Tillie Olsen Men Quotations

Be critical. Women have the right to say:This is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.

Literature is a place for generosity and affection and hunger for equals - not a prizefight ring. We are increased, confirmed in our medium, roused to do our best, by every good writer, every fine achievement. Would we want one good writer or fine book less? The sense of writers being pitted against each other is bred primarily by the workings of the commercial marketplace, and by critics lauding one writer at the expense of another while ignoring the existence of nearly all.

Not everybody feels religion the same way. Some it's in their mouth, but some it's like a hope in their blood, their bones.

Compared to men writers of like distinction and years of life, few women writers have had lives of unbroken productivity, or leave behind a 'body of work.' Early beginnings, then silence; or clogged late ones (foreground silences); long periods between books (hidden silences); characterize most of us.

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?