Anne Waldman Quotes

I come from an acting family, my father was an actor, and I had to fight my way and just create my own identity.

It was one of those times when you can feel the air in a room. Everything stood still. I can remember the T-shirt I was wearing and the bag I was carrying. I don't think I breathed for 15 minutes. It was a devastating moment. They said they wanted me to experience more things. OK. I began contemplating things. Maybe I should take LSD or become a hooker. I left Juilliard and was just meandering and drifting for a while. Thank God I had support from my family and close friends. Bad times.

I don't think you're human unless you go through some [self-destructi on].

If we come from good families where we have been supported well, there is a disillusionment we have to undergo in terms of the culture's values. We have to get beyond our cultural mythology to find out who we are.

To every man who struggles with his own soul in mystery, a book that is a book flowers once, and seeds, and is gone.

My father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. 'You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!

My father's death when I was eighteen and his struggles as a Jewish immigrant provided me with the raw material, but for a long time I went from painting to fiction and then finally to poetry before I could find the right way of telling this story.

It is the measure of my individual struggle from darkness toward some measure of light.

She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil's lair. She wasn't innocent now, but she didn't know what to do about it. This was her life: magic and shame and secrets and teeth and a deep, nagging hollow at the center of herself where something was most certainly missing.

I recently found myself going through a period of uncertainty about my future as a performer, my status as a personality, the believability of my Christian witness and the knowledge of God's will in my life. I felt a force bigger than myself saying, 'Lay back. Take it easy. Study hard. Read your bible. Think, write and keep your mouth shut for awhile.'

I'm still divided in my principles and what I think is right and what I'm actually able to do, whether talking about writing or being a citizen or being a husband or being a father. And I'm trying to get better.

The battle for self-discipline may leave you a bit bruised and battered but always a better person. Self-discipline is a rigorous process at best; too many of us want it to be effortless and painless. Should temporary setbacks afflict us, a very significant part of our struggle for self-discipline is the determination and the courage to try again....Eternal life in the kingdom of our Father is your goal, and self-discipline will surely be required if you are to achieve it.

Every life I start with her, my original sin. I know myself through her.

I've never made an excuse of not knowing my father, because I've had great people in my life.

My pride and immaturity caused me to make things more of a struggle than they had to be. I can always blame others or circumstances, but the truth was that my own sinful pride led to more stress than anything else.

Unconditional love will turn a loser into a winner. You have no idea how many times your heavenly Father has wanted to reach out and grasp you in his arms when you felt like you blew it!

Success is such a relative thing for me. I'm fundamentally a Christian which means that ultimately all of the penultimate titles and things you just had to wear with a loose garment. Really.

I'm okay with standing in my way and in turn allowing it to impede my progress, but I'm okay with the struggle of overcoming obstacles despite myself.

My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge.

I was battling depression, went through a really hard time in my marriage, and I used to cry myself to sleep. I went through years and years of pain and suffering, and finally got help. I feel so much better now, feel like a new person, so now I can be happy about it.

Being young and trying to catch a glimpse of the depths, of the true self, of the soul, or whatever human beings have called it over the centuries, we often find ourselves surrounded by bossy, hectoring voices trying to short-circuit our personal experience by super-imposing their own disappointments. Much of this bossiness masquerades as an education.

I have not so great a struggle with my vices, great and numerous as they are, as I have with my impatience. My efforts are not absolutely useless; yet I have never been able to conquer this ferocious wild beast.

For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained.

Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.

Terry Kitchen asked me one time why, since I had so few gifts as a husband and father, I had gotten married. And I heard myself say: "That's the way the post-war movie goes.