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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.

-Tillie Olsen

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Compared To Men Writers

Tillie Olsen

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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.

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Every Woman Who Writes Is A Survivor.

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.

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.

Writers In A Profit Making Economy Are An Exploitable Commodity Whose Works Are Products To Be Marketed, And Are So Judged And Handled.

It's Hard For Me To Talk About The Terrible Things That Have Happened In My Lifetime Because They Didn't Need To Be.

The Habits Of A Lifetime When Everything Else Had To Come Before Writing Are Not Easily Broken, Even When Circumstances Now Often Make It Possible For Writing To Be First; Habits Of Years - Responses To Others, Distractibility, Responsibility For Daily Matters - Stay With You, Mark You, Become You. The Cost Of Discontinuity (that Pattern Still Imposed On Women) Is Such A Weight Of Things Unsaid, An Accumulation Of Material So Great, That Everything Starts Up Something Else In Me; What Should Take Weeks Take Me Sometimes Months To Write; What Should Take Months, Takes Years.

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And When Is There Time To Remember, To Sift, To Weigh, To Estimate, To Total?

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That's What I Want To Be When I Grow Up, Just A Peaceful Wreck Holding Hands With Other Peaceful Wrecks.

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.

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She Would Not Exchange Her Solitude For Anything. Never Again To Be Forced To Move To The Rhythms Of Others.

It Is Distraction, Not Meditation, That Becomes Habitual; Interruption, Not Continuity; Spasmodic, Not Constant Toil.

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