“ Leslie Marmon Silko whispers the story is long. No, longer. Longer than that even. Longer than anything. With Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath drink at the bar. Laugh the dark laughter in the dark light.… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ However, narrating what you remember, telling it to someone, does something else. The more a person recalls a memory, the more they change it. Each time they put it into language, it shifts. The more… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ Seventeen times against the wall or in the barn: You move or scream or say anything I will kill them all. In front of you. First I will torture them and then I will kill them. Her eyes as dead as she… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ There's a girl calm people don't know about. It's a girl teen standstill. A motionless peace. It doesn't come from anywhere but inside us, and it only lasts for a few years. It's born from being a not… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ And so, now, she runs. In her running, her mind leaves her.And she can hear nothing but her heart, the blast making her deaf.There is a great white silent empty in her running.She runs. Lidia Yuknavitch
“ Where does repressed pain and rage go in a body? Does the wound of daughter turn to something else if left unattended? Does it bloom in the belly like an anti-child, like an organic mass made of emoti… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ Through the doorway to choice and hope were the saddest girls I have ever met. Not because someone beat them or because someone molested them or because they were poor or pregnant or even because they… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ I didn’t know yet how wanting to die could be a bloodsong in your body that lives with you your whole life. I didn’t know then how deeply my mother’s song had swum into my sister and into me. I didn’t… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ One day the girl is taking a bath and calls out. The widow comes into the tiny bathroom and the water surrounding the girl’s legs is clouded with crimson. She slaps the girl in the face and smiles and… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ There is no girl we are not always already making into a woman from the moment she is born — making a city in the dirt next to the boot of a man. It could be rage or love in his feet. The girl could b… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ Is a way for anger to come out as an energy you let loose and away. The trick is to give it a form, and not a human target. The trick is to transform rage. When I watch Andy work the heavy bag, or wor… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ Language is a metaphor for experience. It’s as arbitrary as the mass of chaotic images we call memory–but we can put it into lines to narrativize over fear. Lidia Yuknavitch
“ Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, lemme tell you. Those are big years. Everybody always thinks of it as a time of adolescence—just getting through to the real part of your life—but it's more than… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ We are all swimmers before the dawn of oxygen and earth. We all carry the memory of that breathable blue past. Lidia Yuknavitch
“ What she thinks and feels is this: This is a world of men. They come into your country, they invade your home, they kill your family. They turn your body into the battlefield — the territory of all vi… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ She’s thinking about grief and trauma, how they can hide out inside a woman, how they can come back.The playwright follows her eyes, until he sees what she sees.The photographer’s framed image, the or… Lidia Yuknavitch
“ What we need, is a break out. Out of our lives, out of Seattle, out of the dumb script of girl. Lidia Yuknavitch
“ You see it is important to understand how damaged people don’t always know how to say yes, or to choose the big thing, even when it is right in front of them. It’s a shame we carry. The shame of wanti… Lidia Yuknavitch
