13 quotes
Sad is the country that requires women's studies, black and ethnic studies.
Kay Bonetti in 1986 article included in Conversations with Grace Paley (1997)
She would not exchange her solitude for anything. Never again to be forced to move to the rhythms of others.
Tell Me a Riddle (1960)
I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.
"It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched."
Tell Me a Riddle (1960)
"But there is more – to rebel against what will not let life be.”
Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974)
Public libraries were my sustenance and my college.
"I learned a lot being around cows," she recalled in 2002. "It seemed to me they were so damned patient."
Almost no mothers as almost no part-time, part-self persons-have created enduring literature... so far.
Silences (1978)
There is reconciliation in the house where your mother lies weeping (chapter 6, p130)
Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974)
There are "hidden injuries of class" whether you are conscious of it or not.
Interview with The Progressive Magazine (1999)
It's hard for me to talk about the terrible things that have happened in my lifetime because they didn't need to be.
Interview with The Progressive Magazine (1999)
The power and the need to create, over and beyond reproduction, is native in both women and men. Where the gifted among women (and men) have remained mute, or have never attained full capacity, it is because of circumstances, inner or outer, which oppose the needs of creation.
Silences (1978)
"It wasn't just a little while. I didn't cry. Three times I called you, just three times, and then I ran downstairs to open the door so you could come faster. The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked."
I Stand Here Ironing (1956)