Quotes about heroine
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Alain de Botton photo

“I passed by a corner office in which an employee was typing up a document relating to brand performance. … Something about her brought to mind a painting by Edward Hopper which I had seen several years before at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. In New York Movie (1939), an usherette stands by the stairwell of an ornate pre-war theatre. Whereas the audience is sunk in semidarkness, she is bathed in a rich pool of yellow light. As often in Hopper’s work, her expression suggests that her thoughts have carried her elsewhere. She is beautiful and young, with carefully curled blond hair, and there are a touching fragility and an anxiety about her which elicit both care and desire. Despite her lowly job, she is the painting’s guardian of integrity and intelligence, the Cinderella of the cinema. Hopper seems to be delivering a subtle commentary on, and indictment of, the medium itself, implying that a technological invention associated with communal excitement has paradoxically succeeded in curtailing our concern for others. The painting’s power hangs on the juxtaposition of two ideas: first, that the woman is more interesting that the film, and second, that she is being ignored because of the film. In their haste to take their seats, the members of the audience have omitted to notice that they have in their midst a heroine more sympathetic and compelling than any character Hollywood could offer up. It is left to the painter, working in a quieter, more observant idiom, to rescue what the film has encouraged its viewers not to see.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), pp. 83-84.

Thomas Szasz photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Ellen Kushner photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Russell Brand photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo
Paul LePage photo
E.E. Cummings photo

“The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

A Foreword to Krazy (1946)
Context: This hero and villain no more understand Krazy Kat than the mythical denizens of a two dimensional realm understand some three dimensional intruder. The world of Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse is a knowledgeable power-world, in terms of which our unknowledgeable heroine is powerlessness personified. The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all. To put the oak in the acorn: Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp (each completely convinced that his own particular brand of might makes right) are simple-minded—Krazy isn't—therefore, to Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse, Krazy is. But if both our hero and our villain don't and can't understand our heroine, each of them can and each of them does misunderstand her differently. To our softhearted altruist, she is the adorably helpless incarnation of saintliness. To our hardhearted egoist, she is the puzzlingly indestructible embodiment of idiocy. The benevolent overdog sees her as an inspired weakling. The malevolent undermouse views her as a born target. Meanwhile Krazy Kat, through this double misunderstanding, fulfills her joyous destiny.

“When people ask me how autobiographical the book is I say, all the impulsive, outrageous things my heroine does, I did. All the sensible things she did, I made up.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Afterword to The Dud Avocado (2006)
Context: The Big Personalities weighed in. Soon after its publication Irwin Shaw wrote to me praising it. Terry Southern, calling me "Miss Smarts," said I was "a perfect darling." Gore Vidal phoned one morning saying, "You’ve got the one thing a writer needs: You’ve got your own voice. Now go." Ernest Hemingway said to me, "I liked your book. I liked the way your characters all speak differently." And then added, "My characters all sound the same because I never listen." All this, and heaven too. Laurence Olivier told me that now that my book was making a lot of money we could elope and I could support us. The Financial Times ran an item which read, "Such and such stock: No dud avocado." Groucho Marx wrote me, "I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado.… If this was actually your life, I don’t know how the hell you got through it." When people ask me how autobiographical the book is I say, all the impulsive, outrageous things my heroine does, I did. All the sensible things she did, I made up.

“Sarah and Dinah are heroines according to the standards of royal epic.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VIII Further Observations on the Bible
Context: Once we recognize the factor of royal epic in Genesis, we see that the Helen-of-Troy motif permeates the Patriarchal Narratives.... Like Helen and Hurrai, Sarah and Dinah are heroines according to the standards of royal epic.

