1
Literary history and the present are dark with silences . I have had special need to learn all I could of this over the years, myself so nearly remaining mute and having to let writing die over and over again in me. These are not natural silences--what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)--that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot.Tillie Olsen
2
There are worse words than cuss words there are words that hurt.Tillie Olsen
3
I know that I haven't powers enough to divide myself into one who earns and one who creates.Tillie Olsen
4
The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked.Tillie Olsen
5
And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?Tillie Olsen
6
Women have the right to say: this is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.Tillie Olsen