“Crowded fifty to a room, There's too many rats in this cage of the world, And the women know their place, They sit home and write letters, And when they visit once a year, Well they both just sit there and stare, Gotta keep bars in between us, See how we are”

“How can a bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

“You know when a company wants to use letters in their phone number to be catchy? But often times they use too many letters. "Give us a call down here at 1-800-I-Really-Enjoy-Carpeting." It's too many letters, man. "Hello?" "Hold on, I'm only on 'Enjoy'! How did you know I was calling? I can see why they hired you!"”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

“Can't be part of the rat race when you're one of the rats who knows you're in a cage.”

Ed Brubaker (1966) comic book writer and cartoonist

“When we play the fool, how wide
The theatre expands! beside,
How long the audience sits before us!
How many prompters! what a chorus!”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

“I pondered exactly how future biographers would go about writing the biographies of authors without letters. It's not like email and "chat" and whatnot will fill the void. Online journals help a little, but they are not, generally, the truly honest sorts of things that letters were, and only a few authors keep them. I tried for years to keep up letter writing, but was defeated in the end by too many unreliable correspondents.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

“I sit at home
In our room
By our bed
Gazing at your pillow.”

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (662–710) Japanese poet

“Never sit a table when you can stand at the bar.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“We finally had time to sit at home and reflect on how our society functions and whether or not it's functioning well for all of us. The overwhelming consensus was that it is not, it is insufficient – in fact, it's been unsustainable for decades, if not generations.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer