Quotes About Community

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will. What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry, as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, under unbearable duress and only with the hope that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.

[I]t is the one season of the year when we can lay aside all gnawing worry, indulge in sentiment without censure, assume the carefree faith of childhood, and just plain "have fun." Whether they call it Yuletide, Noel, Weinachten, or Christmas, people around the earth thirst for its refreshment as the desert traveller for the oasis.

Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass.

being the woman that i am will make a way out of no way..[these are the words of all women of color who assert who they are, who create sound out of silence, and who build worlds out of remnants. (282

We're going about it the wrong way … Passing laws and trying to make people happy and good … there's only one way in which it can be done and that's from inside outwards; starting with the individual and spreading outwards to others. Some people have power in them and could do a lot, others could just do a little, but everybody could do something … even if they just made one house a happy place.

The storyteller has always been a valuable member of society. Even in prehistoric times when men hunted wild beasts and lived in caves they sat around the campfire at night and listened to stories. Your profession is one of the oldest in the world and one of the most useful... And we need stories more than ever now. We need stories to entertain us, to help us to forget our troubles, to fill our lives with colour.

In the course of my wanderings I have started life anew in many places, and in every place the same thing happens: at first there is little to do, one knows nobody and life passes by like a pageant, then gradually the world breaks in and one becomes a part of the pageant instead of a mere spectator.

I was not alone in my experience—not alone anymore. The mere fact that another had walked where I was walking made the path easier for my feet.

If you had told me eighteen months ago that German aeroplanes would fly over this house, and that I would not take any notice of them but just go on as usual, I should have thought you were mad!" I ask her what has changed her outlook and she replies, "I think we have got beyond being frightened for ourselves. We don't matter, Hester. It is Britain that matters now. We are all soldiers now . .

The only human beings in the neighborhood who were not looking forward to a happy day were members of the local constabulary, for it seemed pretty certain that a good many otherwise law-abiding people would come in motor cars, burning gas that had been allotted them for domestic purposes only, and the English bobby does not fancy himself in the role of Gestapo official.

Because if you walk in a city you're jostled by hundreds of indifferent people with indifferent eyes that look at you as if you weren't there at all. You begin to feel you must be invisible. Hundreds and thousands of eyes, and not one pair really seeing you or caring who you are. I'd rather walk down Beilford High Street and know that everybody was saying, 'There goes the mad painter!' It's better to be mad than invisible." She

Loneliness is inside a person . . . It is possible to be lonely in a big city. If a person is contented and has enough work to do he will not feel lonely amongst the hills.

Loneliness is inside a person," replied Sutherland. "It is possible to be lonely in a big city. If a person is contented and has enough work to do he will not feel lonely amongst the hills … but it is a wee bit out of the way and would not do for a man with young children who were attending school. All the same it is a solid little house and comfortable. If you are going in that direction Mistress Sutherland would be pleased to give you a cup of tea." Rhoda

My post bag is full of letters from all over the world and the curious thing is that so many of these letters tell me that my books are a cure for loneliness. Perhaps this is because I open the door and invite my readers to come in, to sit down by the fire and take part in the life of the characters.

Oh well, that's what he did. He's very interested in boys. He used to go down to the club in the evening and chat to the boys; he taught them to play badminton and helped them to produce plays. They did carpentry and photography—all that sort of thing, you know,' said Mr. Baird vaguely. 'Of course latterly, when he was ill, he wasn't able to go, but I managed to find a man to run the place for him and I hear things are going on quite satisfactorily.

There were compensations in poverty—so she discovered. You could talk to your neighbours and take part in their lives, and she found them more interesting than the people she met in the upper circles of society. They were real, and you were real. You could lend a hand when they were in trouble. . . . Another great advantage of being poor was that you had no servant worries, your home was your own and there was no need to bother your head about what the servants would think.

It is a queer little world that inhabits these quarters – speaking every known dialect of the British Isles – but they get on together marvellously well considering their propinquity, and there is a warm welcome at every door.

Presumably people lived in these other flats but Bel had lived in her flat for eighteen months—and she knew nobody. Sometimes she met people on the stairs but they passed by as if she were invisible. It was very different from Southmere where she knew everyone and everyone knew her and where, even if you did not know a person, it was correct to say "Good morning" as you passed.

Where I live is one of the places where suburban stories were first mass-produced. They were stories then for displaced Okies and Arkies, Jews who knew the pain of exclusion, Catholics who thought they did, and anyone white with a steady job.

In the suburbs, a manageable life depends on a compact among neighbors. The unspoken agreement is an honest hypocrisy.

In L.A., a lot of comics live here, but we don't get to spend that much time together because we've got to drive 45 minutes home, or do another set. So in San Francisco we can hang out, go for dinner - the community aspect of it is really lovely, as well as seeing people's shows that you don't normally get to see a longer version of.

As a black woman who grows up in a predominantly white neighborhood, you learn how to perform a 'good' version of yourself. And then when you're with your home girls, you're saying all kinds of stuff that sounds all kinds of crazy, but you understand each other because you're speaking the way that you're comfortable with.

Niaqornat particularly seemed to offer a heightened version of a story being played out across the world about traditional communities' struggle for survival and their attempts to renegotiate their identity in the face of modern life.

There are millions of Americans who belong by nature in movie theaters as they belong at political rallies or in fortuneteller parlors and on the shoot-the-chutes. To these millions, the movies are a sort of boon - a gaudier version of religion.