15,266 books
—
17,480 voters
Valarie
https://www.goodreads.com/valkyriejmu
For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.
Barbara liked this
“The paradise is here. Paradise is right in front of us. In capitalism what is engineered is longing, engineered longing and desire in us for what can be in the future. It’s always about the next product, the next big thing. You look at clothes and you always see some hot, sexy, fabulous couple wearing those jeans—the jeans, i.e., the love. Everything’s all hooked into the seduction. And when you wake up you don’t actually look like that, but the reality is delicious in its own messy, human way. I think we’re always comparing the messy, human to that, and to celebrity culture, so whatever this is doesn’t come up right. Come on. What if we actually were content with our lives? What if we actually knew this was paradise? It would be very hard to control us.”
― Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
― Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people. As members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human difference between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.”
― Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
― Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
“Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes. I am responsible for educating teachers who dismiss my children’s culture in school. Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”
― Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
― Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
“If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.”
― The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
― The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
One Book Per Week: 2013
— 111 members
— last activity Jun 16, 2017 03:12PM
Daily reading, whether a newspaper, essay, or novel, provides intellectual sustenance and strengthens our critical thinking, debate, and reasoning ski ...more
DC Public Library
— 622 members
— last activity Oct 05, 2016 06:59AM
A book group hosted by the DC Public Library. Join us to discuss and discover great books!
Valarie’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Valarie’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Valarie
Lists liked by Valarie









































