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Ma Rainey: My audience wants...

Ma Rainey: My audience wants...

My audience wants to see me beautifully gowned, and I have spared no expense or pains . . . For I feel that the best...

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Judy Collins: I sang in...

Judy Collins: I sang in...

I sang in the coffee houses . . . in the early 60's with no idea of success in terms of records or television. I just...

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Alice Childress: Who wants to...

Alice Childress: Who wants to...

Who wants to live with one foot in hell just for the sake of nostalgia? Our time is forever...

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Jessie Redmon Fauset: There is no...

Jessie Redmon Fauset: There is no...

There is no peace with you
Nor any rest!
Your presence is a torture to the brain.
Your words are barbed...

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Sonia Sanchez: The joy of...

Sonia Sanchez: The joy of...

The joy of poetry is that it will wait for you. Novels don't wait for you. Characters change. But poetry will wait. I...

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Maureen Duffy: The pain of...

Maureen Duffy: The pain of...

The pain of love is the pain of being alive. It's a perpetual wound.

Source:...

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Sarah Josepha Hale: She was a...

Sarah Josepha Hale: She was a...

She was a weak woman - too highly elated in prosperity, too easily depressed by adversity - not considering that both...

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Emily Dickinson: To fight aloud...

Emily Dickinson: To fight aloud...

To fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom
The Cavalry of...

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Jane Austen: An annuity is...

Jane Austen: An annuity is...

An annuity is a very serious business.

Source: (Mrs Dashwood) Sense and...

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Mary McCarthy: Labor is work...

Mary McCarthy: Labor is work...

Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field,...

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Margaret Atwood: Popular art is...

Margaret Atwood: Popular art is...

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

Source: AQuestion...

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Margaret Atwood: Gardening is not...

Margaret Atwood: Gardening is not...

Gardening is not a rational act.

Source: Bluebeard's Egg/ 1986
-- Margaret...

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Joyce Carol Oates: Our house is...

Joyce Carol Oates: Our house is...

Our house is made of glass . . . and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect...

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Djuna Barnes: To love without...

Djuna Barnes: To love without...

To love without criticism is to be betrayed.

Source: Nightwood, 1937.
-- Djuna...

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Angela Carter: Reading a book...

Angela Carter: Reading a book...

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. . . . You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience...

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Isak Dinesen: Who tells a...

Isak Dinesen: Who tells a...

Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.

Source: In The Speaker's...

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Jean Stafford: Indeed, the sole...

Jean Stafford: Indeed, the sole...

Indeed, the sole criticism of him was that he prolonged beyond the point of decency, his look of nuptial rapture and...

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Jean Stafford: (My bounded brain...

Jean Stafford: (My bounded brain...

(My bounded brain was as) unalterable as a ball.

Source: In ...As One Mad With...

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Toni Cade Bambara: Writing, like dreams,...

Toni Cade Bambara: Writing, like dreams,...

Writing, like dreams, confronts, pushes you up against the evasions, self-deceptions, investments in opinions and...

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Ellen Glasgow: No idea is...

Ellen Glasgow: No idea is...

No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be...

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