Nelle

“Now, the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth,
a sorrowin’ song, with the words all wrong, in the many tongues of Earth.
The things a woman wants to say, the tales she longs to tell . . .
they take all day in the tongues of Earth, and half of the night as well.
So nobody listens to what a woman says, except the men of power
who sit and listen right willingly, at a hundred dollars an hour . . .
sayin’ “Who on Earth would want to talk about such foolish things?”
Oh, the tongues of Earth don’t lend themselves to the songs a woman sings!
There’s a whole lot more to a womansong, a whole lot more to learn;
but the words aren’t there in the tongues of Earth, and there’s noplace else to turn. . . .
So the woman they talk, and the men they laugh, and there’s little a woman can say,
but a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, and a hurt that won’t go away.
The women go workin’ the manly tongues, in the craft of makin’ do, but the women that stammer, they’re everywhere, and the wellspoken ones are few. . . .
’Cause the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth;
a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, in the manly tongues of Earth.

(a 20th century ballad, set to an even older tune called “House of the Rising Sun”; this later form was known simply as “Sorrowin’ Song, With the Words All Wrong”)”
― Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue

“Sometimes, focusing on survival is necessary. Sometimes, it is just an excuse for selfishness.”
― Micaiah Johnson, The Space Between Worlds

“Almost every system we exist in is cruel, and it is our job to hold ourselves accountable to a moral center separate from the arbitrary ganglion of laws that, so often, get things wrong.”
― Sabrina Imbler, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures

“I would never accept a world where Hank might be told: “I’m sorry, but while your cancer has a 92% cure rate when treated properly, there just aren’t adequate resources in the world to make that treatment available to you.” That world would be so obviously and unacceptably unjust. So how can I live in a world where Henry and his family are told that? How can I accept a world where over a million people will die this year for want of a cure that has existed for nearly a century?”
― John Green