"I think that it is our intention to deny cancer any control over us"
About this Quote
A cancer diagnosis loves to steal the grammar of your life: suddenly everything is passive voice, everything happens to you. Edwards’ line is a refusal to let the disease author the story. The key word is “intention” - not victory, not cure, not even optimism. Intention is what you can still own when outcomes are uncertain. It’s a lawyer’s instrument: a declaration of agency that doesn’t pretend the court will rule in your favor, but insists you still get to make your case.
“Deny” is deliberately combative, but it’s also precise. She’s not claiming cancer has no power over the body; she’s drawing a jurisdictional boundary around the self. The subtext is about control as a scarce resource in illness. Treatments, appointments, prognoses - they can turn a person into a schedule. Edwards pushes back by framing control as something cancer must be refused rather than something health must provide.
Context sharpens the edge. Edwards lived her illness in public, tied to the glare of American political life and its hunger for narratives: brave patient, tragic spouse, inspirational fighter. Her phrasing sidesteps that machinery. It’s not a slogan about “beating” cancer; it’s a strategy for not being reduced to cancer. The “our” matters too, expanding the struggle beyond an individual body to a shared household, a shared identity. She’s staging solidarity as a form of resistance: if cancer is going to take space, it won’t get to take the steering wheel.
“Deny” is deliberately combative, but it’s also precise. She’s not claiming cancer has no power over the body; she’s drawing a jurisdictional boundary around the self. The subtext is about control as a scarce resource in illness. Treatments, appointments, prognoses - they can turn a person into a schedule. Edwards pushes back by framing control as something cancer must be refused rather than something health must provide.
Context sharpens the edge. Edwards lived her illness in public, tied to the glare of American political life and its hunger for narratives: brave patient, tragic spouse, inspirational fighter. Her phrasing sidesteps that machinery. It’s not a slogan about “beating” cancer; it’s a strategy for not being reduced to cancer. The “our” matters too, expanding the struggle beyond an individual body to a shared household, a shared identity. She’s staging solidarity as a form of resistance: if cancer is going to take space, it won’t get to take the steering wheel.
Quote Details
| Topic | Resilience |
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