Cindy > Cindy's Quotes

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”
― Paulo Freire

“But she was aware that the story you think you know is never the real one. She”
― Lily King, Euphoria

“imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

“Talk of backlash is just one of the many disguises. In these moments, the country reaches the edge of fundamental transformation and pulls back out of a fear that genuine democracy will mean white people will have to lose something—that they will have to give up their particular material and symbolic standing in the country. That fear, Baldwin understood, is at the heart of the moral psychology of the nation and of the white people who have it by the throat. That fear, not the demand for freedom, arrests significant change and organizes American life. We see it in the eyes of Trump supporters. One hears it in the reticence of the Democratic Party to challenge them directly.”
― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

“How, what, and who we celebrate reflects what and who we value, and how we celebrate our past reflects ultimately who we take ourselves to be today.”
― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

“in the end, we have to allow this “innocent” idea of white America to die. It is irredeemable, but that does not mean we are too.”
― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

“Fionn learned that to make a poet you need: Fire of Song, Light of Knowledge and the Art of Recitation,”
― Niall Williams, History of the Rain

“Emily Dickinson reminds us what it’s like to be alive. And when she does—she takes our breath away.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“I am also struck by how much the poet knew her own mind, both in terms of her need for solitude and what she hoped to achieve in her work.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“Karen Dandurand’s view that Dickinson did not publish because poetry to her was never finished. She looked upon her verse as constantly in play and the work of a lifetime. Her attitude is reminiscent of Paul Valéry’s assessment: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“If we read Dickinson’s letters looking for action in the usual sense—where she traveled, what chores she did, whom she encountered—we find some details for reconstructing her days, but not many. But if we read the letters for what the poet thought, her interior world opens.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“In reporting on commencements at Amherst and Mount Holyoke, newspapers listed students who read prizewinning essays as well as the number of seniors who had professed their faith.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“Edward Dickinson knew firsthand how deeply religion weighed on students’ minds. He could remember walking past doorways of student lodging in New Haven and hearing young men’s prayers. He kept letters his parents wrote—letters imploring him to take advantage of Yale’s revivals and pledge his life to Christ.# Samuel and Lucretia Dickinson counted the number of Amherst College students who had professed, rejoiced when one of their son’s friends joined the fold, and used student professions to prompt Edward’s own.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“Even more than studying, listen to the sound of God around you, his mother had urged. It is “the most important of all calls.”19 Emily had not received letters from her parents about professing her faith. As they had when she was home, Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson left the subject of Christian conversion to their daughter and did not pressure her.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“But the routines at Mount Holyoke made it nearly impossible for Emily to keep her thoughts about religion private. She had to take a stand on faith and she had to do it publicly. During her first month at the seminary, Miss Lyon had asked students to declare their status. Students came forward and identified themselves in one of three ways: those who already had professed, those who were considering a hope in Christ, and those who did not feel a call. Emily was in the latter group—those without hope.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson