Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greeris an Australian-born writer, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. She lives in the United Kingdom, where she has held academic positions, specializing in English literature, at the University of Warwick and Newnham College, Cambridge...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth29 January 1939
CountryAustralia
peace betrayal freedom
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
essence spontaneity pleasure
The essence of pleasure is spontaneity.
women reality deviousness
Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.
women hate memorable
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
garden alternatives therapy
A garden is the best alternative therapy.
spiritual pain athlete
Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the spiritual athlete must crash through.
heart men humanity
Every time a man unburdens his heart to a stranger he reaffirms the love that unites humanity.
sex years perfect
continuing sexual interest and perfect sexual adjustment between partners who have been together for thirty years is so difficult and rare that no one should feel guilty or inadequate for not having managed it.
strong communication community
The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening. We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication. We could only fear chaos if we imagined that it was unknown to us, but in fact we know it very well.
disease causes lifetime
Despite a lifetime of service to the cause of sexual liberation, I have never caught venereal disease, which makes me feel rather like an Arctic explorer who has never had frostbite.
self evil our-society
It [childbearing] was never intended to be as time-consuming and self-conscious a process as it is. One of the deepest evils in our society is tyrannical nurturance.
couple real struggle
The wedding is the chief ceremony of the middle-class mythology, and it functions as the official entrée of the spouses to their middle-class status. This is the real meaning of saving up to get married. The young couple struggles to set up an image of comfortable life which they will be forced to live up to in the years that follow.
husband pride reality
Every wife who slaves to keep herself pretty, to cook her husband's favourite meals, to build up his pride and confidence in himself at the expense of his sense of reality, to be his closest and effectively his only friend, to encourage him to rejectthe consensus of opinionand find reassurance only in her arms is binding her mate to her with hoops of steel that will strangle them both.
struggle achievement joy
The struggle which is not joyous is the wrong struggle. The joy of the struggle is not hedonism and hilarity, but the sense of purpose, achievement and dignity.