#rita

If we knew how to find the lost, we would know how to rediscover the parts of our minds left behind in battle. ↗

— Margarita Engle

#poetry #the-surrender-tree #war #freedom

If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings. ↗

— Rita Dove

#rita-dove #imagination

Trying to imagine E. M. Forster, who found Ulysses indecorous, at a London performance of Lenny Bruce—to which in fact he was once taken. Trying to imagine the same for a time-transported Nathaniel Hawthorne—who during his first visit to Europe was even shocked by the profusion of naked statues. ↗

— David Markson

#lenny-bruce #m-forster #nathaniel-hawthorne #norms #puritanism

How simple life is. It's as simple as this: you're hungry and you eat, you're full and you shit. Between eating and shitting, that's where human life is found. - (Houseboy + Maid, in Tales from Djakarta) ↗

— Pramoedya Ananta Toer

#houseboy-and-maid #jongos-dan-babu #life-between-eating-and-shitting #pramoedya #tales-from-djakarta

Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life. ~ Bran ↗

— Patricia Briggs

#heritage #identity #upbringing #life

weren't we all the same as children?" eiko asked. "all of us, destined to become beautiful brides in fluffy white dresses!" she giggled to herself. "where did we go wrong?" isn't that what keeps life interesting?" i replied. "and who knows? next year you could be somebody's wife. no one knows what will happen." sometimes i think it would be wonderful just to stay the way i am forever, just kick back and space out during the afternoon thinking about all the exciting things that the night will bring, all the naughty things i might take part in." she snickered again. well," i said, "aren't you the happy one." she squinted her tiny nose and laughed. dawn was breaking as we said good-bye. i saw her off by watching her small body disappear into the background, her high heels clapping along, echoing in the early morning city. my drunkenness, the sunrise, the bright sky, and a friend who was leaving. if i had died in my fall i would have missed that morning - that splendid sunrise over tokyo. ↗

— Banana Yoshimoto

#beauty

Indeed upon much that may have to say, I expect rather the charitable judgment than the full assent of those whose approbation I could most wish to win. ↗

— Asa Gray

#assent #charitable #could #expect #full