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The Promise of Happiness QUOTES

The Promise of Happiness QUOTES

1 " Let’s take this figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people’s joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way? "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness

2 " Every writer is first a reader, and what we read matters. "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness

3 " Let's take the figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. One feminist project could be to give the killjoy back her voice. Whilst hearing feminists as killjoys might be a form of dismissal, there is an agency that this dismissal rather ironically reveals. We can respond to the accusation with a "yes. "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness

4 " There is nothing more vulnerable than caring for someone; it means not only giving your energy to that which is not you but also caring for that which is beyond or outside your control. Caring is anxious—to be full of care, to be careful, is to take care of things by becoming anxious about their future, where the future is embodied in the fragility of an object whose persistence matters. Becoming caring is not about becoming good or nice: people who have “being caring” as their ego ideal often act in quite uncaring ways in order to protect their good image of themselves. To care is not about letting an object go but holding on to an object by letting oneself go, giving oneself over to something that is not one’s own. "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness

5 " Where we find happiness teaches us what we value rather than simply what is of value. "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness

6 " Those of us committed to a queer life know that forms of recognition are either precariously conditional, you have to be the right kind of queer by depositing your hope for happiness in the right places (even with perverse desire you can have straight aspirations), or it is simply not given. "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness

7 " En el transcurso de su obra, Lorde sostiene que no debemos protegernos de lo que nos duele. Debemos trabajar y luchar no para sentir dolor, sino para advertir aquello que causa dolor, lo que significa desaprender todo aquello que hemos aprendido a pasar por alto, a no mirar. Este trabajo es indispensable si queremos desarrollar un entendimiento crítico del modo en que la violencia, en cuanto relación de fuerza y daño, se dirige contra algunos cuerpos y no contra otros. Si bien podemos y debemos continuar el estudio que plantea Raymond Williams de las 'estructuras de sentimiento', creo que también deberíamos explorar los 'sentimientos de estructura': quizá los sentimientos sean el modo en que las estructuras se nos meten bajo la piel. "

― Sara Ahmed , The Promise of Happiness