Quotes from Tillie Olsen

Women are traditionally trained to place others' needs first… their satisfaction to be in making it possible for others to use their abilities.

Only help her to know—help make it so there is cause for her to know—that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.

I could not live by literature if only to begin with, because of the slow maturing of my work and its special character.

Not to have an audience is a kind of death.

Be critical. Women have the right to say: This is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.