Terry Tempest Williams · 256 pages
Rating: (4.4K votes)
“For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes. . . .
When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Who wants to be a goddess when we can be human? Perfection is a flaw disguised as control.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“When I look in the mirror, I see a woman with secrets. When we don’t listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don’t, others will abandon us.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Choosing with integrity means finding ways to speak up that honor your reality, the reality of others, and your willingness to meet in the center of that large field. It’s hard sometimes.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES when we go against our instincts? What are the consequences of not speaking out? What are the consequences of guilt, shame, and doubt?”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“These handwritten words in the pages of my journal confirm that from an early age I have experienced each encounter in my life twice: once in the world, and once again on the page.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“The moment Eve bit into the apple, her eyes opened and she became free. She exposed the truth of what every woman knows: to find our sovereign voice often requires a betrayal.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don't want to see. If we refuse to face our shadow, it will project itself on someone else so we have no choice but to engage.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“If so, then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts. I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“We mask our needs as the needs of others.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“I take a deep breath and sidestep my fear and begin speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet--within the chambers of a quivering heart.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in. I want to survive my life without becoming numb. I want to speak and comprehend word of wounding without having these words becomg the landscape where I dwell. I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of stars.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Not everything is meant for all to hear.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“I wonder what would happen if you gave up your need to be right?”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“The sin we commit against each other as women is lack of support. We hurt. We hurt each other. We hide. We project. We become mute or duplicitous, and we fester like boiling water until one day we erupt like a geyser. Do we forget we unravel in grief?”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Most of all, differences of opinion are opportunities for learning.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“the unexpected action of deep listening can create a space of transformation capable of shattering complacency and despair.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“To write,” Marguerite Duras remarked, “is also not to speak. It is to keep silent. It is to howl noiselessly.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
“Now, in a shift of light, the shadows of birds are more pronounced on the gallery’s white wall. The shadow of each bird is speaking to me. Each shadow doubles the velocity, ferocity of forms. The shadow, my shadow now merges with theirs. Descension. Ascension. The velocity of wings creates the whisper to awaken….
I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in. I want to survive my life without becoming numb. I want to speak and comprehend words of wounding without having these words become the landscape where I dwell. I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of stars.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, quote from When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
Terry Tempest Williams
Born place: in Corona, California, The United States
Born date September 5, 1955
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― Lisa Kleypas, quote from Scandal in Spring
“Honey, the only experts in PMS are men. That’s why men are so good at fighting wars; they learned Escape and Evade at home.”
― Linda Howard, quote from Mr. Perfect
“I don’t know. Do men kill men, except in madness? Does any beast kill its own kind? Only the insects. These yumens kill us as lightly as we kill snakes. The one who taught me said that they kill one another, in quarrels, and also in groups, like ants fighting. I haven’t seen that. But I know they don’t spare one who asks life. They will strike a bowed neck, I have seen it! There is a wish to kill in them, and therefore I saw fit to put them to death.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Word for World is Forest
“She didn't think in terms of "dom" being capitalized and "sub" being lowercase. To Erin, D/s wasn't about one person being worthy of a capital letter and the other not. It wasn't about unequal worth; it was about two equals sharing power, sharing sex and emotion. She didn't submit to him because she wanted to be debased or harmed, because she needed to be lesser than anyone. She was aware some people got off on that, and hey, whatever floats your boat. But when he dominated her, she felt cherished and adored, cosseted in those cherished moments between them-in a way she never achieved with anyone else.”
― Lauren Dane, quote from Laid Bare
“Seen from the air, the male mind must look rather like the canals of Europe, with ideas being towed along well-worn towpaths by heavy-footed dray horses. There is never any doubt that they will, despite wind and weather, reach their destinations by following a simple series of connected lines.
But the female mind, even in my limited experience, seems more of a vast and teeming swamp, but a swamp that knows in an instant whenever a stranger--even miles away--has so much as dipped a single toe into her waters. People who talk about this phenomenon, most of whom know nothing whatsoever about it, call it "woman's intuition.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag
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