We talked with each other about each other
Though neither of us spoke
Emily Dickinson
E’ cieco chi guarda solo con gli occhi
Proverbio africano
I am not defined by my scars but by the incredible ability to heal
Lemn Sissay
Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog’s chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one’s own
Virginia Woolf
Cosa detta non e’ piu’ tua
proverbio popolare
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us
Franz Kafka – “Letters”
She…slapped down a white, terrified blancmange
Katherine Mansfield
The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries
Truman Capote
…the joy of watching the unsung and invisible find some light
Michelle Obama
Se un qualsiasi essere umano sta in questo momento soffrendo, è malato o ha fame, ci deve riguardare tutti, perché ignorare la sofferenza di una persona è sempre un atto di violenza, e tra i più vigliacchi
Gino Strada
…That even as we grieved, we grew,
That even as we hurt, we hoped,
That even as we tired, we tried…
Amanda Gorman – “The Hill We Climb”
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka
Misery is a school for the soul
John M.Coetzee
Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me
Quincy Jones
La liberta’ e’ per tutti, non solo per qualcuno. La liberta’ e’ vera solo se e’ per tutti
Armando Gasiani – prigioniero politico sopravvissuto a Mauthausen
I was learning that life is a presentation of many feasts from which one is often fearful of being turned away
Janet Frame
The truth has become an insult
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – “Half of a yellow sun”
Here in the prison yard there is a thrush which sings beautifully in the morning, and now in the evening too. One is grateful for little things, and that is surely a gain.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – writing from Tegel prison
Sono un uomo con una disabilità evidente in mezzo a tanti uomini con disabilità che non si vedono
Ezio Bosso
I am Jewish, but Beethoven is my religion
Alice Herz-Sommer
Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary !
Robin Williams – “Dead Poets Society”
“… almeno non ti avessi incontrato
io che qui sto morendo e tu che mangi il gelato ”
Lucio Dalla
“How can I learn to play bass, Joe?”
“Got one?”
“Yeah.”
“Turn on the radio and start right playing with it”
That’s how I started
Charles Mingus
Our lives are Swiss—
So still—so Cool—
Till some odd afternoon
The Alps neglect their Curtains
And we look farther on!
Italy stands the other side!
While like a guard between—
The solemn Alps—
The siren Alps
Forever intervene!
Emily Dickinson
Quando eu morrer, não quero choro nem vela
Quero uma fita amarela gravada com o nome dela
Se existe alma, se há outra encarnação
Eu queria que a mulata sapateasse no meu caixão
Noel Rosa
There are a lot of unpleasant people who are talented
Bette Davis
Since we are all prisoners in life, are we happier, or more miserable, the more talents we possess?
Karen Blixen – “Out of Africa”
Dort, wo mann Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen
Heinrich Heine
Vi auguro di poter essere disubbidienti ogni qual volta si ricevono ordini che umiliano la nostra coscienza
Mimmo Lucano
“All that we know is that we lack a tongue that could reveal, a language that could perfectly express the wild joy swelling to a music in our heart, the wild pain welling to a strong ache in our throat, the wild cry mounting to a madness in our brain, the thing, the word, the joy we know so well, and cannot speak !”
Thomas Wolfe – “Of Time and the River”
Every sort of contradiction can be found in me, depending upon some twist or attribute: timid, insolent, chaste, lecherous, talkative, taciturn, tough, sickly, clever, dull, brooding, affable, lying, truthful, learned, ignorant, generous, miserly and then prodigal. I can see something of all that in myself, depending on how I gyrate; and anyone who studies himself attentively finds in himself and in his very judgment this whirring about and this discordancy. There is nothing I can say about myself as a whole simply and completely, without intermingling and admixture
Michel de Montaigne
I cannot abide when things are not fair and don’t respect the dignity and worth of everyone
Mary Robinson
Love, and that love will be returned, trust in the righteous path and it will lead you to deliverance, fight and things will change
Colson Whitehead – “The Nickel Boys”
Un paese ci vuole, non fosse che per il gusto di andarsene via. Un paese vuol dire non essere soli, sapere che nella gente, nelle piante, nella terra c’è qualcosa di tuo, che anche quando non ci sei resta ad aspettarti
Cesare Pavese
I don’t need time, what I need is a deadline !
Duke Ellington
My Emily Dickinson is nobody’s business but my own. I will not share her with anyone. I would no more tell you about my relationship with her poems than I would tell you about a love affair.
Mary Ruefle – “Madness, Rack, and Honey”
A cada dia que vivo, mais me convenço de que o desperdício da vida está no amor que não damos,
nas forças que não usamos, na prudência egoísta que nada arrisca, e que,
esquivando-se do sofrimento, perdemos também a felicidade
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
…inequalities of one kind or another will always exist because the human race is tribal and hierarchical, and primarily, historically, patriarchal; and if we choose to advocate for social change, we might as well enjoy the battle.
Bernardine Evaristo
“…the longing to leave becomes acute, and a break from the area, therefore, is necessarily dream-bitten, but necessary nonetheless. It might be an appetite for other streets, other slants of light.”
Toni Morrison – “Song of Solomon”
Let us love without a net
beyond the fear of death
Mark Nebo – “Earth Prayer”
That life exists…that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse
Robin Williams – “Dead Poets Society”
Nothing I understand haunts me. Only the things I do not understand have that power over me
Mary Ruefle – “Madness, Rack, and Honey”
We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness
Martin Luther King
