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Joanna Russ
117 quotes
“Alyx, the gray-eyed, the silent woman. Wit, arm, kill-quick for hire, she watched the strange man thread his way through the tables and the smoke toward her. This was in Ourdh, where all things are possible. He stopped at the table where she sat alone and with a certain indefinable gallantry, not pleasant but perhaps its exact opposite, he said: "A woman-here?" "You're looking at one," said Alyx dryly, for she did not like his tone...”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: beginning of "THE BARBARIAN" first published in Orbit 3 (1968)
“The trouble with men is that they have limited minds. That's the trouble with women, too.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Existence (1975)
“Who's Elaine Beach? Just the one you'd expect. The shy one. The sandy-haired one with freckles. The unhappy one who isn't good-looking. The one who came back to town after a two weeks' absence, claiming she'd been to Chicago and had a baby. The one who's always listening to something else. The one who, on autumn nights, looks as though she can hear something else. The one who hates parties. The one who won't talk about it. The one to whom supernatural adventures ought to happen.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: beginning of "Main Street: 1953" short story collected in The Hidden Side of the Moon (1987)
“And you think they’ll let you,” said Machine. It was a flat, sad statement. “No,” she said, “but nobody ever let me do anything in my life before and I never let that stop me.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sit a man on his ass with nothing to do but eat and the first thing that goes is his mind. It never fails.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He wished his imagination would not take so impressionistic a turn. It never fails.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rational people,” said the man, “realize that their lives must be made meaningful. Meaning isn’t just given us.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How withered away one can be from a life of unremitting toil.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dismissing the whole thing as the world’s aberration and not mine, I went back to bed.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are more whooping cranes in the United States of America than there are women in Congress.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyway everyboy (sorry) knows that what women have done that is really important is not to constitute a great, cheap labor force that you can zip in when you're at war and zip out again afterwards but to Be Mothers, to form the coming generation, to give birth to them, to nurse them, to mop floors for them, to love them, cook for them, clean for them, change their diapers, pick up after them, and mainly sacrifice themselves for them. This is the most important job in the world. That’s why they don’t pay you for it.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fucking, if you will forgive the pun, is an anti-climax.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, hell,” said Jael more genuinely, “the war. If there isn’t one, there just was one, and if there wasn’t one, there soon will be one. Eh? The war between Us and Them.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I told him to open his eyes, that I didn’t want to kill him with his eyes shut, for God’s sake.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remember, I don’t threaten. I don’t play. I always carry firearms. The truly violent are never without them.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want to be an assassin, remember that you must decline all challenges. Showing off is not your job. If you are insulted, smile meekly. Don’t break your cover. Be afraid. This is information about the world. You are valuable. Push yourself. Take the easiest way out whenever possible. Resist curiosity, pride, and the temptation to defy limits. You are not your own woman and must be built to last. Indulge hatred. Action comes from the heart. Pray often. How else can you quarrel with God?”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As my mother once said: The boys throw stones at the frogs in jest. But the frogs die in earnest.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 8, Chapter 10 (p. 196) (This is a direct translation of the German poet Erich Fried's text "Humorlos" (Without Humor, 1967) https://msu.edu/~sullivan/FriedHumorlos.html.
“Remember: I didn’t and don’t want to be a “feminine” version or a diluted version or a special version or a subsidiary version or an ancillary version, or an adapted version of the heroes I admire. I want to be the heroes themselves. What future is there for a female child who aspires to being Humphrey Bogart?”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are on strike against God"--said by a nineteenth-century American judge to a group of women workers from a textile mill. He was right, too, and I don't wonder at him. What I do wonder is where did they get the nerve to defy God? Because you'd think something would interfere with them, give them nervous headaches, hit them, muddle them, nag at them (at the very least) and prohibit them from daring to do it, just as something interferes with me, too, tries to keep me away from certain regions. (first lines)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After a while you tame your interior monsters, it's only natural. I don't mean that it ever stops; but it stops mattering. (p8)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Something-elses of the world, unite! (p19)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leaning her silly, beautiful, drunken head on my shoulder, she said, "Oh, Esther, I don't want to be a feminist. I don't enjoy it. It's no fun." "I know," I said. "I don't either." People think you decide to be a "radical," for God's sake, like deciding to be a librarian or a ship's chandler. You "make up your mind," you "commit yourself" (sounds like a mental hospital, doesn't it?). I said Don't worry, we could be buried together and have engraved on our tombstone the awful truth, which some day somebody will understand: WE WUZ PUSHED. (p37)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...I'd say tiredly over and over again (to an absent Dr. D.)that I had no troubles with sex, only with men, and that my trouble with men did not come from what was between their legs but from what was between their ears. (p47)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing but machines left between people. Telephones, taxis, letters, the discarded automata of the modern love affair. (p63)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After the first shock you think, "Well, that's over," but what do you do then? The news that kills is the news that makes everything else impossible; you can't sleep or go out or read or watch TV because you can no longer enjoy anything; I had never before realized what a substratum of pure pleasure there is in just going to sleep, for instance. Just eating. All spoiled now. (p63)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Courage is willful hope. (p86)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sex, when it's good (but how often is it that?) is like nothing on earth. So silly, so grand. So indecent, so matter-of-fact. (p95)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sex doesn't last. (p95)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The amazing peacefulness, the astonishing lack of anger, the sweetness and balm of being at last on the right side of power. (p100)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let's be for us. For goodness' sakes, let's not be against us. (p107)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My mother's country: the body and garden of the Great Goddess, fair, ornamental, tended; I can wander forever in Her lap under the sun of Her face, in a cultivated place like the Botanical Gardens of my childhood where everything is suffused with the divine personality, regal, wide, and lovely. Everything's here-pineapples from Java, Norway pine, greenhouses like tropical igloos, the long wide lawns, camomile meadows veiled with hair, lawns that look like-and are-the dancing-grounds of angels. The fatherland is another place.