Joann Schatz > Joann's Quotes

“There is nothing more real or more practical in this universe than mysticism. Remember that…and it’s usually sitting right smack in the middle of grief.”
― Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“I don't think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it's only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“I probably have not killed anyone in America because I write, I've maintained good controls over myself by writing.”
― Sonia Sanchez

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”
― Virginia Woolf

“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
― Mary Oliver

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
― Mary Oliver

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”
― Mary Oliver

“I should address the word “forgiveness.” It’s got a bad rap. It’s become patronizing, whitewashed, upper-middle-class, a suburban kind of word in our culture that is used more often to vilify than to redeem. It’s #blessed for the twenty-first century. I hate this because to the divine, it’s radical. This word sticks in my craw the way the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” does. When someone says, “I’ll pray for you,” I feel like they’re saying, “From my platform of purity, I’ll pray for your iniquity.” When they say, “I forgive you,” they’re saying, “From my position of righteousness, I will accept you even though you’re wrong and inadequate.”
― Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses

“With these words I have healed deep wounds and feelings of inadequacy within myself. If you get this far... if you're still reading this: Write your life. No matter how young or old. Even if you feel like you're not interesting enough. Do it. Believe me you are. Your life is in fact twisted and beautiful and you'll find that as you peel back the layers, the unexpected side effect is that it feels wonderful to be know. Even if it's just by you.”
― Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses

“I have apologized a lot and been apologized to…but I’ve never kept my mouth shut and then wished I hadn’t.”
― Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses

“& so what–if my feathers
are burning. I
never asked for flight.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“The truth does not change whether it is seen or unseen, it whispered in her mind. A thing which is happening happens whether you look at it or not. And yes, maybe it is easier not to look. Maybe it is easier to say because you do not see it, it is not happening. Maybe you can pull the stone out of the pool and put the moon back together.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Pet

“I know that I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it. And I get it. The tortured artist is the artist that gets remembered for all time, particularly if they if they either perish or overcome. But the truth is that so many of us are stuck in the middle. So many of us begin tortured and end tortured, with only brief bursts of light in between, and I'd rather have average art and survival than miracles that come at the cost of someone's life.”
― Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays

“It’s easy to convince people that you are really okay if they don’t have to actually hear what rattles you in the private silence of your own making.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“Home is where the heart begins, but not where the heart stays.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays

“No matter how obsessed you've been with your own vanishing, there will always be someone who wants you whole.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays

“Girl, every choice we make is a new tomorrow. Whole worlds waiting to be born.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“Time to balance the world on the tip of a sword.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“Folks like to talk about revenge like it’s a righteous thing but it’s just hate in a nicer suit,”
― S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears

“When the people you love are gone, it's the things they've touched that keep them alive in your mind”
― S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears

“When I listened to her, I understood: You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“They seemed angry that I’d made myself vulnerable, more than the fact that he’d acted on my vulnerability.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name