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Quote by Craig Taylor

“On the subway I felt I had a secret knowledge - I probably wasn’t the only one - a secret reason to travel, knowing that this exercise was ultimately for me, all these encounters brought with them lessons on how to live. And also how to shut up. In these years of increasing volume I had so many great reasons to stay quiet and bear witness.”

Quote by Craig Taylor

Book:New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time
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New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time

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Craig Taylor

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“It happens all the time to you fortunate literate people: A maiden who can't read begs you to read a love letter she's received. The letter is so surprising, exciting and disturbing that its owner, though embarrassed at your becoming privy to her most intimate affairs, ashamed and distraught, asks you all the same to read it once more. You read it again, In the end, you've read the letter so many times that both of you have memorized it. Before long, she'll take the letter in her hands and ask, "Did he make that state- ment there?" and "Did he say that here?" As you point to the appropriate places, she'll pore over those passages, still unable to make sense of the words there. As she stares at the curvy letters of the words, sometimes I am so moved I forget that I myself can't read or write and feel the urge to embrace those illiterate maidens whose tears fall to the page.”

TearsLove Letter
Book:My Name Is Red
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“It happens all the time to you fortunate literate people: A maiden who can't read begs you to read a love letter she's received. The letter is so surprising, exciting and disturbing that its owner, though embarrassed at your becoming privy to her most intimate affairs, ashamed and distraught, asks you all the same to read it once more. You read it again, In the end, you've read the letter so many times that both of you have memorized it. Before long, she'll take the letter in her hands and ask, "Did he make that statement there?" and "Did he say that here?" As you point to the appropriate places, she'll pore over those passages, still unable to make sense of the words there. As she stares at the curvy letters of the words, sometimes I am so moved I forget that I myself can't read or write and feel the urge to embrace those illiterate maidens whose tears fall to the page.”

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Book:My Name Is Red
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“We Miss You Mom Our hearts will heal, these tears of Love. It’s been days, we haven’t seen the sun. Dear Lord, we all want to cry. You’re with dad, so it makes us strong. It’s not the same without your smile. We know you’d want us to carry on. Try your best, as we all were one Together, will love, like you taught us. Our hearts will heal, but will need time. To see the moon and feel the sun. As your memories rest on our face. God has taken you to a better place. We Miss you, Mom.”

TearsMomBetter PlacePassing AwayMissing YouTears Of LoveOur HeartsSeeing You
Author:Ron Baratono
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“When I teach "Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies" at UC Riverside, I show a series of documentary films about gendered violence and suffering. These films are about the horrific violence (sexual, physical, emotional) that women endure at the hands of men and the state, about the incredible toll that masculinity takes on men's bodies and mental health (as well as women's bodies and mental health), and about the tedium and unequal division of labor that destroys, or threatens to destroy, astrounding number of heterosexual relationships. Even though I have seen these films a dozen times, I still cry when I watch them, and I have always assumed that I am crying feminist tears. I have assumed I am crying for women. But more recently, something shifted. After wachting the films, rereading the numerous articles about gender oppression I had assigned, and listening to countless stories from straight women students about their abusive or just plain not-feminist male partners, I got in my car and breathed a huge sigh of relief that I am queer. I went home and told my partner, "Thank god we are queer." And I realized that I was crying queer tears for straight people.”

FeminismTearsAbuseQueerRealisationStraight
Book:The Tragedy of Heterosexuality
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