Rhiannon Johnson > Rhiannon's Quotes

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen

“The Chorus Line:
A Rope-Jumping Rhyme

we are the maids
the ones you killed
the ones you failed

we danced in air
our bare feet twitched
it was not fair

with every goddess, queen, and bitch
from there to here
you scratched your itch

we did much less
than what you did
you judged us bad

you had the spear
you had the word
at your command

we scrubbed the blood
of our dead
paramours from floors, from chairs

from stairs, from doors,
we knelt in water
while you stared

at our bare feet
it was not fair
you licked our fear

it gave you pleasure
you raised your hand
you watched us fall

we danced on air
the ones you failed
the ones you killed”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“Sections in the bookstore

- Books You Haven't Read
- Books You Needn't Read
- Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading
- Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written
- Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
- Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
- Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait 'Til They're Remaindered
- Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback
- Books You Can Borrow from Somebody
- Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too
- Books You've Been Planning to Read for Ages
- Books You've Been Hunting for Years Without Success
- Books Dealing with Something You're Working on at the Moment
- Books You Want to Own So They'll Be Handy Just in Case
- Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer
- Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves
- Books That Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
- Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time to Re-read
- Books You've Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It's Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

“When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.”
― Bette Davis

“I hate men who are afraid of women's strength.”
― Anaïs Nin, Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

“Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?

“No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body.”
― Margaret Sanger

“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”
― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

“Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.”
― Erica Jong

“The first duty of wine is to be red. Don't talk to me of your white wines.”
― Henry Murger

“We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
― Leonora Carrington

“She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.”
― Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Pest

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson

“I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz

“It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.”
― W.G. Sebald, Vertigo

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”
― Amy Bloom

“A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.”
― Bill Watterson

“I don't think a tough question is disrespectful.”
― Helen Thomas

“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.”
― Betty Friedan

“I am different, not less.”
― Temple Grandin

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”
― Ray Bradbury

“One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.”
― Mary Renault, The Persian Boy

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”
― Roald Dahl

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring