Via Jill at Feministe:

“Thus I have at a comparatively early age lost all my motivating faiths, faith in the righteous cause of women, faith in the recreating powers of science, faith in the ennobling possibilities of education. This is indeed a very sad state. Worse, I have become that futile creature, a writer. I had rather make small black marks on paper than go through any experience I can name. The sensory pleasures have pretty largely ceased to be; I can sit here in my quiet study and desire to desire something, something to touch or taste or see or hear, but the desire does not come. If I were building a Utopia, I would take away our memories, so we would start fresh every day, and then I would endow each of us with strong, lusty desires, and I would give us strong, eager feet with which to run swiftly and determinedly after our desires. I would leave principles out of my Utopia, even feminism; in place of principles I would give us all a magnificent and flaming audacity.”

–Lorine Livingston Pruette, circa 1926.