Great Female Quotes & Sayings

What's so great about playing a female lead, especially in law enforcement, is that these women do exist, and they're really quite interesting. They're fascinating. — Emily Rose

Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female. — Jo Brand

Of course, if we do find the Great Glom, we will see other gloms as well," said Dottia. "I mean, he will not exist alone, will he? Mythic creatures like him are often spoken of as if they did exist alone, and they were born unique, hatched from a singular egg, out of nowhere, with no parents, mate or offspring. He will have a female glom as his wife, his own glom children, and an entire race of gloms as his subjects."
"Certainly, he will, I agree," said Klubbe. — Philip Dodd

You got a handful of great guys - Ne-Yo, R. Kelly, Usher. You have a handful of great female artists. But for the most part the music world's changing and change is good. You have to make adjustments if you want to survive in that world. — Nas

As for music, my tastes are eclectic. Elvis Costello is my all-time favorite. I listen to a lot of jazz, primarily the great female vocalists, and I am very fond of the late cabaret singer Nancy Lamott. — Laura Lippman

Give me priests. Give me men with feathers in their hair, or tall domed hats, female oracles in caves, servants of the python, smoking weed and reading palms. A gypsy fortuneteller with a foot-peddle ouija board and a gold fish bowl for a crystal ball knows more about the world than many of the great thinkers of the West. Mumbling priests swinging stink cans on their chains and even witch doctors conjuring up curses with a well-buried elephant tooth have a better sense of their places in the world. They know this universe is brimming with magic, with life and riddles and ironies. They know that the world might eat them, and no encyclopedia could stop it — N.D. Wilson

Although I entertain great respect and regard for the female sex I consider the qualifications of the ladies to be already sufficiently charming without adding to their influence in society by conferring on them the right to vote for members of the legislature. — James Francis

It has nothing to do with [Renee] being a female or not, it has to do with her being the right person for the job. She's got a great voice that cuts through the clutter. She is very knowledgeable about WWE, about its history, about the talent and she is really willing to step up and do her homework. I think you're going to see her grow. You're going to see her jump on this challenge to become a regular fixture and a regular voice and, hopefully, maybe one day the voice of WWE. — Triple H

When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I was male or female. Also, I was a great admirer of E.B. White, so I may have thought that it would bring me luck to submit my first manuscript as 'E.L.' But if I were starting out today, I would use my first name. — E.L. Konigsburg

Every man who is any kind of artist has a great deal of female in him. I act and give of myself as a man, but I register and receive with the soul of a woman. The only really good artists are feminine. I can't admit the existence of an artist whose dominant personality is masculine. — Orson Welles

The famous courtesan Clarimonde died recently, as the result of an orgy which lasted eight days and eight nights. It was something infernally
magnificent. They revived the abominations of the feasts of Belshazzar and Cleopatra. Great God!
what an age this is in which we live! The guests were served by swarthy slaves speaking an unknown tongue, who to my mind had every appearance of veritable demons; the livery of the meanest among them might have served as a gala-costume for an emperor. There have always been current some very
strange stories concerning this Clarimonde, and all her lovers have come to a miserable or a violent end. It has been said that she was a ghoul, a female vampire; but I believe that she was Beelzebub in person. — Theophile Gautier

I am a great female scientist. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I have a great pack of female friends, but I also have a lot of guy friends. I believe that platonic relationship is entirely possible. — Olivia Wilde

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair. — Maya Angelou

A deep and enduring economic crisis like the Great Depression of the 1930s, or a natural disaster that kills tens of thousands of people, might change America's fundamental calculus about economic justice. Until then, the American public will probably continue to refrain from broadly challenging both male and female corporate leaders who compensate themselves far in excess of their value to society. That — Sebastian Junger

I propose a toast to mirth; be merry! Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou.
Summer, I salute thee! — Victor Hugo

I think you're just always trying to find really great, interesting female roles. That's the thing for me. You do have to think about what you're signing up for. — Georgina Haig

Before modern feminism, stories of female ambition were silenced or erased; even now, they are told with apology ("Yes, it's a great honor to be a Nobel Prize laureate, but really, what I love best is staying home and being a mother to Kevin and Annie"). — Harriet Lerner

