Ultimately, our art is a reflection of the progress of our desires chained to our fears. The meaning of a social movement is that it rises directly o… - Vivian Gornick

that is the whole sickening trickery in life — the idea that one cannot fight for one's humanity without, ironically, losing it — and it is a piece of trickery that the blacks sometimes seem helpless against and the women now sometimes seem helpless against, and, in the final analysis, that trickery is the real enemy and the very essence of the thing we must continually be on our guard against. For what shall it profit a woman if she gain an end to slavery in marriage and in the process lose her soul?

Between what we know and what we cannot hope to know about how we come to be as we are lies an emotional dumping ground into which exceptional writers pour all the art they are capable of making.

I want to say: have faith, my sister. The place in which we now find ourselves is unavoidable, but soon it will prove insupportable; soon it will prove emotionally unsatisfying, and with that emotional dissatisfaction comes another leap toward understanding, and with that, the automatic courage to press further and be off down that road once again.