Quotes About Empowerment

Writing about themselves] gives them wings, so that they can rise above the confounding maze of their lives and, from that perspective, begin to see the patterns and dead ends of their pasts, and a way out. That's the funny thing about mazes; what's baffling on the ground begins to make sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself.

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference.

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference. Viveca comes downstairs first and heads into the

The Peacock Tattoo Emporium's waiting area was a row of kitchen chairs, standing ashtrays, dirty magazines. You could pick the tattoo you wanted from a fat loose-leaf with plastic-covered sample illustrations. "They're both crazy," I told Roberta, looking out the plate glass to make sure my grandmother couldn't see me. "Ma and Grandma. They're just crazy in different ways.

Don't write stories for teenagers or any other group," she advised. "Write them for yourself and let the audience that needs them find them.

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference

Life's absurd. Live authentically. Stop whining. Bam! I got into it.

Don't you ever become some man's personal toilet the way I did

There is no God any more divine than Yourself.

re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body. [From the preface to Leaves Grass]

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines.

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

Long have you timidly waded Holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, Rise again, nod to me, shout, And laughingly dash with your hair.

Be not dishearten'd -- Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible.

Stand up for the Crazy and Stupid

Of Equality--as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself--as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.

Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you...

From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master...

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul; And your very flesh shall be a great poem…

I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.

Either define the moment or the moment will define you.

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, Scattering it freely forever.

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints <...> and nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.