AJ > AJ's Quotes

“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner's love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother's love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.”
― bell hooks

“Often men who have been emotionally neglected and abused as children by dominating mothers bond with assertive women, only to have their childhood feelings of being engulfed surface. While they could not 'smash their mommy' and still receive love, they find that they can engage in intimate violence with partners who respond to their acting out by trying harder to connect with them emotionally, hoping that the love offered in the present will heal the wounds of the past. If only one party in the relationship is working to create love, to create the space of emotional connection, the dominator model remains in place and the relationship just becomes a site for continuous power struggle.”
― bell hooks

“But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable.”
― June Jordan

“We must make language accountable to the truths of our experience.”
― June Jordan

“I am a woman. And I am seeking an attitude. I am trying to find reasons for pride.”
― June Jordan, Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

“...love without being destroyed...”
― June Jordan, Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

“Freedom is indivisible or it is nothing at all besides sloganeering and temporary, short-sighted, and short-lived advancement for a few.”
― June Jordan, Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

“the motivation behind every sentence is the wish to say something real to somebody real.”
― June Jordan, Some Of Us Did Not Die: Selected Essays

“Something has to be done about the way in which this world is set up.”
― June Jordan, Some Of Us Did Not Die: Selected Essays