“It will take all your heart, it will take all your breathIt will be short, it will not be simple”

“FINAL NOTATIONSit will not be simple, it will not be longit will take little time, it will take all your thoughtit will take all your heart, it will take all your breathit will be short, it will not be simpleit will touch you through your ribs, it will take all your heartit will not be long, it will occupy your thoughtas a city is occupied, as a bed is occupiedit will take all your flesh, it will not be simpleyou are coming into us who cannot withstand youyou are coming into us who never wanted to withstand youyou are taking parts of us into places never plannedyou are going far away with pieces of our livesit will be short, it will take all your breathit will not be simple, it will become your will”

“When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.”

“Only to have a griefequal to all these tears!There's not a sob in my chest.Dry hearted Peer GyntI pare away, no hero,merely a cook.”

“My heart is moved by all I cannot save:so much has been destroyedI have to cast my lot with thosewho age after age, perversely,with no extraordinary power,reconstitute the world.”

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you...it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those to whom you give your friendship and love are able to respect your mind. It means being able to say, with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: "I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.Responsibility to yourself means that you don't fall for shallow and easy solutions--predigested books and ideas...marrying early as an escape from real decisions, getting pregnant as an evasion of already existing problems. It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short...and this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in the places assigned to us. It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be "different"...The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.”

“in the nineteenth year and the eleventh monthspeak your tattered Kaddish for all suicides:Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnelon ones we knew and lovedPraise to life though its windows blew shuton the breathing-room of ones we knew and lovedPraise to life though ones we knew and lovedloved it badly, too well, and not enoughPraise to life though it tightened like a knoton the hearts of ones we thought we knew loved usPraise to life giving room and reasonto ones we knew and loved who felt unpraisable.Praise to them, how they loved it, when they could.”