Quotes Archives - The Patient Poppy

November 26, 2023October 14, 2023

A braid of stories

This is a quote from the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Braiding Sweetgrass – Summary

Here is the book summary:

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers.

In Braiding Sweetgrass , Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

November 19, 2023October 14, 2023

Our histories

This is a quote from the book Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Summary

Here is the book summary:

In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.

Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today’s struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.

Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that “Freedom is a constant struggle.”

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

November 12, 2023October 14, 2023

History is the stories we tell

This is a quote from the book The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Inconvenient Indian – Summary

Here is the book summary:

The Inconvenient Indian is at once a “history” and the complete subversion of a history—in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be “Indian” in North America.

Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.

This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope—a sometimes inconvenient, but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

November 5, 2023October 14, 2023

We are unmovable

This is a quote from the book Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Heart Berries – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman’s coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is

Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot’s mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn’t exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

October 29, 2023October 14, 2023

If our stories were…

This is a quote from the book How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

How to Be Eaten – Summary

Here is the book summary:

This darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma.

In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina’s love story will shock them all.

Though the women start out wary of one another, judging each other’s stories, gradually they begin to realize that they may have more in common than they supposed . . . What really brought them here? What secrets will they reveal? And is it too late for them to rescue each other?

Dark, edgy, and wickedly funny, this debut for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, Kristen Arnett, and Kelly Link takes our coziest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

October 22, 2023October 14, 2023

A kind of dazed horror

This is a quote from the book Someone Like You by Roald Dahl. As this is a collection of short stories, the quote comes from the story ‘Lamb to the Slaughter.’

Quote by Roald Dahl, “And he told her. It didn’t take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat very still through it all, watching him with a kind of dazed horror as he went further and further away from her with each word.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

I should note, Roald Dahl is a problematic author, there have been quite a few instances of discriminatory language and behaviour from him. In no way do I support or endorse any of those views. I do enjoy his work that I’ve read and some of his short stories got me back into reading. If you prefer to avoid all problematic authors, I completely understand.

Someone Like You – Summary

Here is the book summary:

In Someone Like You are fifteen classic tales told by the grand master of the short story, Roald Dahl.

Here, in Roald Dahl’s first collection of his world famous dark and sinister adult stories, a wife serves a dish that baffles the police; a harmless bet suddenly becomes anything but; a curious machine reveals a horrifying truth about plants; and a man lies awake waiting to be bitten by the venomous snake asleep on his stomach.

Through vendettas and desperate quests, bitter memories and sordid fantasies, Roald Dahl’s stories portray the strange and unexpected, sending a shiver down the spine.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

October 15, 2023October 14, 2023

Those eyes become the sky

This is a quote from the book Apple & Knife by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen J. Epstein.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Apple & Knife – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Inspired by horror fiction, myths and fairy tales, Apple and Knife is an unsettling ride that swerves into the supernatural to explore the dangers and power of occupying a female body in today’s world.

These stories set in the Indonesian everyday – in corporate boardrooms, in shanty towns, on dangdut stages – reveal a soupy otherworld stewing just beneath the surface. This is subversive feminist horror at its best, where men and women alike are arbiters of fear, and where revenge is sometimes sweetest when delivered from the grave.

Dark, humorous, and vividly realised, Apple and Knife brings together taboos, inversions, sex and death in a heady, intoxicating mix.

Note: It’s important to understand that some stories require a trigger warning.

Translated by: Stephen J. Epstein

More details can be found here on Goodreads and on Storygraph.

October 8, 2023October 14, 2023

Beloved Uncle

This is a quote from the book Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Earthlings – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Natsuki isn’t like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.

Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki’s family are increasing, her friends wonder why she’s still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki’s childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?

Translated by: Ginny Tapley Takemori

More details here on Goodreads and on Storygraph.

October 1, 2023September 7, 2023

Water yearns toward air

This is a quote from the book Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield.

Quote by Julia Armfield, “There’s a point between the sea and the air that is both and also not quite either. Does that make sense? I’m talking about the point at the very top of the ocean that is constantly evaporating and condensing, where water yearns toward air and air yearns toward water. I think about this sometimes, that middle place, the struggle of one thing twisting into another and back again.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Our Wives Under the Sea – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.

Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

September 24, 2023September 7, 2023

They were almost in love

This is a quote from the book Babel by R.F. Kuang.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here and here.

Babel – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

More details can be found here on Goodreads and on Storygraph.

Category: Quotes

A braid of stories

Braiding Sweetgrass – Summary

Like this:

Our histories

Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Summary

Like this:

History is the stories we tell

The Inconvenient Indian – Summary

Like this:

We are unmovable

Heart Berries – Summary

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If our stories were…

How to Be Eaten – Summary

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A kind of dazed horror

Someone Like You – Summary

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Those eyes become the sky

Apple & Knife – Summary

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Beloved Uncle

Earthlings – Summary

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Water yearns toward air

Our Wives Under the Sea – Summary

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They were almost in love

Babel – Summary

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Braiding Sweetgrass – Summary

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Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Summary

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The Inconvenient Indian – Summary

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Heart Berries – Summary

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How to Be Eaten – Summary

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Someone Like You – Summary

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Apple & Knife – Summary

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Earthlings – Summary

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Our Wives Under the Sea – Summary

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Babel – Summary

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