When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them.
Interpretation
Women often have to create their lives from limited resources and opportunities.
This quote by Terry Tempest Williams suggests that women frequently have to navigate and construct their identities and lives from what is available to them, often in a world that leaves them with remnants rather than a full set of choices. It highlights the resilience and resourcefulness that women exhibit as they make the best out of challenging circumstances.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a women's empowerment seminar to inspire attendees.
When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.
The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy?
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.
I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.
How do we remain faithful to our own spiritual imagination and not betray what we know in our own bodies? The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy.
The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
...as it turned out, growing up was just as she'd feared. One day when your alarm clock rang, you got up and realized you had someone else's thoughts in your head... or may be just your old ones, minus the hope.
My life isn't focused on results. My life is really focused on the process of doing all the things I'm doing, from work to relationships to friendships to charitable work.
...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
You're nobody 'til somebody kills you.
I really would like to be involved in things and to understand things, and in some ways you've got to be careful what you wish for because I feel very, very blessed to have such an interesting life and to be able to have little snapshots of lives of people from many different parts of the world.
Nothing in my life ever seemed to fade away or take its rightful place among the pantheon of experiences that constituted my eighteen years. It was all still with me, the storage space in my brain crammed with vivid memories, packed and piled like photographs and old dresses in my grandmother’s bureau. I wasn’t just the madwoman in the attic — I was the attic itself. The past was all over me, all under me, all inside me.
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