I think it would be a great challenge to work on a military game which featured a female lead character. Since female soldiers are now being allowed on the frontlines, we're actually in danger of reality overtaking games! — Rhianna Pratchett

Incidentally, one has to be very careful with that 'Bridegroom' imagery. It is so very apt to land one in Male and Female Principles, Eleusis, and the womb of the Great Mother. And that sort of thing doesn't make much appeal to well-balanced women, who look on it as just another example of men's hopeless romanticism about sex, and who are apt either to burst out laughing or sniff a faint smell of drains. — Dorothy L. Sayers

By the second week of November 1990, a new character had begun to spring forth in Kurt's journal writings, and this figure would soon make its way into almost every image, song, or story. He intentionally misspelled its name, and in doing so he was granting it a life of its own. Oddly, he gave it a female persona, but since it became his great love that Fall - and even made him throw up, just like Tobi - there was a fairness in this gender choice. He called it 'heroine'. — Charles R. Cross

'Gravity' is a great example of a movie that we hope they're going to do more of. It's really entertaining, with a female star. It's not the kind of film you typically see, and gives me hope. — Callie Khouri

Great men know how to control two things; their women and money. — Habeeb Akande

In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other. — John Stuart Mill

Daniel studied her face. Have you ever thanked God for giving you the advantages he has? Advantages?
All those things I've already mentioned. Your tall and strong, loyal and brave, kind and loving. You stand out in a crowd and your a leader. He wouldn't trust those qualities with just anyone. He must love you a great deal. — Colleen Coble

This tree, though, had not been fed on, so it was apparent that the culprit was a bull (elephant) who was filled with testosterone but no outlet for it, so he pushed over trees. It's a great release for a bull and a way of showing his strength after a female has rejected him. If human males had the same ability, global deforestation would be complete by now. — Peter Allison

A reader kindly pointed out to me recently that most of the quotes I include are by men. And it's true. Personally, I don't even consider whether the author is male or female, nor even care much who the author is - what's significant is the message. Of course, women are equally capable of great insights, however in our culture it's not so long ago that women could not even be published — Charlotte Bronte

As well as the [League of Nations] delegates themselves and their suites, there were innumerable campaigners of one sort and another, male and female, clerical and lay, young and old; all with some notion to publicise, some pet solution to offer, some organisation to promote. They gathered in droves, fanning out through the city, and settling in hotels and pensions, from the Lakeside ones down to tiny obscure back-street establishments. Ferocious ladies with moustaches, clergymen with black leather patches on the elbows of their jackets or cassocks and smelling of tobacco smoke, mad admirals who knew where to find the lost tribes of Israel, and scarcely saner generals who deduced prophetic warnings from the measurement of the pyramids; but one and all believers in the League's historic role to deliver mankind painlessly and inexpensively from the curse of war to the great advantage of all concerned. — Malcolm Muggeridge

The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.
... I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of teh work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.
As for Mary, she was little more than a child when the angel came to her; she had not lost her child's creative acceptance of the realities moving on the other side of the everyday world. We lose our ability to see angels as we grow older, and that is a tragic loss. — Madeleine L'Engle

I think female drummers are great. I think there should more of them. — Sean Kinney

It's really irritating. Even people who like my work sometimes come up to me and say, 'I usually don't like female comedians, but your material is great!' It makes the job prospect more daunting. Funny is funny, you know? — Chelsea Peretti

Here's my feeling: For everyone, men and women, it's important to be a feminist. It's important to have female characters. It's wonderful for women to mentor other women, but it's just as important for women to mentor men and vice-versa. In my line of work, having Greg Daniels be such a great mentor to me is fantastic. Finding a writer's assistant, be it a man or a woman, and encouraging them to think with a feminist perspective, is key. — Mindy Kaling

Maybe the world had been bad to its great and unusual women. Maybe there wasn't a worthy place for the female hero to live out her golden years, to be celebrated as the men had been celebrated, to take from that celebration what she needed to survive. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities. He says that children should be conceived in the Winter, when the wind is in the North, and that if people marry too young the children will be female. He tells us that the blood of females is blacker then that of males; that the pig is the only animal liable to measles; that an elephant suffering from insomnia should have its shoulders rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; that women have fewer teeth than men, and so on. Nevertheless, he is considered by the great majority of philosophers a paragon of wisdom. — Bertrand Russell

