Quotes
On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned by her role as the senior wife. She was not even expected to demand more money for her family; that was considered below the standard expected of a woman in her position. It was not fair, she felt, the way men cleverly used a woman’s sense of responsability to actually enslave her. They knew that the traditional wife like herself would never dream of leaving her children.”
God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody's appendage? ... when will I be free?
The more I think about it, the more I realize that we, women, set impossible models for ourselves. That we make life intolerable for each other. I can't live up to our role models, older wife. That’s why I need to create my own.
When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves. We could be heroines, swordswomen. Even if she had to rage across all China, a swordswoman got even with anybody who hurt her family. Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound. (p19)
Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself. (p61)
No husband of mine will say, "I could have been a drummer, but I had to think about the wife and kids. You know how it is." Nobody supports me at the expense of his own adventure. (p48)
I told her she had run an enormous risk rescuing me, and she smiled. It was then I understood that the days of Colonel Garcia and all those like him are numbered, because they have not been able to destroy the spirit of these women. (p487)
By the end of the semester the world felt big, and it was hard to imagine returning to the mountain, to a kitchen, or even to a piano in the room next to the kitchen.
This caused a kind of crisis in me. My love of music, and my desire to study it, had been compatible with my idea of what a woman is. My love of history and politics and world affairs was not. And yet they called to me.
p. 228
Man, are you capable of being just? It is a woman who poses the question, you will not deprive her of that right at least. Tell me, what gives you sovereign over empire to oppress my sex? Your strength? Your talents?
Article 1. Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.
Men will love to the last, but they love what is fresh and new. A woman’s love can live on the recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly.
Men when they are true are simple. They are often false has hell, and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges others by himself, — almost without reflection. A woman can be true as steel and cunning at the same time.
