Marge Piercy

“Troubles cured you salty as a country ham, smoky to the taste, thick-skinned and tender inside.”

“The will to be totally rational is the will to be made out of glass and steel: and to use others as if they were glass and steel.”

“Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.”

“If you want to be listened to, you should put in time listening.”

“What a richly colored strong warm coat is woven when love is the warp and work is the woof.”

“The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.”

“Live as if you like yourself, and it may happen.”

“Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.”

“Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.”

“To Have Without Holding: Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimper...”

“The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.”

“Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently...”

“We all of us go about, she meant to tell him but was too occupied, wanting to be wanted but unsure why anybody should bother.”

“In fiction, I exercise my nosiness. I am as curious as my cats, and indeed that has led to trouble often enough and used up several of my nine lives. I am an avid listener. I am fascinated b...”

“When I work I am pure as an angel tiger and clear is my eye and hot my brain and silent all the whining grunting piglets of the appetites.”

“Long hair is considered bohemian, which may be why I grew it, but I keep it long because I love the way it feels, part cloak, part fan, part mane, part security blanket.”

“A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.”

“Sleeping together is a euphemism for people, but tantamount to marriage with cats.”

“Burning dinner is not incompetence but war.”

“My strength and my weakness are twins in the same womb.”