Quote

Just as the slave master required the slaves to imitate the image he had of them, so women, who live in a relatively powerless position, politically and economically, feel obliged by a kind of implicit force to live up to culture's image of what is female.

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
Culture
Required
Implicit
Women
Master
Economically
Live
Slave
Imitate
Feel
Image
Relatively
Feels
Female
Obliged
Kind
Masters
Powerless
Position
Slaves
Force
Politically

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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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What is buried in the past of one generation falls to the next to claim.
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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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And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference.
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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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Poetry is a good medium for revolutionary hope.
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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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... This is the paradox of vision: Sharp perception softens our existence in the world.
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Before a secret is told, one can often feel the weight of it in the atmosphere.
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Waging war is not a primary physical need.
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Yes we are devilish that is true we cackle. Yes we are dark like the soil and wild like the animals. And we turn to each other and stare into this darkness. We find it beautiful. We find this darkness irresistible. We cease all hiding.
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Language is filled with words for deprivation images so familiar it is hard to crack language open into that other country the country of being.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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A story is told as much by silence as by speech.
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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.
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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