Top Shirley Geok-lin Lim Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Shirley Geok-lin Lim Biography

Shirley Geok-lin Lim (born 1944) was born in Malacca Malaysia. She is an American writer of poetry, fiction, and criticism. Her first collection of poems, Crossing The Peninsula, published in 1980, won her the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, a first both for an Asian and for a woman. Among several other awards that she has received, her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces, received the 1997 American Book Award.

Read about Shirley Geok-lin Lim in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Shirley Geok-lin Lim Quotes

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Grew, Puzzled, Younger, Heterosexual, Continued

The crows live in the world like you do. They are part of nature.

Crow, Crows, Like You, Live, Nature, World

In a way, this kind of insight or recognition often permeates the way I think of character, how I plot action, and the way in which I use imagery, seeing binaries as false.

Binaries, Character, False, Permeates, Plot, Thinking

Sometimes, in my published complaints about not being a writer, I have recalled the prospect - the yearning to be a writer - as it first formed for me.

Firsts, Prospect, Published, Recalled, Sometimes, Yearning

When I write, I put aside the heterosexual world to admit a muse that is a woman-loving-woman female.

Aside, Female, Heterosexual, World, Writing

No one, evidently, except me has found "No Alarms" poem ironical that an obsessive theme in my writing was - and has continued to be - not being able to write.

Able, Alarms, Evidently, Poem, Theme, Writing

[Cancer] didn't make me more intense about not working more and just having fun more. It didn't do that either.

Cancer, Fun, Intense, Make, Working

My recent retirement from full-time teaching to the status of research professor at University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) encouraged me to come out, so to speak.

Retirement, Teaching, Santa Barbara, Barbara, Research

I look at my young students, and I no longer have the sense that, oh, I'm the authority and they have to meet a certain standard. It's like, oh, look at these young ones. They've got such a hard road in front of them. I don't envy them having life ahead of them.

Envy, Looks, Students, Young

In some ways it is absurd for me to assert, counter to evidence, that I have not been writing.

Absurd, Assert, Counter, Way, Writing

Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could do that? And that way, I could walk with the muse, rather than walk without her. The novel would write itself.

Novel, Way, Wonderful, Write, Writing

I always wanted to be pretty as a girl, although I believed it was not possible.

Believed, Girl, Possible, Pretty, Wanted

Even after the mothering dropped because my son grew up, the writing - the muse - was always the third wheel, the lowest on the priority list.

Dropped, Grew, Priorities, Son, Writing

As a female in a home with a whole bunch of brothers and being very close to my father, without a mother and later having a hostile relationship with my stepmother, there were all kinds of Freudian issues rising from possessing a female body that I had to negotiate with no guidance, and I did this negotiation almost instinctually.

Brother, Father, Home, Mother, Relationship, Rising

People called me a tomboy. That was the term used then. I was very much someone who was comfortable in male clothing, and even later when I grew up, I was constantly wearing dungarees, wearing guy shirts.

Clothing, Guy, Males, People, Used

The things that I dislike passionately, I have come to realize, are also part of me.

Realizing, Dislike, Come, Realize, Things

You've read some of the poems in this new unpublished book [Walker's Alphabet], e. g. , the poem "C. " I have a number of poems whose titles are letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F.

Book, Numbers, Titles, Number, Read, Alphabet

When you're a female poet, would you, therefore, invoke a male muse? When nuns get consecrated into their vocations, they become brides of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom. In these symbolic actions, rather than in physical actions, where a male reaches sexuality or participates in intimate exchanges, if one uses a different term - there's often a heterosexual figuring that takes place. The male poet invokes a beautiful female muse. The virginal nun consecrated invokes the male bridegroom, Christ.

Beautiful, Males, Female, Takes, Place

Poetry has roots, and sometimes they are aerial. Sometimes they are buried.

Roots, Sometimes, Buried, Poetry, Aerial

I don't really get into the power sufficiently, and that's also a problem for me.

Problem, Power, Sufficiently

1