Sandra M. Gilbert > Quotes

“A life of feminine submission, of 'contemplative purity,' is a life of silence, a life that has no pen and no story, while a life of female rebellion, of 'significant action,' is a life that must be silenced, a life whose monstrous pen tells a terrible story.”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

“Told often enough that they are the source of sin, women may well begin feeling guilty as they accept the necessity for penance. Taught effectively enough that they are irrelevant to the important processes of society, women begin to feel they are living invisibly.”
― Sandra M. Gilbert Susan Gubar

“Why write wrong if the writing won’t right the wrong? (90)”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve: A Cultural Study

“. . . I understand that I was writing (recording) as well as seeking to right (to rectify) the wrong, and now, as I retell the tale, I realize that ‘I am still at the same subject’ still engaged in the same fearful and fierce activity–writing and seeking to right a mortal wrong. (86-87)”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve: A Cultural Study

“A life of feminine submission, of 'contemplative purity,' a life of silence, a life that has no pen and no story, while a life of female rebellion, of 'significant action,' is a life that must be silenced, a life whose monstrous pen tells a terrible story.”
― Sandra M. Gilbert Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

“what is poetry, how can I even think of meter, metaphor, as you lie dying, swollen & agonized in your pretty gown”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Aftermath: Poems

“If (or rather when) you move to death, you’ll learn its language through the educational process known as total immersion. (7)”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve: A Cultural Study

“till cancer gobbled Bob's esophagus”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Aftermath: Poems

“my grief followed you a whimpering spaniel”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Aftermath: Poems

“Because she couldn't knit she just crocheted”
― Sandra M. Gilbert, Aftermath: Poems