“A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Tapes for the movie Ciao! Manhattan, on her first experiences with heavy drugs.
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: Dr. Roberts says, "Hello, girls... how are we today? Are you all ready? Okay. Hop up. Put all your weight on this leg. Okay? ready? My god, this rear end looks like a battlefield." You went to hear something I wrote about the horror of speed? Well, maybe you don't but the nearly incommunicable torments of speed, buzzerama, that arcylic high, horrorous, yodeling, repetitious echoes of an infinity of butally harrowing that words cannot capture the devastation nor the tone of such a vicious nightmare. Yes, I'm even getting paranoid, which is a trip for me. I don't really dig it, but there it is. It's hard to choose between the climactic ecstasies of speed and cocaine. They're similar. Oh, they are so fabulous. That fantabulous sexual exhilaration. Which is better, coke or speed? It's hard to choose. The purest speed, the purest coke, and sex is a deadlock. Speeding and booze. That gets funny. You get chattering at about fifty miles an hour over the downdraft, and booze kind of cools it. It can get very funny. Utterly ridiculous. It's a good combination for a party. Not for an orgy, though. Speedball! Speed and heroin. That was the first time I had a shot in each arm. Closed my eyes. Opened my arms. Closed my fists, and jab, jab. A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean. A speedball is from another world. It's a little bit dangerous. Pure coke, pure speed, and pure sex. Wow! The ultimate in climax. Once I went over to Dr. Roberts for a shot of cocaine. It was very strange because he wouldn't tell me what it was and I was playing it cool. It was my first intravenous shot, and I said, "Well, I don't feel it." And so he gave me another one, and all of a sudden I went blind. Just flipped out of my skull! I ended up wildly balling him. And flipping him out of his skull. He was probably shot up... he was always shooting up around the corner anyway.

“Deep in my psyche, I am no different than any American—I have a greater command of their language than they do. I am a composite of all of the heroines in the books I’ve read—legendary, mythological, fictional ones. I wonder if I am real? I want to be!”

Estela Portillo-Trambley (1936–1998) American writer

On how she would describe herself (as quoted in the book Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana Writers https://books.google.com/books?id=yq0PkmCGWoEC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq)

J. Howard Moore photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Bill Hicks photo

“The idea of getting a, you know, syringe full of heroin and shooting it in the vein under my cock right now seems like almost a productive act.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

I'm Sorry Folks (1989); this title may refer to a bootleg recording of a live performance.

Rekha photo

“Hindi cinema’s only woman of substance, of late who enthralled the audiences and others with that air of mystery and intrigue while remaining a top heroine for more than 10 years is Rekha.”

Rekha (1954) Indian film actress

Critique V. Gangadhar unraveling the enigma of Rekha
Queen bee:The legend of Rekha

Rani Mukerji photo
Pauline Kael photo

“Unlike storybook heroes and heroines but like many actual heroes and heroines, she was something of a social outcast.”

As Simone Weil noted, it was the people with irregular and embarrassing histories who were often the heroes of the Resistance in the Second World War; the proper middle-class people may have felt they had too much to lose.
"Busybody," review of Silkwood (1984-01-09), p. 107.
State of the Art (1985)

Jane Austen photo
Jane Austen photo

“Every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Bertrand Russell, in The Conquest of Happiness (1930), Ch. 4: Boredom and excitement

Robert Greene photo
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands photo
Warren Farrell photo

“Does the new heroine mean your son won’t have to risk his life for her love?”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 239

Samantha Akkineni photo

“Realising just how hard it is to get a meaningful role for a heroine in the south. I haven’t signed as many films as I’d like to because there are no good roles. As disheartening as it is to say.”

Samantha Akkineni (1987) Indian actress

"No meaningful roles for a heroine in south: Samantha" https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/No-meaningful-roles-for-a-heroine-in-south-Samantha/article14985421.ece. The Hindu. (September 17, 2016).

Samantha Akkineni photo

“I am done with the clichéd heroine roles. I can’t go to work without a challenge. I want to do films that drive me, films in which I am a part of the main plot.”

Samantha Akkineni (1987) Indian actress

"Samantha: I am done with clichéd heroine roles" https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/Samantha-I-am-done-with-clich%C3%A9d-heroine-roles/article14378258.ece. The Hindu. (May 31, 2016).

John Mulaney photo

“In terms of like, instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

New in Town (2012)

Gilbert O'Sullivan photo