One of the things that would be great is to some day have so many women comedy writers that we wouldn't say there's just one type of female humor. There's lots. — Mallory Ortberg

We'll go back and listen to some 70's music. Just everything. I guess the main thing is that we listen to creative guys, male or female either one. Just people that have got great talent and we're able to say, 'man, that is unbelievable. — Eddie Montgomery

I settled into a contented routine of working, spending my free time with Veronica and, back in my student room, wanking explosively to fantasies of her splayed beneath me or arched above me. Daily intimacy made me proud of knowing about make-up, clothes policy, the feminine razor, and the mystery and consequences of a woman's periods. I found myself envying this regular reminder of something so wholly female and defining, so connected to the great cycle of nature. — Julian Barnes

We were called, male and female, to do great works with separate approaches and separate assignments. — James E. Faust

In the early twelfth century century the Virgin had been the supreme protectress of civilisation. She had taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians the virtues of tenderness and compassion. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were her dwelling places upon earth. In the Renaissance, while remaining the Queen of Heaven, she became also the human mother in whom everyone could recognise qualities of warmth and love and approachability ...
The stabilising, comprehensive religions of the world, the religions which penetrate to every part of a man's being
in Egypt, India or China
gave the female principle of creation at least as much importance as the male, and wouldn't have taken seriously a philosophy that failed to include them both ... It's a curious fact that the
all-male religions have produced no religious imagery
in most cases have positively forbidden it. The great religious art of the world is deeply involved with the female principle. — Kenneth Clark

The purchaser therefore calculated not upon the value of the labour of his slave only, but, if a female, he regarded her as "the fruitful mother of an hundred more:" and many of these unfortunate people have there been in this state, whose descendants even in the compass of two or three generations have gone near to realize the calculation. - The great increase of slavery in the southern, in proportion to the northern states in the union, is therefore not attributable, solely, to the effect of sentiment, but to natural causes; as well as those considerations of profit, which — St. George Tucker

As a young woman in politics, it also gives me great pleasure to see additional female cabinet representation here today. You know, these are very high levels of representation for women around the cabinet table and I think that that's something that's very important to me. — Michelle Rempel

In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination. — Shan Sa

My mother had a great vinyl collection, and she was constantly playing female singer-songwriters. I first learned about classic song structures by listening to them, and Laura Nyro particularly stood out. Her voice was outside what you'd usually hear on the radio; that really appealed to me. — Jenny Lewis

The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of
the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female
with the male, of the ego with the non-ego - or what not. — Aleister Crowley

The memoir by women, read by female readers, is considered a market form, not "great literature." — Kate Zambreno

... though queens are a particular obsession of mine. I'm not speaking of European sovereigns, mind you, but that most glorious force of the chessboard. Did you know her square was originally occupied by a male "vizier," able to advance only one meager diagonal step per move? But during the reign of the great female monarchs, this piece metamorphosed into a "queen," and her power grew commensurate with her title. Only then did the game become something more - A mental odyssey that helped reshape the world. — Brian K. Vaughan

I don't have time to write a mom blog, but I'm not against it. I think it's great when women talk about things. I'm all about female empowerment. There's a lot of lonely, lost moms out there. Moms need to be encouraged to tell the truth. There's a lot of glamour mommy stuff. It's OK to get real. — Kelly Cutrone

I soon began to sense a fundamental perceptual difficulty among male scholars (and some female ones) for which 'sexism' is too facile a term. It is really an intellectual defect, which might be termed 'patrivincialism' or patrochialism': the assumption that women are a subgroup, that men's culture is the 'real' world, that patriarchy is equivalent to culture and culture to patriarchy, that the 'great' or 'liberalizing' periods of history have been the same for women as for men ... — Adrienne Rich

