“I was young and could not see the weaponry my ancestors had left for me, the shield in the tall brown grass, the ax lying right next to the tree.”

Ballad and Lyrical Poems (1923), "The Orange Tree"

Quoted in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, by Jeanne Theoharis (2013)

The Raven Warrior

Variant: If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.

O interview (2003)
Context: I had been already trying to do Frida, but I would sit on my sorrows because it was so difficult. But now I was learning new things. And so I thought, this is what I want to do. I want to do one movie that if I die the next day, I know I left one thing in this world that I was very proud of, that other people can see, that meant something to me, that had my voice. Because God forbid I die tomorrow, I'm the bombshell for the rest of my existence. … Then I became very angry I said, I have become what they decided I am. When did I fall in this trap? Somebody decided I was this, and I became that. And I said, "I'm going to change it now. I'm going to define myself."

Volume 3: Caldé of the Long Sun (1994), Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

Source: The Candy Shop War

Quote from Hodler's speech: 'Über die Kunst', in Freibourg, 1897; as cited in Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination: Swedish Art of the 1890's, Michelle Facos; University of California Press, 1998, p.

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry