Quotes about women
page 8

“Everything I do is going to contain the message that men who are going to be comfortable with powerful women are going to be more powerful men”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Men

“Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to use more than half.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Understanding, Nature, Thinking

“The magic of sex is it's acquisition without the burden of possession. No matter how many women you take home, there's never a storage problem.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Asfixia

Sex, Home, Problem

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Intelligence

“Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Source: Post Office (1971)

Love, Suffering, Clothes

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Women's dieting has become what Yale psychologist Judith Rodin calls a 'normative obsession,' a never-ending passion play given international coverage out of all proportion to the health risks associated with obesity, and using emotive language that does not figure even in discussions of alcohol or tobacco abuse. […] Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 6 : 'Hunger', p. 187

Health, Alcohol, Beauty, History

“We must spoil our women, boy. A happy woman makes a happy home. An unhappy one makes us drink.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Home, Boy, Drink, Happiness

“Books make dangerous devils out of women.”

Yxta Maya Murray (1970) American writer

Source: The Conquest

Books

“The Oracle rose. As one, the three witches bowed.
"See?" Bran jerked his thumb at the three women. "That's how a woman should treat a man. Next time you see me, I want you to do just like them.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Jerk, Time

“Some women have a weakness for shoes… I can go barefoot if necessary. I have a weakness for books.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Books, Shoe

“Why should women have to fit into child sizes in order to be considered desirable? That is both sick and depressing.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Queen of Babble

“bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

“At one point, she'd wanted to hurl the whole breakfast at the wall. And then she'd remember why it was that men had temper tantrums and women didn't: cleanup.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Angel Falls

Men

“In a sick society, women who have difficulty fitting in are not ill but demonstrating a healthy and positive response.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

“Men forget everything; women remember everything. That's why men need instant replay in sports. They've already forgotten what's happened.”

Rita Rudner (1953) American comedian

Men, Sport, Forgetting

“I'm getting the impression that women, in any form, scare you."
He shrugged. "They're the more violent species. And unpredictable. I'd rather take on a wild boar. You can't shoot women.”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Hidden Away

“Women's mutual understanding comes from the fact that they identify themselves with each other; but for the same reason each is against the others.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Understanding

“I think women are sexy when they got some clothes on. And if later they take them off then you've triumphed.

Somebody once said it's what you dont see you're interested in, and this is true.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Thinking, Clothes

“Women are sneaky.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: The Hob's Bargain

“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.”

Isabel Allende Of Love and Shadows

Source: Of Love and Shadows

Time

“Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Reviewing Warren Farrell's The Myth of Male Power, p. 392
Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality"

Men, Pain, Children, Housing

“The best protection against rape, stalking, and domestic violence is to raise men who both understand that women are different, and would never dare take advantage of this difference.”

Wendy Shalit (1975) American writer

Source: A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue

Men, Understanding

“Women who have power are always feared.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Fear

“If only Paris and the Harpies had gotten along. But Promiscuity had taken one look at the beautiful women and deemed them “too much effort.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Whisper

Beauty, Effort

“They were more severely infected than the men, because while men were always getting furious, they calmed down in the end; women, who appeared to be silent, acquiescent, when they were angry flew into a rage that had no end.”

Elena Ferrante book My Brilliant Friend

Source: My Brilliant Friend

Men, Appearance, Rage

“We're told that men are strong & brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat & bear physical & mental agony much better than men.”

Lisa See book Shanghai Girls

Source: Shanghai Girls

Men, Thinking, Strong

“Some women make it look so easy, the way they cast ambition off like an expensive coat that no longer fits.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Way

“Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

Source: Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

Support

“One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea

Solitude

“Women still dream and hope, pin their emotions on some man who doesn't reciprocate, and end up in confusion.”

Elisabeth Elliot book Passion and Purity

Source: Passion and Purity

Dreams, Hope

“The men in my family are strong because the women in my family kill and eat the weak ones.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Men, Family, Strong

“I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Life, Men, Fight, Indifference

“So how many women have you visited in their dreams? (Geary)
Is this one of those questions that if I don’t answer it correctly, you get angry at me? (Arik)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

Dreams, Question

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Personal Success

Success, Men, People, Imagination

“Confound you handsome young fellows! You think of having it all your own way in the world. You don't understand women. They don't admire you half so much as you admire yourselves.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

World, Way, Understanding, Thinking

“He shook his head again. 'I just can't figure out why anyone in his right head would bother these Virgin River women.'

