“For a woman's words to wound would require a man to listen first!”

“If a wound was all that was required to be a shaman, we'd all be one. If wounds were required, no one would be.”

“God first created silence: whole, indivisible, complete. All creatures--man, woman, beast, insect, bird, and fish--lived happily together with this silence until one day man and woman lay down together and between them created the first word. This displeased God deeply and in anger she shook out her bag of words over the world, sprinkling and showering her creation with them. Her word store rained down upon all creatures, shattering forever the whole that once was silence. God cursed the world with words and forever after it would be a struggle for man and woman to return to the original silence. --Marlene Nourbese Philip”

“She would have liked to sit upon a rock and listen to words, not of any man, but detached, mysterious, poetic words that she alone would interpret through some sense inherited from sleep.”

“I used to take on trust a man's deeds after having listened to his words. Now having listened to a man's words I go on to observe his deeds.”

“A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”