Suzanne Gilbert > Suzanne's Quotes

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Be critical. Women have the right to say: This is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.”
― Tillie Olsen

“There are worse words than cuss-words, there are words that hurt.”
― Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle

“Life is a relentless expulsion from where we come from and an ongoing deportation to alien realms. We are in exile and our greatest dream is to return to the lost land. It is the greatest dream because no matter how long our exile is going to last, the dream will remain. It is the greatest dream because when we finally care only for this dream, then our exile will be over.”
― Franco Santoro

“I used to think that being consumed by the questions of my identity and origins made me an inferior person, even as a child.”
― Mike Chalek, Fraud on the Court: One Adoptee's Fight to Reclaim his Identity

“It is as if a person were a prisoner, and he had not only the intention to escape, which would perhaps be attainable, but also, and indeed simultaneously, the intention to rebuild the prison as a pleasure dome for himself. But if he escapes, he cannot rebuild, and if he rebuilds, he cannot escape.”
― Franz Kafka, Letter to His Father

“... it is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on Earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.”
― Franz Kafka, Letter to His Father

“there is nothing bad to fear; once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. Another world, and you do not have to speak”
― Franz Kafka, Letter to His Father