Quotes from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“The first time I called myself a 'Witch' was the most magical moment of my life.”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“If you are a woman and dare to look within yourself, you are a Witch. You make your own rules. You are free and beautiful. You”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“Still, his question, “If there is only one model of individuation, can there be true individuality?”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“The world is holy. Nature is holy. The body is holy. Sexuality is holy. The imagination is holy. Divinity is immanent in nature; it is within you as well as without. Most spiritual paths ultimately lead people to the understanding of their own connection to the divine. While human beings are often cut off from experiencing the deep and ever-present connection between themselves and the universe, that connection can often be regained through ceremony and community. The energy you put out into the world comes back.”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“Magic is a convenient word for a whole collection of techniques, all of which involve the mind. In this case, we might conceive of these techniques as including the mobilization of confidence, will, and emotion brought about by the recognition of necessity; the use of imaginative faculties, particularly the ability to visualize, in order to begin to understand how other beings function in nature so we can use this knowledge to achieve necessary ends.”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“Sarah Pomeroy, in her careful study, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves,”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret. —SYMMACHUS, 384 C.E.”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“They might add that monotheism is a political and psychological ideology as well as a religious one, and that the old economic lesson that one-crop economies generally fare poorly also applies to the spiritual realm.”
― Margot Adler, quote from Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

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Popular quotes

“I will never belong to anyone—I will die before I allow that to happen.”
― Larissa Ione, quote from Sin Undone

“There is something quite amazing and monstrous about the education of upper-class women. What could be more paradoxical? All the world is agreed that they are to be brought up as ignorant as possible of erotic matters, and that one has to imbue their souls with a profound sense of shame in such matters until the merest suggestion of such things triggers the most extreme impatience and flight. The "honor" of women really comes into play only here: what else would one not forgive them? But here they are supposed to remain ignorant even in their hearts: they are supposed to have neither eyes nor ears, nor words, nor thoughts for this -- their "evil;" and mere knowledge is considered evil. And then to be hurled as by a gruesome lightning bolt, into reality and knowledge, by marriage -- precisely by the man they love and esteem most! To catch love and shame in a contradiction and to be forced to experience at the same time delight, surrender, duty, pity, terror, and who knows what else, in the face of the unexpected neighborliness of god and beast!
Thus a psychic knot has been tied that may have no equal. Even the compassionate curiosity of the wisest student of humanity is inadequate for guessing how this or that woman manages to accommodate herself to this solution of the riddle, and to the riddle of a solution, and what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must stir in her poor, unhinged soul -- and how the ultimate philosophy and skepsis of woman casts anchor at this point!
Afterward, the same deep silence as before. Often a silence directed at herself, too. She closes her eyes to herself.
Young women try hard to appear superficial and thoughtless. The most refined simulate a kind of impertinence.
Women easily experience their husbands as a question mark concerning their honor, and their children as an apology or atonement. They need children and wish for them in a way that is altogether different from that in which a man may wish for children.
In sum, one cannot be too kind about women.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from The Gay Science

“I think she was a god... I never learned her name. She only left a note with two lines. "For wherever you need to go - and then some. The world needs more healers." - Yrene, about Aelin”
― Sarah J. Maas, quote from Tower of Dawn

“You’ve been off fighting the war in the Outer Rim. You don’t know what it’s been like, dealing with all the petty squabbles and special interests and greedy, grasping fools in the Senate, and Palpatine’s constant, cynical, ruthless maneuvering for power—he carves away chunks of our freedom and bandages the wounds with tiny scraps of security. And for what? Look at this planet, Obi-Wan! We have given up so much freedom—how secure do we look?”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, quote from Revenge of the Sith

“Is driving me crazy your idea of seduction?”
― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, quote from This Heart of Mine

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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