Quotes from Woman on the Edge of Time

“We can only know what we can truly imagine. Finally what we see comes from ourselves.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“The anger of the weak never goes away, Professor, it just gets a little moldy. It molds like a beautiful blue cheese in the dark, growing stronger, and more interesting. The poor and the weak die with all their anger intact and probably those angers go on growing in the dark of the grave like the hair and the nails.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“Never in your life have you been helpless—under somebody’s heel. You never lived where your enemies held power over you, power to run your life or wipe it out. You can’t understand. That’s how come you stand there feeding me empty slogans!” Luciente bowed her head. “You crit me justly, Connie. Forgive me. I’ll try to see your situation more clearly and make less loud noises in your ears.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“Hate them more than you hate yourself, and you’ll stay free!”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“Suddenly she thought that these men believed feeling itself a disease, something to be cut out like a rotten appendix. Cold, calculating, ambitious, believing themselves rational and superior, they chased the crouching female animal through the brain with a scalpel. From an early age she had been told that what she felt was unreal and didn’t matter. Now they were about to place in her something that would rule her feelings like a thermostat”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“I want to do something very important. Like fly into the past and make it come out right.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“But I think we often settle for sex when we want love. And we often want love when we need something else, like a good job or a chance to go back to school.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“She felt pride and shame wash through her. Mala, the woman who acted. To thrust herself forward into the world.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

“Whoever owned this place, these cities, whoever owned those glittering glassy office buildings in midtown filled with the purr of money turning over, those refineries over the river in Jersey with their flames licking the air, they gave nothing back. They took and took and left their garbage choking the air, the river, the sea itself. Choking her. A life of garbage. Human garbage. She had had too little of what her body needed and too little of what her soul could imagine. She had been able to do little in the years of her life, and that little had been ill paid or punished. The rest was garbage.”
― Marge Piercy, quote from Woman on the Edge of Time

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“Πάντως γὰρ οὐδεὶς ἔρωτα ἔφυγεν ἢ φεύξεται, μέχρι ἂν κάλλος ᾖ καὶ ὀφθαλμοὶ βλέπωσιν.”
― quote from Daphnis and Chloe

“No, sorry, bro. R.I.P didn’t know anything more about her. Even called the branches myself but kept getting different folk. Like finding a needle in a haystack, eh? Not sure what I’d have said anyway – ‘hi, which one of you bitches wants to listen to me die?’ Lolz. I replied with a ‘lolz’ of my own but nothing about this amused me.”
― John Marrs, quote from The Good Samaritan

“Griddle cakes, pancakes, hot cakes, flapjacks: why are there four names for grilled batter and only one word for love?”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty

“You don’t like all the makeup?”
“I just don’t think you need it. I mean, you look pretty without it.”
Oh, really? That was totally unexpected.
He started tapping the steering wheel like he was listening to a rock concert, or suddenly embarrassed, maybe wishing someone would shut him up. “Sorry I don’t have a towel in the car.”
Subject change. He was embarrassed. How cute was that?
“That’s okay. We should probably get home, anyway, and we have plenty of towels there.”
“Right.”
He shifted into reverse and did that thing guys do where they twist their whole bodies and put their arm across the back of the seat. Only his car had bucket seats, and his fingers grazed my cheek and then jerked as though they’d been stung, before he grabbed the back of the headrest.
He was staring at me, really staring at me, and I wondered if he wanted his fingers to touch my cheek again, because I wanted them to. I wanted to feel that spark again, that little spark I felt every time he gave me the slightest accidental touch.
“Do you like Mac?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said really quickly, too quickly.
He nodded, looked over his shoulder, and backed out of the parking spot.
As we drove home, a heavy silence filled the car. I began to wonder if maybe he hadn’t really been asking if I liked Mac.
If maybe he’d been asking something completely different. Maybe he’d been asking if I liked him.”
― Rachel Hawthorne, quote from The Boyfriend League

“Construyendo los pensamientos de esta manera y, particularmente, si tu deseo es aprovechar la muerte para el bien de todos los seres, será necesario que reconozcas la Luz, a fin de alcanzar con ella la sublime coronación del Estado del Gran Símbolo4. Para ello, debes decir: ‘Puede que no pueda comprenderlo, pero conoceré este Bardo y dominando al Gran Cuerpo de Unión en él, renaceré en cualquiera de las formas que beneficie a los seres sensibles. Serviré a todos ellos que se extienden hasta los confines del espacio. Sin interrumpir el pensamiento de la disposición del espíritu de la vigilia’ ”. Es en este momento cuando el moribundo debe tratar de recordar las enseñanzas religiosas que le fueron impartidas durante su vida. Al decir estas palabras, el guía debe colocar sus labios cerca del oído y repetirlas claramente, dejando una huella en la mente del moribundo para que no tenga oportunidad de extraviarse y se mantenga recta en su camino. Por esa razón, tras el cese completo de la espiración, debe presionarse firmemente el nervio del sueño; luego, si quien muere es un lama o una persona con mayor instrucción, se le grabarán las siguientes palabras: “Reverendo Señor, ahora te encuentras en la experiencia de la Luz Clara Fundamental; permanece en ese estado”. Si se trata de una persona cualquiera, el guía deberá decir: “Oh, noble nacido (nombre), escucha lo que tengo para decirte: estás experimentando el Resplandor de la Luz Clara de la Realidad Pura. Debes reconocerla. Tu intelecto actual, ya vacío por completo y sin formas que condicionen el color, la sustancia o el pensamiento, vacío hasta la naturalidad más absoluta, es la Realidad y el Todo Bueno. El propio intelecto, ahora ya por completo vacío pero manteniendo su existencia en sí, está libre de limitaciones y brilla. Es el intelecto mismo y no el vacío de la nada, la bienaventurada conciencia, el Buda Todo Bondad. La conciencia tuya, ahora sin formación y vacía de toda realidad, y tu intelecto en pleno brillo, son dos esencias inseparables cuya unión es el estado Dharma-Käya, la Iluminación Perfecta. La conciencia tuya, unida al Cuerpo Grande que Resplandece, vacía por completo y luminosa, no tiene principio ni fin, y es una Luz Perdurable, el Buda Amitabha. Será necesario y suficiente que reconozcas el vacío de tu intelecto en el Estado Búdico, y que comprendas que se trata de tu conciencia, para que te mantengas con la mente en su estado divino”.”
― Padmasambhava, quote from Tibetan Book of the Dead

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