Quotes About Freedom

There were swings in one of the parks, but because of our skirts, which might be blown up by the wind and then looked into, we were not to think of taking such a liberty as a swing. Only boys could taste that freedom; only they could swoop and soar; only they could be airborne. I have still never been on a swing. It remains one of my wishes.

That was the original idea, but once you've got a controlled population with a wall around it and no oversight, you can do anything you want.

We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.

Nothing is ever settled," says Jocelyn. "Every day is different. Isn't it better to do something because you've decided to? Rather than because you have to?

Such regrets are of no practical use. I made choices, and then, having made them, I had fewer choices.

I follow suit, said the lion, vacating his coat of arms and movie logos; and the eagle said, Get me off this flag.

They have a certain gaiety to them, a power of invention, they don't care what people think. They have escaped, though what it is they've escaped from isn't clear to us. We think that their bizarre costumes, their verbal tics, are chosen, and that when the time comes we also will be free to choose. That's what I'm going to be like

There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. In the day of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.

Here's a health to our Captain, so gallant and free Whether stuck on a rock or asleep 'neath a tree Or rolled in the arms of some nymph of the sea Which is where we would all like to be, man!

In this country you can say what you like because no one will listen to you anyway

The lock splits. The iron gate swings open. She emerges, raises her arms towards the suddenly chilled moon. The world changes.

All writers must go from now to once upon a time; all must take care not to be captured and held immobile by the past.

I thought of myself as an itinerant brain--the equivalent of a strolling player of Elizabethan times, or else a troubadour, clutching my university degree like a cheap lute.

Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody — a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules.

She stood for a long time, breathing in and breathing in, the scent of the trees and dogs and night flowers and water, because this was the best thing, it was what she wanted, to be outside in the night by herself. She wasn't sick any longer.

You're not my real parents, every child has thought. I'm not your real child. But with orphans, it's true. What freedom, to thumb your nose authentically!

Moira had power now, she'd been set loose, she'd set herself loose. She was now a loose woman. I think we found this frightening. Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy. Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere you'd come apart, you'd vaporize, there would be no pressure holding you together.

She'd stepped out of sex as if out of a loose dress. Now she was brisk, decisive, no nonsense.

Stupid, stupid, stupid: I'd believed all that claptrap about life, liberty, democracy, and the rights of the individual I'd soaked up at law school. These were eternal verities and we would always defend them. I'd depended on that, as if on a magic charm.

Her strongest prison is of her own construct.

I keep walking. I feel daring, light-headed. They are not my best friends or even my friends. Nothing binds me to them. I am free.

then she smiled and said that we were precious flowers, and who ever heard of a rebellious flower?

Your legacy from him is the realm of infinite speculation. You're free to reinvent yourself at will.

It's strange to remember how we used to think, as if everything were available to us, as if there were no contingencies, no boundaries; as if we were free to shape and reshape forever the everexpanding perimeters of our lives. I was like that too, I did that too.