'I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,' she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes. Marilyn French More Quotes by Marilyn French More Quotes From Marilyn French Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you're trying to escape? Marilyn French over-you simple trying Habit is a good thing for the human race. ... You have to spend so much energy just getting through the day when you have no habits that you don't have any left for productive labor. Marilyn French habit energy race Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way. Marilyn French order people years There was no justice, there was only life. And life she had. Marilyn French justice The real motivation of the campaign to criminalize abortion is to establish the principles that women's bodies belong to the state and that women bear the responsibility for sex. Marilyn French motivation real sex All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey. Marilyn French eye home sex Men's need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness; we do not know its root, and men are making no effort to discover it. Marilyn French effort roots men Marriage accustomed one to the good things, so one came to take them for granted, but it magnified the bad things, so they came to feel as painful as a grain in one's eye. An open window, a forgotten quart of milk, a TV set left blaring, socks on the bathroom floor could become occasions for incredible rage. Marilyn French milk tvs eye Even disasters -- there are always disasters when you travel -- can be turned into adventures. Marilyn French disaster adventure One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear. Marilyn French tears mind art there's no justice, there's only love. Marilyn French only-love justice In a great gasp, puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end. Marilyn French storm wind hands There's power to: and everyone should have that, but everyone doesn't. Power to play Bach, or tennis, or boccie if you like. And there's power over; and no one should have that, but people do. Marilyn French power should-have play The very notion of superiority of one kind over another will have to disappear, although differences among kind will remain. Marilyn French disappear differences kind Survival is an art. It requires the dulling of the mind and the senses, and a delicate attunement to waiting, without insisting on precision about just what it is you are waiting for. Marilyn French survival waiting art Desire consumes you, it takes you over. You forget yourself completely. All you can think about is the other, the one you desire, your self is just a fire. Marilyn French self fire thinking rain is one thing the British do better than anybody else. Marilyn French british england rain When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress? Marilyn French progress black liberty S and M is only the expression in the bedroom of an oppressive-submissive relation which can happen also in the kitchen or at the factory, can happen between people of any gender. There is obviously something titillating about these relationships, but it isn't the sexual components that makes them ugly, they're uglier elsewhere. Nothing sexual is depraved. Only cruelty is depraved, and that's another matter. Marilyn French kitchen expression people Losing the future is the best thing that ever happened to me. Marilyn French i-love-you short-love romantic
