Lesbian Existence

Famous quotes containing the words lesbian existence, lesbian and/or existence:

    Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.
    Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

    Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.
    Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)

    What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?
    Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)