The Reckonings Quotes

“the worst violence that man committed was not against my body but against the story I told about the person I believed myself to be.”
― Lacy M Johnson, The Reckonings: Essays

“It is important to pause to celebrate those victories, no matter how small,' she says, 'because that is what gives you courage to fight the really big battles, the ones you have to fight even though there's no chance of winning.' [Kay Drey on stopping 1 of 2 nuclear reactors from being built]”
― Lacy M. Johnson, The Reckonings

“Hope is an orientation of the spirit,” he writes. “It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives us strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”
― Lacy M Johnson, The Reckonings: Essays

“My husband says time heals all wounds. I nod my head. But deep down I know this isn’t really true. The wounds change shape, change forms. Pain appears as a gash, then a cut, then a scab, then a scar—all near-synonyms extending on and on along the signifying chain.”
― Lacy M. Johnson, The Reckonings

“I know for certain that what art first unfolded for me unfolds in me still, and it’s what leads me to choose, in spite of the odds, to believe that, yes, we can put something into the world that is greater than what is being taken from it every damn day of our lives. We can make good things happen. Writing can change us, make us better, stronger people whose actions, though they may seem small & inconsequential at the time, can matter, for ourselves and for the world.”
― Lacy M Johnson, The Reckonings

“We need beauty now more than ever before. But I have grown impatient with the beautiful art of galleries & museums, with auctions & collections & commissions, with curators & prizes & award galas. They operate in a world where beautiful things are made & sold & that transaction is final & enough.”
― Lacy M Johnson, The Reckonings