“We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. (227)”

“For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.”

“It’s quite a breathtaking analysis of power that, if nothing else, gives a new spin on Disney movies that have their motherless heroines married off asw teenagers to beasts and strangers and call this a happy ending, while their heroes light off for the territories, love their dogs, have adventures and seldom marry. (91)”

“Tell them about how you’re never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there’s always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don’t speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside. (225)”

“I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift. (96)”

“We switch to another language-- not our invented language or the language we've learned from our lives. As we walk further up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us time to think and move. We can be here and elsewhere at the same time.”

“Courage doesn't mean being free from fear; it means learning to work through fear and speak even when we are afraid.”