Quotes about women
page 11

“For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue — that I had to do the job myself.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“Doubtless the lunatic asylums of the world are filled with unfortunate women who have failed to see my charms.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World

“Most women are starving to receive something from a man that they need to give to themselves”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Sex, Reality

“Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions http://books.google.com/books?id=KVHmzw43TgkC&q=%22Women+may+be+the+one+group+that+grows+more+radical+with+age%22&pg=PT377#v=onepage (1983), p. 377

Age

“Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Peace, Star, Waiting

“The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Men, Time

“Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Men, Secret, Personality

“When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Hurt

“It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 22 : Artistic Attempts

Men, People, Learning, Time

“Why did God make women so beautiful and man with such a loving heart?”

Walker Percy book Love in the Ruins

Source: Love in the Ruins

Love, God, Beauty, Heart

“I'm afraid to answer that. I've heard that when I speak, it makes American women wish to strike me with umbrellas.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Women were supposed to be the enigmas, but men? Moody, brooding bastards, the lot of them. A woman with PMS had nothing on a man. Where women might get hormonal once a month, men suffered their own brand of PMS on a daily basis.
- Faith”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Sweet Surrender

Men, Faith, Suffering

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Effort, Time, Baby

“I think when men hear that women want a commitment, they think it means commitment to a romantic relationship, but that's not it. It's a commitment to not floating around anywhere. I want a guy who is entrenched in his own life.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Life, Men, Guy, Thinking

“After all, only women are able really to love.”

Yasunari Kawabata book Snow Country

Source: Snow Country

Love

“Women’s liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful.”

Rebecca Solnit book Men Explain Things To Me

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

Men, Game, Time

“You know, it's not fair. Women are judged inferior until we prove ourselves, and men are judged superior until they prove what assholes they are.”

Sidney Sheldon book Nothing Lasts Forever

Source: Nothing Lasts Forever

Men

“You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself.”

Gaston Leroux (1868–1927) French writer

Love, Singing, Cry

“She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Men, Thinking

“Cosmetic surgery processes the bodies of woman-made women, who make up the vast majority of its patient pool, into man-made women.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth

“Health makes good propaganda. “'Proof' that women's activities outside the home are detrimental to the health and welfare of themselves, their families and the country as a whole” lent impetus, writes Ann Oakley, to the nineteenth-century cult of domesticity. The ovaries were seen as collective property rather than the woman's own business, as the face and body outline are seen today. Who can argue with health?”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 7 : 'Violence', p. 227

Health, Family, Home, Business

“There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more attractive.”

John Fowles book The French Lieutenant's Woman

Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman

Men, Idea, Knowledge

“It's all very romantic," Gabriel said, and then frowned. "Or it would be, if my brother could get a word out without sounding like a choking frog. I fear he will not go down in history as one of the world's greatest wooers of women.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

World, Fear, History

“Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Men

“Basically, men are afraid of women and can't handle the fact that they came out of the same thing they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist (1998)

Men

“From the look on your face, I'd say you know him."

I nodded. "Sold him a cannoli when I was in high school."

Connie grunted. "Honey, half of all the women in New Jersey have sold him their cannoli”

Janet Evanovich book One for the Money

Source: One for the Money

School

“Nor did he give a damn for the world either, or the universe, or heaven or hell. But he liked women.”

John Fante book The Brotherhood of the Grape

Source: The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977)
Context: Nobody crossed him without a battle. He disliked almost everything, particularly his wife, his children, his neighbors, his church, his priest, his town, his state, his country, and the country from which he emigrated. Nor did he give a damn for the world either, or the sun or the stars, or the universe, or heaven or hell. But he liked women.

World, Hell, Universe

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) <br class="br">Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Life, Men, People, Hope

“How strange women are.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

“Collect adventures and experiences to reminisce about…go to far places, meet new people, eat exotic foods, enjoy all varieties of women, look on unfamiliar landscapes, see new things.”

Gary Jennings (1928–1999) Novelist

People, Food

“One pretty woman means fun at the dance. Two pretty women mean trouble in the house. Three pretty women mean run for the hills.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Matrim Cauthon
(15 October 1991)

Dance, Housing

“Vin isn't… like other women."
Tindwyl raised an eyebrow, her voice softening slightly.
"I think that the more women you come to know, Your Majesty, the more you'll find that statement applies to all of them.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Thinking

“it never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.”