'Yeah. Makes no sense.' Jack said.”

Robyn Carr American writer

Source: Shelter Mountain

Sense

“love is what moves the world, I've always thought… it is the only thing which allows men and women to stand in a world where gravity always seems to want to pull them down… bring them low… and make them crawl…”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Love, Men, World

“When men talk about the agony of being men, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of self-pity. And when women talk about being women, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of blaming men.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Men

“This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Tea

“Women are fiercer by far than men.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Men

“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. 1, ch. 2
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Life, Dreams, Music, Question

“I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Children, Thinking

“Black Stache had no love for the Queen, no love for women of any sort, except for his ma. He had a real soft spot for his ma, and was truly sorry for the time he’d marooned her.”

Dave Barry book Peter and the Starcatchers

Source: Peter and the Starcatchers

Love, Time

“Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

For Men, Men

“To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Hostility, Silence

“And sometimes drunk women aren't raped; they just make stupid choices--and to say we deserve special treatment when we're drunk because we're women, to say we need to be, I find offensive.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Stupidity

“It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of individual men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Men

“Women do not think with logic and discretion but with emotions of the heart”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Thinking, Heart

“… sitting and waiting is one of the most miserable occupations known to man - not that it usually is known to men; women do it much more often.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Men, Waiting

“Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

“He looked like the love thoughts of women.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Love

“All women love Colin Firth: Mr. Darcy, Mark Darcy, George VI—at this point he could play the Craigslist Killer and people would be like, 'Oh my God, the Craigslist Killer has the most boyish smile!”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Love, God, People, Smile

“I've been ignored by prettier women than you,
but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence
so far, without spilling a drop.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Silence

“Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

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

“People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit.”

Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) British historical romance and detective fiction novelist

Source: Death in the Stocks

People, Personality

“… fantasy is not practice for what is real—fantasy is the opiate of women.”

Shannon Hale book Austenland

Source: Austenland

“Power feminism is just another scam in which women get to play patriarchs and pretend that the power we seek and gain liberates us.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

“If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Some women are meant to change the world, while others are meant to hold it together. And then there are those of us who simply don't want to be in it, because we know no matter how much we struggle, we can't comfortably fit.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

World, Change

“You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Thinking

“Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?

She had shaken her head slowly.

Men and women who can't get over their past… That's what ghosts are.”

Stephen King book Needful Things

Source: Needful Things

Men, Past

“Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”

Jim Butcher book Academ's Fury

Source: Academ's Fury

“Why do magazines do this to women? It's
all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they're not good enough. And when women don't feel like they're good enough, guess what? Men win. That's how they keep us down.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Men, Feeling

“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Life

“I have seen something of this world," she said over the trays, "and there are but two sorts of women in it-- those who take the strength out of a man, and those who put it back. Once I was that one, and now I am this.”

Rudyard Kipling Kim

Source: Kim

World

“But some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.”

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

For women, Guy

“In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”

Dan Brown book Deception Point

Source: Deception Point

Men, History, Failure, Drawing

“The Creator made women to please the eye and trouble the mind.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Two Rivers saying
(15 October 1993)
Source: The Wheel of Time: Boxed Set

“Women talk when they want to. Or don't.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“What's going on?" he asked, looking from face to face. "I was having a good dream."
"I need you," said Lisa.
"I hear that from women a lot.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Dreams

“If you want to know who the oppressed minorities in America are, simply look at who gets their own shelf in the bookstore. A black shelf, a women's shelf, and a gay shelf.”

Armistead Maupin (1944) American writer

“And I am not one of those women who trips twice over the same stone.”

Isabel Allende book Inés of My Soul

Source: Inés of My Soul

“It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Foreword to The Dreaded Comparison: Animal Slavery and Human Slavery (1996) by Marjorie Spiegel, p. 14 http://books.google.com/books?ei=je4zTPjrBcmTnQfXmMCLBA&ct=result&id=8u_tAAAAMAAJ&dq=dreaded+comparison+%22exist+for+their+own%22&q=%22exist+for+their+own%22.

Men, People, World, Animals