“Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money.”

Preface to The Norman Conquests (New York: Grove Press, [1975] 1988) p. 11.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money." by Alan Ayckbourn?
Alan Ayckbourn photo
Alan Ayckbourn 6
English playwright 1939

Related quotes

Doris Lessing photo

“Nonsense, it was all nonsense: this whole damned outfit, with its committees, its conferences, its eternal talk, talk, talk, was a great con trick; it was a mechanism to earn a few hundred men and women incredible sums of money.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

The Summer Before the Dark (1973)

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“The huge capacity to purchase submission that goes with any large sum of money, well, this we have. This is a power of which we should all be aware.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism (1986)

George Orwell photo

“If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters.”

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 1
Source: Why I Write
Context: Money, once again; all is money. All human relationships must be purchased with money. If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters. And how right they are, after all! For, moneyless, you are unlovable. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. But then, if I haven't money, I DON'T speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

Margaret Atwood photo

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Context: "Why do men feel threatened by women?" I asked a male friend of mine. (I love that wonderful rhetorical device, "a male friend of mine." It's often used by female journalists when they want to say something particularly bitchy but don't want to be held responsible for it themselves. It also lets people know that you do have male friends, that you aren't one of those fire-breathing mythical monsters, The Radical Feminists, who walk around with little pairs of scissors and kick men in the shins if they open doors for you. "A male friend of mine" also gives — let us admit it — a certain weight to the opinions expressed.) So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. "I mean," I said, "men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power." "They're afraid women will laugh at them," he said. "Undercut their world view." Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, "Why do women feel threatened by men?" "They're afraid of being killed," they said.

Groucho Marx photo

“With the possible exception of clothes, beauty salons and Frank Sinatra, there are few subjects all women agree upon.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Source: Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover

Warren Farrell photo

“At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.”

Gavin de Becker (1954) American engineer

Source: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Ann Coulter photo
Warren Farrell photo

Related topics