“This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.”

—  Zadie Smith , On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living." by Zadie Smith?
Zadie Smith photo
Zadie Smith 81
British writer 1975

Related quotes

Colette photo

“Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

L'Envers du music hall (Music Hall Sidelights), "On Tour" (1913)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“When the woman showed her love for the children that were not her own, and wept over them, I saw in her the living God, and understood What men live by.”

Leo Tolstoy book What Men Live By

Source: What Men Live By (1881), Ch. XI

Prevale photo

“Never underestimate a woman. A woman is a fortress capable of facing difficulties and transforming them into opportunities for lived experience.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Mai sottovalutare una donna. Una donna è una fortezza capace di affrontare le difficoltà e di trasformarle in opportunità di esperienza vissuta.
Source: prevale.net

Warren Farrell photo

“There are many ways in which a woman experiences a greater sense of powerlessness than her male counterpart: the fears of pregnancy, aging, rape, date rape, and being physically overpowered; less socialization to take a career that pays enough to support a husband and children[…] Fortunately, almost all industrialized nations have acknowledged these female experiences. Unfortunately, they have acknowledged only the female experience.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 28.

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Old age, after all, is merely the punishment for having lived.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Clancy Brown photo

“I enjoyed it from a very early age. When I had to make my own living after college, I decided to give doing what I enjoyed most a shot as a profession. It worked out and I’ve never had to “work” for a living since. If I hadn’t gotten so lucky, there were plenty of options open to me being, after all, a young educated white male in America.”

Clancy Brown (1959) American actor and voice actor

Interview with Clancy Brown http://mediamikes.com/2011/03/interview-with-clancy-brown/ (March 14, 2011)

Desmond Tutu photo

“Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

“I do not see the marks left by man only as great works, but as love for what surrounds us, as a sequence of small and great actions lived with passion.”

Salvatore Garau (1953) Italian artist

Farnesina, as quoted in Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2016).
Source: https://www.esteri.it/mae/en/sala_stampa/archivionotizie/approfondimenti/2016/10/brasile-aambasciata-e-istituto.html, Farnesina, Ministero degli Esteri, “Brazil – Italian Embassy and Cultural Institute organise a Solo Exhibition by Salvatore Garau in Brasilia", 10/26/2016, www.esteri.it

“A young woman can live off the folly of men; a man of any age can live off the folly of women.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

George William Russell photo

“The hope lives on age after age,
Earth with its beauty might be won
For labor as a heritage,
For this has Ireland lost a son.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

To the Memory of Some I knew Who are Dead and Who Loved Ireland (1917)

Related topics