79 Quotes by Vivian Gornick

  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    Feminism gave me a way to see myself in culture, in society, in history, and that was very important.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    When the whole world is writing letters, it’s easy to lap into the quiet within, tell the story of an hour, keep alive the narrating inner life. To be alone in the presence of one’s thought is not a value, only a common practice.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    When I work I feel more alive than under any other circumstances. There’s not an ‘I love you’ in the world that can match it. I feel safe, excited, at peace, erotic, centered. Nothing can touch me.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    When cafe life thrives, talk is a shared limberness of the mind that improves appetite for conversation: an adequate sentence maker is then made good, a good one excellent, an excellent one extraordinary.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    If you don’t leave home you suffocate, if you go too far you lose oxygen.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    We cannot depend on change, but we can depend on surprise. However, we cannot always depend on surprise either. This keeps us on our toes.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    I hated being “Mrs.” from the first second each time. I didn’t know why. All I knew was how uncomfortable it felt. I hated being one half of a couple, without understanding that it wasn’t the husband or the man I hated, it was situation, the identity.

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  • Author Vivian Gornick
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    Everyone longs for expressiveness. That’s why love carries so much weight. Because so many lives are without other means of expressiveness.

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