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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

bell hooks Quotes

I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.

– bell hooks

Yesterday I was thinking about the whole idea of genius and creative people, and the notion that if you create some magical art, somehow that exempts you from having to pay attention to the small things.

– bell hooks

I think I was always obsessed with esthetics.

– bell hooks

I don’t think you can hate anything that you know intimately. There is no fine line separating love from hate because there’s a deep chasm separating love from hate.

– bell hooks

I’ve written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.

– bell hooks

No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women… When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.

– bell hooks

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

– bell hooks

Since anti-racist individuals did not control mass media, the media became the primary tool that would be used and is still used to convince black viewers, and everyone else, of black inferiority.

– bell hooks

I have created a life style that supports contemplation, service to words.

– bell hooks

An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.

– bell hooks

Death is with you all the time; you get deeper in it as you move towards it, but it’s not unfamiliar to you. It’s always been there, so what becomes unfamiliar to you when you pass away from the moment is really life.

– bell hooks

Since loving is about knowing, we have more meaningful love relationships when we know each other and it takes time to know each other.

– bell hooks

There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death. Whether it’s the mundane violence we do to our bodies by overeating toxic food or drink or the extreme violence of child abuse, domestic warfare, life-threatening poverty, addiction, or state terrorism.

– bell hooks

Any society based on domination supports and condones violence.

– bell hooks

I feel like there is always something trying to pull us back into sleep, that there is this sort of seductive quality in all the hedonistic pleasures that pull on us.

– bell hooks

The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech.

– bell hooks

In this culture, the phrase ‘black woman’ is not synonymous with ‘tender,’ or ‘gentle.’ It’s as if those words couldn’t possibly speak to the reality of black females.

– bell hooks

A major part of love is commitment. If we are committed to someone, if I’m committed to loving you, then it’s not possible for me to ‘fall out of love.’

– bell hooks

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.

– bell hooks

For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?

– bell hooks

When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.

– bell hooks

I thought about how we need to make children feel that there are times in their lives when they need to be alone and quiet and to be able to accept their aloneness.

– bell hooks

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