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the summer of 192- there occurred to me the most extraordinary event of my life. (beginning of "The Extraordinary Voyages of Amélie Bertrand")”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After she had finished her work at the North Pole, Jannina came down to the Red Sea refineries where she had family business, jumped to New Delhi for dinner, took a nap in a public hotel in Queensland, walked from the hotel to the station, bypassed the Leeward Islands (where she thought she might go, but all the stations were busy), and met Charley to watch the dawn over the Carolinas. (beginning of "nobody's Home")”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Duke Humphrey, bearded and humped, had died six hundred years before but not really, so that the people of Appletap-on-Flat were understandably frightened when he began to reappear in the outlying districts with (it was said) a demon cat from Zanzibar sitting on his hump and telling him what to do. (beginning of "The Zanzibar cat")”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the tale of the Abbess Radegunde and what happened when the Norsemen came. (first line of "Souls")”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lady Sappho in curly gold letters is the name of the book I will (will not) write. (beginning of "Everyday Depressions")”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the field of science fiction or fantasy, morality—when it enters a book at all—is almost always either thoughtlessly liberal (you can’t judge other cultures) or thoughtlessly illiberal (strong men must rule) or just plain thoughtless (killing people is bad).”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Books" (review column), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1968
“Perhaps it’s because I was brought up with no religion at all that I detest the science-fiction tropism towards re-writing Christianity from what one might call the village-atheist point of view. Although (Robert Sheckley's) “Budget Planet” and Fritz Leiber’s “One Station on the Way” are colorful and active enough, there seems to me to be no point in flogging dead fundamentalist doctrines so late in the day.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Books" (review column), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970
“There are plenty of images of women in science fiction. There are hardly any women.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Image of Women in Science Fiction" (1970)
“Only those who have reviewed, year in and year out, know how truly abominable most fiction is.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Books" (review column), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979
“Writing pays very badly. Writing pays very badly. Writing pays worse now than it did then. If you do it, do it for the love of it. You may even make a living at it and you may not. (If you do what Danielle Steel does, you probably will.) This issue is very American, i.e. the idea that celebrities have real lives and the rest of us don't. Publicity doesn't necessarily mean power or money and unfortunately believing that the "real" news is about celebrities leaves us all totally ignorant of the forces that are truly hurting us, and truly shaping our lives.”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in The Country You Have Never Seen (2007)
“At the level of high culture with which this book is concerned, active bigotry is probably fairly rare. It is also hardly ever necessary, since the social context is so far from neutral. To act in a way both sexist and racist, to maintain one's class privilege, it is only necessary to act in the customary, ordinary, usual, even polite manner. (2. Bad Faith)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ignorance is not bad faith. But persistence in ignorance is. (5. The Double Standard of Content)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea that any art is achieved 'intuitively' is a dehumanization of the brains, effort, and the traditions of the artist, and a classification of said artist as subhuman. It is those supposed incapable of intelligence, training, or connection with a tradition who are described as working by instinct or intuition. (9. Lack of Models)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the memory of one's predecessors is buried, the assumption persists that there were none and each generation of women believes itself to be faced with the burden of doing everything for the first time. And if no one ever did it before, if no woman was ever that socially sacred creature, "a great writer," why do we think we can succeed now? (9. Lack of Models)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The re-evaluation and rediscovery of minority art (including the cultural minority of women) is often conceived as a matter of remedying injustice and exclusiveness through doing justice to individual artists by allowing their work into the canon, which will thereby be more complete, but fundamentally unchanged. (11. Aesthetics)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“middle-class women, although taught to value established forms, are in the same position as the working class: neither can use established forms to express what the forms were never intended to express (and may very well operate to conceal). (Epilogue)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Minority art, vernacular art, is marginal art. Only on the margins does growth occur. (Epilogue)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some revolutionary proposals:”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“much of our mass literature, television, and movies encourages violence against women even more subtly and pervasively than pornography...If pornography is bad because it tells lies about women, is it any worse-or even any different-from the rest of the culture? Patriarchal ideology and culture are nothing but lies about women. I think we often forget this simply because it's so absolutely pervasive in everything from clothing to the design of houses to the structure of cities (anti-children and anti-women).”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source