Bram stared into a pair of wide, dark eyes. Eyes that reflected a surprising glimmer of intelligence. This might be the rare female a man could reason with.
"Now, then," he said. "We can do this the easy way, or we can make things difficult."
With a soft snort, she turned her head. It was as if he'd ceased to exist.
Bram shifted his weight to his good leg, feeling the stab to his pride. He was a lieutenant colonel in the British army, and at over six feet tall, he was said to cut an imposing figure. Typically, a pointed glance from his quarter would quell the slightest hint of disobedience. He was not accustomed to being ignored.
"Listen sharp, now." He gave her ear a rough tweak and sank his voice to a low threat. "If you know what's good for you, you'll do as I say."
Though she spoke not a word, her reply was clear: You can kiss my great wolly arse.
Confounded sheep. — Tessa Dare

A winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead and on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary. I speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither male nor female. It is held to be pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice. It has one foot upon the earth and one upon waters, thus illustrating the nature of the essences. A direct path goes up to certain heights on the verge of the horizon, and above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely. Hereof is some part of the Secret of Eternal Life, as it is possible to man in his incarnation. All the conventional emblems are renounced herein. — Arthur Edward Waite

Our great civilizations are nothing more than social machines to create the ideal female setting, where a woman can count on stability; our legal and moral codes that try to abolish violence and promote permanence of ownership and enforce contracts
those represent the primary female strategy, the taming of the male. — Orson Scott Card

An unprecedented number of uniformed males, marching, parading and engaging in mock battles in every region of Great Britain brought a pleasant frisson of excitement into many normally quiet and deeply repetitive female lives. — Linda Colley

First Aid and Home Nursing classes were popular during 1913, and at the beginning of 1914. We all went to these, bandaged each other's legs and arms, and even attempted to do neat head-bandaging: much more difficult. We passed our exams, and got a small printed card to prove our success. So great was female enthusiasm at this time that if any man had an accident he was in mortal terror of ministering women closing in on him.
'Don't let those First Aiders come near me!' The cry would rise. 'Don't touch me, girls. Don't touch me! — Agatha Christie

I'm here to present my findings at the symposium. I'm an esteemed member of the Society, with an impressive record of scholarship, and I have something of value to contribute to these proceedings. I also happen to be female. I'm a woman who knows a great deal about rocks. I suggest you find the stones to deal with it. — Tessa Dare

Women have married because it was necessary, in order to survive economically, in order to have children who would not suffer economic deprivation or social ostracism, in order to remain respectable, in order to do what was expected of women because coming out of "abnormal" childhoods they wanted to feel "normal," and because heterosexual romance has been represented as the great female adventure, duty, and fulfillment. We may faithfully or ambivalently have obeyed the institution, but our feelings - and our sensuality - have not been tamed
or contained within it. — Adrienne Rich

The Great Bitch is the deadly female, a worthy opponent for the omnipotent hero to exercise his powers upon and through. She is desirous, greedy, clever, dishonest, and two jumps ahead all the time. The hero may either have her on his side and like a lion-tamer sool her on to his enemies, or he may have to battle for his life at her hands. — Germaine Greer

What makes a kingdom great is its being like a down-flowing river,
the central point towards which all the smaller streams under Heaven converge; or like the female throughout the world, who by quiescence always overcomes the male. And quiescence is a form of humility. — Laozi

There had been no crises of incident, or marked movements of experience such as in Felipe's imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made, on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,
not of single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look at; but myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds, hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and jar. Such cables do not break. — Helen Hunt Jackson

Strong female characters - even if they don't necessarily make the same decisions that we might - make such great narrative material, especially when there's an equally strong male character in the mix. — Meg Cabot

It's actually kind of cool that women have taken to me. Because now I have a whole different demographic when it comes to the audiences. I have women who come out and support my movies, and that is a huge demographic for me, which is great because some actors don't have a female base at all. — Larenz Tate

It is important to note that research has shown that men who have abusive mothers do not tend to develop especially negative attitudes toward females, but men who have abusive fathers do; the disrespect that abusive men show their female partners and their daughters is often absorbed by their sons.
So while a small number of abusive men do hate women, the great majority exhibit a more subtle-though often quite pervasive-sense of superiority or contempt toward females, and some don't show any obvious signs of problems with women at all until they are in a serious relationship. — Lundy Bancroft

