Wittig Quotes & Sayings

The bearers of fables are very welcome. — Monique Wittig

The class struggle is precisely that which resolves the contradictions between two opposed classes by abolishing them at the same time that it constitutes and reveals them as classes. — Monique Wittig

I refuse to pronounce the names of possession and nonpossession. — Monique Wittig

Our stories arise from our hearts and our souls. In this sense, telling our stories becomes a sacred gesture, opening a clear way to that deep, ecstatic center where we are most uniquely our selves, individual and unique, and yet are ourselves, joined together at the heart. — Susan Wittig Albert

The women say that they could not eat hare veal or fowl, they say that they could not eat animals, but man, yes, they may. He says to them throwing his head back with pride, poor wretches of women, if you eat him who will go to work in the fields, who will produce food consumer goods, who will make the aeroplanes, who will pilot them, who will provide the spermatozoa, who will write the books, who in fact will govern? Then the women laugh, baring their teeth to the fullest extent. — Monique Wittig

It is quite possible for a work of literature to operate as a war machine upon its epoch. — Monique Wittig

Sharing our stories can also be a means of healing. Grief and loss may isolate us, and anger may alienate us. Shared with others, these emotions can be powerfully uniting, as we see that we are not alone, and realize that others weep with us. — Susan Wittig Albert

The worst thing about talk ... is that there's no way to lay it to rest. Every fresh breeze brings a new speculation. — Susan Wittig Albert

Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it. — Monique Wittig

Wittig appears to take issue with genitally organized sexuality per se and to call for an alternative economy of pleasures which would both contest the construction of female subjectivity marked by women's supposedly distinctive reproductive function. — Judith Butler

Living in a culture that prefers to shut out the dark, avoid shadows, and anesthetize pain means that many people are isolated ... Family, friends, and co-workers, fearful of the dark, are reluctant to participate in our shadow experience and may urge us to be done with the dark before it is done with us. — Susan Wittig Albert

One person's weed is another person's wildflower. — Susan Wittig Albert

Gratitude is the richest, most joyful feeling humans are privileged to experience. — Susan Wittig Albert

Men are not born with a faculty for the universal and ... women are not reduced at birth to the particular. The universal has been, and is continually, at every moment, appropriated by men. It does not happen by magic, it must be done. It is an act, a criminal act, perpetrated by one class against another. It is an act carried out at the level of concepts, philosophy, politics. — Monique Wittig

But as it turned out, the two had a great deal in common, for both Bailey and Thackeray (named for the famous novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair) were devoted bibliophiles who believed that "a book a day kept the world at bay," as Thackeray was fond of saying. Bailey was the offspring of a generation of badgers who insisted that "Reader" was the most rewarding vocation to which a virtuous badger might be called and who gauged their week's anticipated pleasure by the height of their to-be-read pile. (Perhaps you know people like this. I do.) — Susan Wittig Albert

There is nothing like a grocery list to remind us how human we are. — Susan Wittig Albert

They say that there is no reality before it has been given shape by words rules regulations. They say that in what concerns them everything has to be remade starting from basic principles. They say that in the first place the vocabulary of every language is to be examined, modified, turned upside down, that every word must be screened. — Monique Wittig

The 'I' [Je] who writes is alien to her own writing at every word because this 'I' uses a language that is alien to her; this 'I' [Je] experiences what is alien to her since this 'I' [Je] cannot be un ecrivain. J/e poses the ideological and historical question of feminine subjects. — Monique Wittig

A text by a minority writer is effective only if it succeeds in making the minority point of view universal. ('The Universal and the Particular')" ... In claiming the lesbian point of view as universal, she overturns the concepts to which we are accustomed. For up to this point, minority writers had to add "the universal" to their points of view if they wished to attain the unquestioned universality of the dominant class. Gay men, for example, have always defined themselves as a minority and never questioned, despite their transgression, the dominant choice. This is why gay culture has always had a fairly wide audience.
[From the Foreword "Changing the Point of View" by Louise Turcotte] — Monique Wittig

There is no 'feminine writing' ... and one makes a mistake is using and giving currency to this expression. — Monique Wittig

They say that oppression engenders hate. They are heard on all sides crying hate hate. — Monique Wittig

If I'd known how the week was going to turn out I would have sent it back first thing Monday and asked for a refund. — Susan Wittig Albert

For there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary. — Monique Wittig

Despite all the evils they wished to crush me with/
I remain as steady as the three-legged cauldron. — Monique Wittig

Today, together, let us repeat as our slogan that all trace of violence must disappear from this earth, then the sun will be honey-colored and music good to hear. — Monique Wittig

I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page. — Monique Wittig

We are the only ones who can tell our stories because we are the only ones who have lived them. — Susan Wittig Albert

A materialist feminist approach to women's oppression destroys the idea that women are a 'natural group' ... What the analysis accomplishes on the level of ideas, practice makes actual at the level of facts: by its very existence, lesbian society destroys the artificial (social) fact constituting women as a 'natural group.' A lesbian society pragmatically reveals that the division from men of which women have been the object is a political one ... — Monique Wittig

I feel a near passion for intelligence at grips with itself and not letting go. — Monique Wittig

The category of sex is the political category that founds society as heterosexual. — Monique Wittig

Never ask, never get," the dog replied. "Never try, never taste. Never taste, never enjoy. — Susan Wittig Albert

The basic agreement between human beings, indeed what makes them human and makes them social, is language. — Monique Wittig

There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember ... You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent. — Monique Wittig

Music keeps time and defies time, simultaneously. — Susan Wittig Albert

The healing that can grow out of the simple act of telling our stories is often quite remarkable. Even more remarkably, this healing is not just our own healing, it is the healing of all women. That's why, as we tell our stories to ourselves, it is also important to share them with others. This sharing brings a sense of kinship, of sisterhood. We understand that we are not alone in our efforts to become conscious, whole, healthy persons. — Susan Wittig Albert

Does that mean you're prepared to deal with whatever turns up? People aren't sometimes. When they learn the real truth, they're all of a sudden content to live with a lie. — Susan Wittig Albert

It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary. The contrary would be to say that sex creates oppression, or to say that the cause (origin) of oppression is to be found in sex itself, in a natural division of the sexes preexisting (or outside of) society. — Monique Wittig

I am often surprised when I think to count my graces, for the more I count, the more there seem to be. And if pride in my accomplishments is the emotion that I naturally feel when I focus on my gifts, gratitude is the emotion I feel as I become aware of the many graces that have shaped me and my gifts. — Susan Wittig Albert

Maude regards the ones who don't make it as her own personal failures. "I guess I didn't put enough emphasis on 'until death do you part,'" she says sourly, whenever she hears about the latest divorce. "Sad to say, but some are in it just for the good times. Married folks, they gotta be like that cat's claw acacia I've got growin' in my yard. Gotta grab hard and hold on tight when the going gets rough. Only way to get through the bad times. Grab hard, hold on, and ride. No matter what. — Susan Wittig Albert

One is a writer, or one is not. — Monique Wittig

Frankly, [the definition of woman] is a problem that the lesbians do not have because of a change of perspective. 'Woman' has meaning only in heterosexual systems of thought and heterosexual, economic systems. Lesbians are not women. — Monique Wittig

Not only do we naturalize history, but also consequently we naturalize the social phenomena which express our oppression, making change impossible — Monique Wittig

The dictionary is, however, only a rough draft. — Monique Wittig