Quotes of the Week

2 to 8 June 2024

Image description: pink peony about to bloom. background is a blurred peony in full bloom.

Thanks to all who have contributed to the quotes of the week post this week. These quotes come from inspiring and insightful writing on Substack, social media posts or my own research. The quotes resonated for me because of things I am dealing with in my life and creative practice. I hope that something resonates for you.

Rabbit hole alert

Image description: rabbit in the middle of a grassy field beside a red circle with a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark inside the triangle. TEXT: Caution: rabbit holes ahead.

Resonate comes from "resound, produce or exhibit resonance," 1856, in anatomy; in early use especially of auscultation, from Latin resonatus, past participle of resonare "to sound again" but didn’t take on the figurative sense in reference to feelings and emotions until 1978. [Etymology Online]

Sunday

“Disabled people have always existed, whether the word disability is used or not. To me, disability is not a monolith, nor is it a clear-cut binary of disabled and non-disabled. Disability is mutable and ever evolving. Disability is both apparent and non-apparent…Being visible and claiming a disabled identity brings risks as much as it brings pride.”   Alice Wong, Introduction to Disability Visibility, First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century,  as quoted by

Jane Burn

in the University of the Self #16.

Monday

Ethical difficulty arises when poets write about subjects superficially. Poets must know their subjects better than their best readers. They must know what they don't know, and they should not assume that their having lived through an experience or having seen it means that they know it well enough to say something new.

Natasha Sajé, Poetry & Ethics: Writing About Others, Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWWP), December 2009.

Tuesday

Still, when I think of early friendships, I think not of people but of books. Books were my friends, and more often than not, the characters in the books were my imaginary friends, who stepped out of the pages and walked wth me to school or sat in bed with me, talking when I was meant to be asleep. What I mean is reading was my friends. And also I mean that I learned about friendship - patience, slowness, listening, care - from reading and from reading about friendship between people.

Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life.

Wednesday

When we live with pride, we know and claim our place in the world. We cultivate balance. We don’t overcompensate or sell ourselves short. We don’t overshadow or oppress others. We know what we have to offer. We can accept what others have to give.

T. Thorn Coyle, To Live with Pride, these days, June 1, 2024

Thursday

Against Meaning

Everything I do is against meaning.

That is partly deliberate, mostly spontaneous.

Wherever I am I think I’m somewhere else.

This is partly to confuse the police, mostly to

avoid myself es-

pecially when i have to confirm

the obvious which always

sits on a little table and draws a lot

of attention to itself.

So much so that no one sees the chairs

and the girl sitting on one of them.

With the obvious one is always at the movies.

The other obvious which the loud obvious

conceals

is not obvious enough to merit a

surrender of the will.

But through a little hole in the boring report

God watches us faking it.

Andrei Codrescu, Against Meaning, Postmodern American Poetry, A Norton Anthology edited by Paul Hoover, 1994

Friday

I became a writer precisely because I wanted to make things up. To spin yarns. To lie my head off. And it isn’t memory that interests me most as a writer but rather invention. I became a writer so that I could use my imagination. 

Sigrid Nunez as quoted by Emily Chenoweth in Writing What You Don’t Know, Good Ideas, May 30, 2024

Saturday

Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.”

Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer, A Memoir.

If you have inspiring and intriguing quotes to share, please reach out. I’d love to include them here.

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