May you never steal, lie, or cheat, but if you must steal, then steal away my sorrows, and if you must lie, lie with me all the nights of my life, and if you must cheat, then please cheat death because I couldn’t live a day without you.
― A Bride’s Toast to Her Groom, From the Movie, LEAP YEAR
Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life, are as fast as anyone in the grocery store… but there’s another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it.
― Natalie Goldberg
No one will do for you what you need to do for yourself. ― Dorothy Height
In order to go on living, one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism. ― Hannah Arendt
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself.― Simone de Beauvoir
The Gloria Sirens feel there are stories that need to be amplified. We are seeking submissions of personal essay / memoir narratives between 200 and 300 words about a time you ‘took a risk to speak your truth to power.’
Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version.
—Carolyn See
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. — Oprah Winfrey
Write as if you were dying― Annie Dillard
Because we can’t escape our ancient hunger to live close to nature, we encircle the house with lawns and gardens, install picture windows, adopt pets and Boston ferns, and scent everything that touches our lives. –Diane Ackerman
The Gloria Sirens 