A little man in a threadbare coat spoke up for the poor as if he really knew what he was talking about. The women with the flowers threw them down for him. “That’s Robert Speer,” one said. “Something like that. He’s our man.

— Marge Piercy

A new idea is rarely born like Venus attended by graces. More commonly it's modeled of baling wire and acne. More commonly it wheezes and tips over.

— Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done

— Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.

— Marge Piercy

Connections are made slowly sometimes they grow underground.

— Marge Piercy

Drifting with things is a habit it takes almost dying to break.

— Marge Piercy

If I die this instant will you be more content with the morning news? Will your coffee taste better? I am not your fate. I am not your government… I am not your mother, not your father or your nightmare or your health. Furthermore, I am not a fence, not a wall. Furthermore, I am not the law or actuarial tables of your insurance broker. Furthermore, I am a woman with my guts loose in my hands, howling, and it’s not because I committed hard-kiri. Furthermore, I suggest either you cook me or sew me back up. Furthermore, I suggest you walk into my pain as into the breaking waves of an ocean of blood, and either we will climb out together and walk away.

— Marge Piercy

If you want to be listened to you should put in time listening.

— Marge Piercy

In fiction, I exercise my nosiness. I am as curious as my cats, and indeed that has led to trouble often enough and used up several of my nine lives. I am an avid listener. Furthermore, I am fascinated by other people's lives, the choices they make and how that works out through time, what they have done and left undone, what they tell me and what they keep secret and silent, what they lie about and what they confess, what they are proud of and what shames them, what they hope for and what they fear. The source of my fiction is the desire to understand people and their choices through time.

— Marge Piercy

It's the last great free-for-all robbery of everybody's earth.

— Marge Piercy