Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.

To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society

Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideasl The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves--along with the renewed courage to try them out.

In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.

Silence and invisibility go hand in hand with powerlessness.

If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. (From "Poetry is Not a Luxury")

You cannot use someone else's fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.