miajakobsen's Reviews (152)

I think that solidarity always implies a kind of mutuality... I think we share our experiences. Just as I think the development of Black feminism and women-of-colour feminisms can offer ideas, experiences, analyses to Palestinians, so can Black feminisms and women-of-colour feminisms learn from the struggle of the Palestinian people and Palestinian feminists.

Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect. What has kept me going has been the development of new modes of community. I don’t know whether I would have survived had not movements survived, had not communities of resistance, communities of struggle. So whatever I’m doing I always feel myself directly connected to those communities... we have to encourage that sense of community particularly at a time when neoliberalism attempts to force people to think of themselves only in individual terms and not in collective terms. It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.

Books are not meant to remain in your mind, but in your heart.

I spent an odd winter with your book. I remember the first time I read it- years ago. I rebelled against it and shrank from it. I wouldn't let it hurt me. It was cowardice. But this time there was no escaping. I leant upon the sharpness of its point - passionately. I drove it home and turned it round in my heart. It has left me, I think, with my own poor little capacity of thinking and suffering and loving enlarged - and oh! I am sure, with an added intensity of wonder and gratitude for the people who can think and suffer and love really. 
And it was my companion. Day and night your voice, your sweet, excruciating voice, spoke to me. I ruminated your words, and their music and their meaning, and let them sink into me and become part of me - I hardly wanted more of you during the winter. 
But now that is over. I have nothing to do, and I am here - in Cambridge - without you - without a single hope of you. It is extraordinarily beautiful in this lovely spring - and extraordinarily haunted - and sometimes I find it very difficult to bear.

Lytton was uncomfortable with their heterosexuality and found any sign of affection discomforting. 'Couples on the road with their silly arms round their stupid waists irritate me in the same way', he added. 'I want to shake them.