quotes from classic

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.

more quotes from Erica Jong

In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving - instead of actually getting up and leaving.

more quotes from Erica Jong

The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must surely be the ghosts of the famous dead in feline disguise.

more quotes from Erica Jong

If you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

more quotes from Erica Jong

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more.

more quotes from Erica Jong

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.

more quotes from Erica Jong

Everyone has a talent, what is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

more quotes from Erica Jong

It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone.

more quotes from Erica Jong

Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.

more quotes from Erica Jong

The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

more quotes from Erica Jong

I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as part of life specifically fear of change and fear of the unknown;and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says, turn back, turn back,you'll die if you venture too far.

more quotes from Erica Jong

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

more quotes from Erica Jong

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.

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To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times. Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

more quotes from Thomas Merton

Look how noble the world is, the lonely-flowing waters, the secret-keeping stones, the flowing sky.

more quotes from Robinson Jeffers

Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us.

more quotes from Robinson Jeffers

The deep dark-shining Pacific leans on the land Feeling his cold strength To the outmost margins.

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Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shorless seas. The good Mate said, Now we must pray, For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say? Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on! My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak! The stout Mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wavewashed his swarthy cheek. What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn? Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!' They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the Mate; This mad sea shows its teeth tonight. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word; What shall we do when hope is gone? The words leapt like a leaping sword; Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on! Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck And peered through darkness. Ah! that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck -- A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its greatest lesson: On! sail on!

more quotes from Joaquin Miller

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, the waking from a weary night of fevers unto truth and light.

more quotes from Joaquin Miller

Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to.

more quotes from Donald Justice