The Red Tent Quotes

“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life [...] the stronger the daughter.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“I wanted to cry, but I realized that I was too old for that. I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“The great mother whom we call Innana gave a gift to woman that is not known among men, and this is the secret of blood. The flow at the dark of the moon, the healing blood of the moon’s birth - to men, this is flux and distemper, bother and pain. They imagine we suffer and consider themselves lucky. We do not disabuse them.

In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month’s death, preparing the body to receive the new month’s life, women give thanks — for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“I could not get my fill of looking.
There should be a song for women to sing at this moment or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Egypt loved the lotus becuase it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles, tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“If you want to understand any woman, you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. ”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“The other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“He was golden and beautiful as a sunset.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“They sang the words in unison, yet somehow created a web of sounds with their voices. It was like hearing a piece of fabric woven with all the colors of a rainbow. I did not know that such beauty could be formed by the human mouth. I had never heard harmony before.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“My heart is a ladle of sweet water brimming over.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child... There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name the moment.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“on the day that the intlligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“The story it told was unremarkable: a tale of love found and lost- the oldest story in the world. The only story.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“I moved my arms through the water, feeling them float on the surface, watching the waves and wake that followed my gesture. Here was magic, I thought. Here was something holy.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“One of my great secrets was knowing I had the power to make her smile.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Wherever you walk, I go with you. Selah.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“One of his tears fell in my mouth, where it became a blue sapphire, source of strength, source of strength and eternal hope.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Fear not, the time is coming
Fear not, your bones are strong
Fear not, help is nearby
Fear not, Gula is near
Fear not, the baby is at the door
Fear not, he will live to bring you honor
Fear not, the hands of the midwife are clever
Fear not, the earth is beneath you
Fear not, we have water and salt
Fear not, little mother
Fear not, mother of us all”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Why did I not know that (child) birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?...Until you are the woman on the bricks, you have no idea how death stands in the corner, ready to play his part. Until you are the woman on the bricks, you do not know the power that rises from other women.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“It's a wonder that any mother ever called a daughter Dinah again. But some did. Maybe you guessed that there was more to me than the voiceless cipher in the text. Maybe you heard it in the music of my name: the first vowel high and clear, as when a mother calls to her child at dusk; the second sound soft, for whispering secrets on pillows. Dee-nah.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“Midwives do not fear life.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent