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In the system of chivalry, men protect women against men. This is not unlike the protection relationship which [organized crime] established with small businesses in the early part of this century. Indeed, chivalry is an age-old protection racket which depends for its existence on rape.

Susan Griffin

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Susan Griffin
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: January 26
Author
Environmentalist
Feminist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Susan Griffin
Men
Relationship
Established
Century
Organized
System
Protection
Small
Indeed
Rape
Existence
Early
Chivalry
Age
Crime
Racket
Part
Depends
Unlike
Women
Protect
Businesses

More quotes by Susan Griffin

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I know I am made from this earth, as my mother's hands were made from this earth, as her dreams came from this earth and all that I know, I know in this earth, the body of the bird, this pen, this paper, these hands, this tongue speaking, all that I know speaks to me through this earth.
Susan Griffin
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Each life reverberates in every other life. Whether or not we acknowledge it, we are connected, woven together in our needs and desires, rich and poor, men and women alike.
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The mind can forget what the body, defined by each breath, subject to the heart beating, does not.
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Self-reflection is a desire felt by the body, as well as the soul. As dancers, healers, and saints all know, when you turn your attention toward even the simplest physical process - breath, the small movements of the eyes, the turning of a foot in midair - what might have seemed dull matter suddenly awakens.
Susan Griffin
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This earth is my sister I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am. How we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.
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I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever.
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But still, the other voice, the intuitive, returns, like grass forcing its way through concrete.
Susan Griffin
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Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.
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One can find traces of every life in each life.
Susan Griffin
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How many small decisions accumulate to form a habit? What a multitude of decisions, made by others, in other times, must shape our lives now.
Susan Griffin
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I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I begin to detect its dimensions. As I work the prose, shift the verbs, look for new adjectives, a different rhythm, syntax, something new begins to come to the surface.
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Every time I deny myself I commit a kind of suicide.
Susan Griffin
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Philosophy means nothing unless it is connected to birth, death, and the continuance of life. Anytime you are going to build a society that works, you have to begin from nature and the body.
Susan Griffin
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I am not so different in my history of abandonment from anyone else after all. We have all been split away from the earth, each other, ourselves.
Susan Griffin
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At the museum a troubled woman destroys a sand painting meticulously created over days by Tibetan monks. The monks are not disturbed. The work is a meditation. They simply begin again.
Susan Griffin
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There is always a time to make right what is wrong.
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... This is the paradox of vision: Sharp perception softens our existence in the world.
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we are nature. We are nature seeing nature. We are nature with a concept of nature. Nature weeping. Nature speaking of nature to nature.
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What always seems miraculous is when aesthetic necessities yield an insight which otherwise I would have missed.
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A story is told as much by silence as by speech.
Susan Griffin