Muriel Spark book The Girls of Slender Means

Source: The Girls of Slender Means

Men, Girl

“Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in…. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Men, War, History

“You never want to look in a mirror," Lula said. "Men love mirrors. They look at themselves doing the deed and they see Rex the Wonder Horse. Women look at themselves and think they need to renew their membership at the gym.”

Janet Evanovich book Seven Up

Source: Seven Up

Love, Men, Thinking, Horse

“Gruff,” I said, “I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what’s in a fae woman’s mind.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

Understanding

“Those miserable women who blame the men who let them down for their misery and isolation enact every day the initial mistake of sacrificing their personal responsibility for themselves.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Source: The Female Eunuch

Men, Personality

“(Man in bar) Can you imagine a world without men? (Sylvia) No crime, and lots of happy, fat women.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, pp. 212-213

Men, World, Imagination, Happiness

“I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Time, Cry

“Misogynist — A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Hate

“Women need a reason for having sex, men just need a place”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Men, Sex

“Because viewing my naked chest has caused many women to seriously injure themselves stampeding to get to me.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Hope, Girl

“Men and women, they were beautiful and wild, all a little violent under their pleasant ways and only a little tamed.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Source: Przemine̜ło Z Wiatrem

Men, Beauty, Way

“I narrowed my eyes at it. Ming-de’s little gift, I assumed. “You look better in color,” I snapped.
He sent me a sultry look over his shoulder. “Really? Most women think I look better in nothing at all.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Embrace the Night

Color, Thinking

“The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome — this orphan, this foundling, this outcast.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Source: The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

Beauty

“Women. You tell me they're not all witches, and I'll tell you you haven't been paying attention.”

Charlie Huston book Joe Pitt Casebooks

Every Last Drop, Character: Joe Pitt (narration)
Joe Pitt Casebooks

“Feminism, coveting social power, is blind to women’s cosmic sexual power.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Rape and Modern Sex War, p. 52

“But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Sleep

“Women who disapprove of men - and there's plenty to disapprove of - should remember how we started out, and how far we had to travel.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Men, Travel

“Some women waited for a night in shining armor. She, apparently, had ended up with a knight in black jeans and leather, who wanted to chase her down and have his evil way with her.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Way, Evil, Waiting, Night

“In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water.”

Natsuo Kirino book Grotesque

Source: Grotesque

Men, Thinking, Water

“Women been gittin' pregnant ever since Eve ate that apple.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“I never could understand why some writers treat women as helpless. Every woman I know is strong in her own unique way.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Way, Understanding, Strong

“I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.”

Bram Stoker (1847–1912) Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula

Source: The New Annotated Dracula

Fear, Thinking

“And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Men

“Free women," said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinizing glance from her friend: "They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook

Men, Anger

“The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.”

Florence King (1936–2016) American writer

Life, Lovers

“Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, women have the amazing power to inspire us to live up to it.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2005)

Men, Dogs, Nature, Thinking

“The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Sadness, Personality

“But women do not say 'We', except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say 'women', and women use the same word in referring to themselves.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Men

“Thomas has the kind of whiter-than-white boyish grin that makes women's panties spontaneously evaporate.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

“Frequency of sex – Women sometimes wanted; men always needed.”

Nicholas Sparks book At First Sight

Source: At First Sight

Men, Sex

“Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

History

“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued."

(From a speech read on video on August 31, 1995 before the NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, China)”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)
Context: This year is the International Year for Tolerance. The United Nations has recognized that "tolerance, human rights, democracy and peace are closely related. Without tolerance, the foundations form democracy and respect for human rights cannot be strengthened, and the achievement of peace will remain elusive." My own experience during the years I have been engaged in the democracy movement of Burma has convinced me of the need to emphasize the positive aspect of tolerance. It is not enough simply to "live and let live": genuine tolerance requires an active effort to try to understand the point of view of others; it implies broad-mindedness and vision, as well as confidence in one's own ability to meet new challenges without resorting to intransigence or violence. In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely "tolerated", they are valued. Their opinions are listened to with respect, they are given their rightful place in shaping the society in which they live.

Men, Confidence, Reading

“For women like me, integrity isn't chastity, it isn't fidelity, it isn't any of the old words. Integrity is the orgasm. That is something I haven't any control over.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook