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Joanna Russ Quotes

1937–2011 United States

Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism and is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire.

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Random Joanna Russ quote

44 quotes

Revision, self-criticism, change-all these are essential for any art form to maintain a sense of vitality.

You have to have conventions and rigid symbols and patterns before you can upset them.

Lady Sappho in curly gold letters is the name of the book I will (will not) write. (beginning of "Everyday Depressions")

Extra(ordinary) People (1984)

The point is to show how small the greatest of disasters can appear when seen from a distance of several billion miles or years.

Real artists, it seems to me, are those who don't repeat themselves.

Backtalk (1993)

I often read something and I say, “That's a goddamn lie. I'm going to tell the truth."

Backtalk (1993)

the demand for "attractiveness," like the existence of pornography, is sexual harassment, nothing more and nothing less.

Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts: Feminist Essays (1985)

You notice that some of the stuff by men that I would call certainly pornographic, Henry Miller, for instance, is taken very seriously. It’s all so obvious. When women do it, it’s silly, when men do it, it’s serious.

Journal of Popular Romance Studies (2011)

This is the tale of the Abbess Radegunde and what happened when the Norsemen came. (first line of "Souls")

Extra(ordinary) People (1984)

Sex, when it's good (but how often is it that?) is like nothing on earth. So silly, so grand. So indecent, so matter-of-fact. (p95)

On Strike Against God (1980)

After a while you tame your interior monsters, it's only natural. I don't mean that it ever stops; but it stops mattering. (p8)

On Strike Against God (1980)

Either you write what is essentially autobiographical or you have to do something else. You cannot imitate a genre which was intended to exclude you.

Backtalk (1993)

The idea that artists should be willing to push something as far as it will go, until they watch it crack, has always appealed to me.

In the summer of 192- there occurred to me the most extraordinary event of my life. (beginning of "The Extraordinary Voyages of Amélie Bertrand")

The Zanzibar Cat (1983)

It's the people who are on the "wrong" side of the equation in all these splits who are making theory and doing coalition work and are absolutely crucial for our future.

Backtalk (1993)

How multiform the universe is, how branching, how structured, how crystalline! Mountain ranges, clouds, trees, human relations, human literary inventions-how fractal they all are! (Introduction)

To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction (1995)

What we have to watch out for, to keep from being suckered in, is when someone purports to explain not one particular concrete thing, but the way in which a whole species works.

Dream Makers Volume II (1983)

Let's be for us. For goodness' sakes, let's not be against us. (p107)

On Strike Against God (1980)

We need to force the reader always to come back to where we all are. Otherwise, it's pure game playing, escapism. And you fall out with an awful shock.

Courage is willful hope. (p86)

On Strike Against God (1980)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Joanna Russ (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.