A Quote by Louise Erdrich

I did not choose solitude. Who would? It came on me like a kind of vocation, demanding an effort that married women can't picture. — © Louise Erdrich
I did not choose solitude. Who would? It came on me like a kind of vocation, demanding an effort that married women can't picture.
In the world of the dreamer there was solitude: all the exaltations and joys came in the moment of preparation for living. They took place in solitude. But with action came anxiety, and the sense of insuperable effort made to match the dream, and with it came weariness, discouragement, and the flight into solitude again. And then in solitude, in the opium den of remembrance, the possibility of pleasure again.
I think a double bass for me would be too much effort. But the cello, you're really engaged and the sound is kind of right here. So, it feels like being merged, married to an instrument.
It's quite ironic that at many interviews I have had professionals telling me that 'I don't look married because I don't dress like a married woman!' It's shattering as I never knew being married came with apparels that would define one's marital status!
When I was young, I don't know how, I spent all my time in the presence of married women telling me their troubles. And when I said 'Why did you marry?' they said, 'Oh I married to get away from home.' And when I said, 'And why don't you leave him?' they gave the saddest answer in the world: they said, 'Where would I go?' So they stayed with men they didn't like because they had nowhere to go.
Everyone is lonely sometimes, even married people. But most single women (as well as women with spouses) actually enjoy their solitude.
I always tell my students that Malcolm X came both to his spirituality and to his consciousness as a thinker when he had solitude to read. Unfortunately, tragically, like so many young black males, that solitude only came in prison.
I think female solitude is a mental condition as well as a physical state. You can be married and a spinster. I think spinster is an identity every woman can claim, if she will... I feel like a lot of women, or a lot of feminists, joke about taking to the sea or living alone in a cottage as this kind of fun freedom.
There's a lot of women out there, some of whom are my age who've never been married and some who have been married and would like to be married again but think their ship has sailed, and I'm like, 'Oh no, honey, let Miss Niecy show you it is never too late for love!'
I kind of came to the conclusion after I did finally get married that love and relationships are just a series of horrific losses with hopefully one win.
Motherhood rarely allows for solitude, yet it begets its own kind of isolation: from one's past, from one's youth, from the women we once thought we were and would become.
I remember my mother would get upset with me 'cause she said I walked like my dad. But I think it was more like, there's something about you that's not quite ladylike and femme. And then when I got older - once I came out, my mom and grandma were horrified and just kind of like, where did we go wrong?
I would paint a portrait which would bring the tears, had I canvas for it, and the scene should be -- solitude, and the figures -- solitude -- and the lights and shades, each a solitude.
The very first picture that I did, the director came up to me on the street - I was 14 at the time - and asked me if I would be in a short film that he was doing called 'Pigen og Skoene,' which means 'The Girl with the Shoes,' which is a funny title but that is how it is.
In my case it was a sustained effort. I was fortunate to have the backing of my parents to start off with and towards the Beijing Olympics the Mittal Champions Trust came into the picture and they helped me a lot.
I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have giventhemselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.
Its funny because when I did feel like I came out and I just felt like I was being truthful to myself, (it was at) that point I became very successful. So you know, it took a true kind of facing that truth of myself and being honest, that was when the real kind of fame or whatever that kind of stuff happened for me.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!