Marge Piercy Quotes

The worst thing that a politician can be called is elitist-and what do we mean by that? In Iowa, Howard Dean was labeled that-a sushi eating, PBS watching, Volvo driving man-not macho enough, clearly, to win the vote of working men. But who determines the massive layoffs and the movement of corporations abroad that gut the economies of so many cities and drive families from comfort into chaos? Those are the members of the real elite ("THE MORE WE SEE, THE LESS WE KNOW")

Utopia is work that issues from pain: it is what we do not have that we crave.

"No," she said. "I've just had enough." She made herself smile. It felt like a date, a bad date. She had to keep smiling across the debris of the dinner for two. "The chicken was wonderful!"

You have to stay open and curious and keep learning as you go. Poems come from a whole variety of sources. When you're younger, you believe in inspiration. As you get older, you believe most in receptivity and work.

Holy is the hand that works for peace and for justice,
holy is the mouth that speaks for goodness,
holy is the foot that walks toward mercy.

The farther you are from the centers of power in this society, the less likely you are to find validation of your experiences, your insights and ideas, your life. It is more important to you to find in art that validation, that respect for your experiences that no minority except the thin, white, and wealthy can count on.

Over the old buildings the rain blew in long gray ropy strands cascading down the brick walls. As she was beckoned out with rough speed, she was surprised to see gulls wheeling above, far inland, as over other refuse grounds. Little was recycled here. She was human garbage carried to the dump. (Chapter One, p26)

There is an attitude that has developed since about the 1890s that attempts to cast all politics and sociology out of poetry. I don't understand how anyone can seriously maintain this attitude. Actually, the attitude itself is political. Art which embodies the ideals of the ruling class in society isn't conceived as being political, and is simply judged by how well it is done. Art which contains ideas which threaten the position of that ruling class is silenced by critics: it is political, they say, and not art.

She felt as if she were seventeen again, ignorant, fearful, a creature all gusty emotions and pain. (eight: HOW SHALL I ADDRESS YOU?)

There are a lot of lonely and a lot of horny women.

At that time, a pregnant woman could not get an abortion in Massachusetts -- but a cat could. (p221)

The reason I am political is because I want there to be a juster apportionment of the world's pleasure and less unjust apportionment of the world's pain. Power per se is fairly uninteresting to me, except as I observe it distorting peoples' characters.

When I was a child, I first noticed that neither history as I was taught it, nor the stories I was told, seemed to lead to me. I began to fix them. I have been at it ever since. We need a past that leads to us. Similarly, what we imagine we are working toward does a lot to define what we will consider doable action aimed at producing the future we want and preventing the future we fear.

(about putting time into trying to look young) It is certainly a replacement for educating your mind, developing your interests, becoming closer to other people. If you spent the amount of time a week you might spend on the pursuit of a prepubescent body on learning a foreign language, on writing something meaningful to yourself and to others, on practicing piano, on changing the society-this country would be a far different place.

The mind wraps itself around a poem.