Quotes by Tillie Olsen

Tillie Olsen

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?

Remember

Time

Time Management

Better mankind born without mouths and stomachs than always to worry about money to buy, to shop, to fix, to cook, to wash, to clean.

Inspirational

Mouths

Worry

Compared to men writers of like distinction and years of life, few women writers have had lives of unbroken productivity, or leave behind a ‘body of work.’ Early beginnings, then silence; or clogged late ones (foreground silences); long periods between books (hidden silences); characterize most of us.

Book

Men

Years

Every woman who writes is a survivor.

Survival

Survivor

Writing

I very much dislike the word “race,” and I never use it. I use the word “racist.” Race is not a fact. There is only one race: human. Skin color is less than 2 percent of the DNA.

Dna

Race

Skin Color

It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched.

Daughter

Long

Sea

It is distraction, not meditation, that becomes habitual; interruption, not continuity; spasmodic, not constant toil.

Distraction

Meditation

Toil

Literary history and the present are dark with silences . . . I have had special need to learn all I could of this over the years, myself so nearly remaining mute and having to let writing die over and over again in me. These are not natural silences–what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)–that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot.

Lying

Struggle

Writing

Literature is a place for generosity and affection and hunger for equals – not a prizefight ring. We are increased, confirmed in our medium, roused to do our best, by every good writer, every fine achievement. Would we want one good writer or fine book less? The sense of writers being pitted against each other is bred primarily by the workings of the commercial marketplace, and by critics lauding one writer at the expense of another while ignoring the existence of nearly all.

Achievement

Book

Generosity

More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, and responsible

Mean

Motherhood

Responsible

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Achievement

Aggravation

America

Audience

Blood

Book

Commodity

Daughter

Distraction

Dna

Doe

Economy

Generosity

Granted

Growing Up

Hands

Inspirational

Kind

Long

Lying

Mean

Meditation

Men

Motherhood

Mouths

Moving

Peace

Profit

Race

Reality

Religion

Remember

Responsibility

Responsible

Rhythm

Sea

Skin Color

Solitude

Struggle

Surface

Survival

Survivor

Thinking

Time

Time Management

Toil

Used

Voice

Women

Worry

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Tillie Olsen

Tillie Olsen

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?

Better mankind born without mouths and stomachs than always to worry about money to buy, to shop, to fix, to cook, to wash, to clean.

Every woman who writes is a survivor.

I very much dislike the word “race,” and I never use it. I use the word “racist.” Race is not a fact. There is only one race: human. Skin color is less than 2 percent of the DNA.

It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched.

It is distraction, not meditation, that becomes habitual; interruption, not continuity; spasmodic, not constant toil.

More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, and responsible

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Topics by Tillie Olsen

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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