A Girl Must Live Quotes

“Voices in the wind ripple of oats, voices
At the back of the blood, at the back of the brain,
Below the deepest roots of the trees, the blown shouting trees,
Below the oats, below the rocks, below the islands,
Behind the ploughing and the sowing, the harvesting and threshing,
At the back of life.”
― Naomi Mitchison, A Girl Must Live: Stories and Poems

“If mankind had remained as the most powerful kind of animal, but not killing one another, even progressing, becoming perhaps, as conscious of fine sounds and of the thoughts of others as we rats are, where would we be? If mankind had survived where would the rats be, where our thinking, our consideration for one another, our songs, our beauties? Could there have been room in the world for both?”
― Naomi Mitchison, A Girl Must Live: Stories and Poems