured presence of another person. I keep myself imaginative company. I occupy the empty room.” WorldWritingPersonsSelfHumanityRoomsCompanyVirtueWrittenLonelinessSolitudeConversationEmptyLettersAssumingPrimeTelephonesMy ThoughtsImaginativeImmediacyEmpty Rooms Author:Vivian Gornick
“Whatever a scientist is doing - reading, cooking, talking, playing - science thoughts are always there at the edge of the mind. They are the way the world is taken in; all that is seen is filtered through an everpresent scientific musing.” WorldWayMindScienceReadingTalkingTakenScientistCookingEdgesMusings Book:Women in Science: Then and Now Source: Women in Science: Then and Now
“When I work I feel more alive than under any other circumstances. There's not an 'I love you' in the world that can match it. I feel safe, excited, at peace, erotic, centered. Nothing can touch me.” WorldFeelsWorkAliveLove YouCircumstancesSafeExcitedEroticTouch Me Author:Vivian Gornick
“Scientists do what writers do. They also live with an active interiority, only the ongoing speculation in their heads is about relations in the physical world rather than the psychological one.” WorldScientistRelationActivePsychologicalSpeculationOngoing Book:Women in Science: Then and Now Source: Women in Science: Then and Now
“The point of women's liberation is not to stand at the door of the male world, beating our fists, and crying, 'Let me in, damn you, let me in!' The point is to walk away from the world and concentrate on creating a new woman.” WorldWalksDoorsCryCreatingLet MeMalesLiberationDamnFistsDamn You Author:Vivian Gornick
“When the whole world is writing letters, it's easy to lap into the quiet within, tell the story of an hour, keep alive the narrating inner life. To be alone in the presence of one's thought is not a value, only a common practice.” ThinkingWorldWritingWholeStoriesValuesEasyHoursCommonPracticeAliveSolitudeQuietLettersWhole WorldThoughtfulLapInner Life Author:Vivian Gornick
“The memoirist, like the poet and the novelist, must engage the world, because engagement makes experience, experience makes wisdom, and finally it's the wisdom-or rather the movement toward it-that counts.” WorldWritingMovementPoetNovelistsEngagement Book:The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative Source: The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative
