James Allen Hall famous quotes

Poetry gave me the life I live: many of the people I love, the places I've traveled, the things I've learned about myself, the job I hold. And I can't count the times I've been on the precipice of making a - shall we say "adventurous"? - decision and thought, "But think of the poem I'll get out of this." Most of them have paid off.
-- James Allen Hall

#Thinking #People #Decision

Art devoid of danger lacks many other things as well: pleasure, beauty, and the ability to save us. Poems that divest the self of its masks in order to analyze how those masks are made - by what means, by whom, for what ostensible purpose - those poems risk offering us refuge.
-- James Allen Hall

#Art #Mean #Risk

I try to use my privilege to deconstruct from inside the racist, homophobic, heterocentric house, as an ally, while compatriot tools dismantle the patriarch's house. I do this by pushing the boundaries of what makes a poem and what makes an essay. My tools are blur, cross, pulverize, confront, remember.
-- James Allen Hall

#House #Trying #Racist

Americans think the only funny Brits are John Cleese, Benny Hill and whoever makes our toothpaste. They're not laughing with us, they are laughing at us.

I don't think that when Zionism began there was a claim that we were losing - even in part - our capacity to contribute to other peoples.

I think I feel rather differently about sympathy to what seems the normal view. I like just to feel it is there, but not always expressed.

The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn't permit them to cross boundaries with other people.

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.

Money has no color. If you can build a better mousetrap, it won't matter whether you're black or white. People will buy it.

I think we are constantly faced with the same decision. The decision to be blindly obedient to authority versus the decision to try and change things by fighting the powers that be is always, throughout history, the only decision.

It seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don't want to put them in a position to fail.

Most of society's decision making for young people happens without young people, and that could not happen without adultcentrism.

You have to make sure that your assets and your back is protected before you make any big decisions.