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2010

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Jan 2010

6^th January

He started up the ladder, thinking, as he had so often thought before, that once he'd done this, he'd find himself on the other side of fear, like jumping through a paper hoop. And then he knew that he wouldn't. There would always be more paper hoops. All it would mean was that this time he hadn't let his fright make any difference to the thing he had to do, and next time--well, next time might be easier. On the other hand it might not.

Antonia Forest, Falconer's Lure (1957)

13^th January

Even with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse: for whereas under a weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity into which other smaller creatures actively play... a stronger lens reveals to you certain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom.

George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)

20^th January

The social conscience does not spring fully equipped, like Athena from the head of Zeus. It is a matter of slow and halting growth. The great battle of human rights was... a silent battle for many years.

Violet Markham, Return Passage: The Autobiography of Violet Markham (1953)

27^th January

All those women artists wracked and torn, felled by life's blows, never finding their man or peace. I presume that the man and peace are mutually exclusive. One or the other would be bad enough for the avid biographer and other lovers of desperate women singers, but to get both a man of her dreams and peace would surely render a life unwritable.

Jenny Diski, 'Queening It', review in the London Review of Books, 25 June 2009. of David Brun-Lambert, Nina Simone: The Biography (2009)

Feb 2010

3^rd February

After all, in our culture, the meanings of "bold," "rebellious," and "dangerous"--adjectives that often come to mind when considering subversiveness--are practically built into our understanding of masculinity. In contract, femininity conjures up antonymns like "timid," "conventional," and "safe," which seem entirely incompatible with subversion.

Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

10^th February

[H]er dominating feature was her wavering, dithering uncertainty. She was incapable of making a clean, clear movement, and she was equally incapable of keeping still. She was irritating and pathetic at one and the same time.

Jane Duncan, My Friend Muriel (1959)

17^th February

It was a lesson he would never forget. He had started out trying to read technically, but then he had gotten so lost in the telling of the story that he forgot to look out for mechanics. That was the sign of a great work.

Sarah Schulman, The Mere Future (2009)

24^th February

He sang without thinking at all of the words of his song, but out of simple male pleasure in himself and the satisfactory, gentlemanly noise he was making.

Kate O'Brien, The Land of Spices (1941)

Mar 2010

3^rd March

Olive's early tales had been grimly sweet and unassuming. The coming - or return - of the fairytale opened some trapdoor in her imagination. Her writing became compulsive, fluent and daring.

A S Byatt, The Children's Book (2009)