The great news is we have an all-female shortlist with no positive discrimination or anything, isn't that fantastic? — Andrea Leadsom

Within this enclosed women's world, so to say, behind the walls and fortifications of it, I felt the presence of a great ideal, without which the garrison would not have carried on so gallantly; the idea of a Millennium when women were to reign supreme in the world. The old mother at such times would take on a new shape, and sit enthroned as a massive dark symbol of that mighty female deity who had existed in old ages, before the time of the prophet's God. Of her they never lost sight, but they were, before all, practical people with an eye on the needs of the moment and with infinite readiness of resource. — Karen Blixen

You could make a feature about the world of tickling. You could include female ticklers and you could find out why people are ticklish, but I don't think it would be a great documentary, when you're spending 90 minutes just finding out about the physiology and psychology of tickling. — David Farrier

I sorrowfully acknowledge that seven years ago ... I was wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends and colleagues who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate. They conspired to betray me into a sexual encounter at a time of great stress in my marital life ... I was set up as part of a scheme to co-opt me and obtain some advantage for themselves over me in connection with their hope for position in the ministry. — Jim Bakker

A dark shadow rose from the depth of the watercourse. Forced to crawl out of the oceans rolling waves, it struggled against the pull of the undertow. Rising, it moved further up the white sandy beach away from the cold water. The creature collapsed onto the cool sand as the crescent moon above shone on his sleek gray skin revealing two immense leather-like wings protruding from his back. Exhaustion clouded his mind.
The darkness of night was soothing, refreshing. Somehow he knew it would bring him strength and sustenance. The creature watched as a great rolling storm cloud sunk into the salty water before him and he tried to remember why he had come. — Alaina Stanford

You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds for your own destruction and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face for your seductive body; but you will fail them all because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the worst kind - the romantic idealist. Born to destroy and self destruct. — V.C. Andrews

I say that male and female are cast in the same mold; except for education and habits, the difference is not great. — Michel De Montaigne

Female schools might be comprised in the list of those worthy the public patronage, with great propriety. — Joseph Lancaster

One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a "personal shopper" program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers' desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry. After history's first recorded instance of a focus group riot, the personal shopper program was extensively rewritten. — John Scalzi

If the Alpha female wolf was there, then they were plotting a search party. Great — Lia Davis

A great country is like the lower outlet of a river. It is the world's meeting ground, the world's female. — Laozi

Television is also a great tool for women. As you know, the best female roles are often on television, so it's a very exciting time. I've really embraced it. The pace is great, but also not so great sometimes. You feel like you have to make sure to pay attention, at all times, to not let anything slip through. — Diane Kruger

The whole point of marriage is to stop you getting anywhere near real life. You think it's a great struggle with the mystery of being. It's more like being smothered in warm cocoa. There's sex, but it's not what you think. Marvellous, for the first fortnight. Then every Wednesday. If there isn't a good late-night concert on the Third. Meanwhile you become a biological functionary. An agent of the great female womb, spawning away, dumping its goods in your lap for succour. Daddy, daddy, we're here, and we're expensive. — Malcolm Bradbury

Women and men communicate differently, often on entirely different planes. But just as men have failed us, we have failed them. It has been one of our great collective female shortcomings to presume that whatever we do not perceive simply isn't there, or that whatever is not communicated in our language is not intelligible speech. — Norah Vincent

Herman Cain is probably well-liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican Party, conservative movement and tea party movement. People like Karl Rove like to keep the racism very covert and so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity so he can say, 'Look: This is not a racist anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look: We have a black man.' And look he's polling well and he won a straw poll. — Janeane Garofalo

Because of the lingering discrimination, many women still lack confidence. They live in fear of stepping beyond what they feel is acceptable 'female' behavior. I can remember feeling that I wasn't 'normal' because I was aggressive, had dreams and goals, and wanted do do great things ... I am glad now that I found courage to do something radical and chase my dreams. — Joyce Meyer

So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about 'Christian art' is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessicarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. — Madeleine L'Engle

Nicky Egan has the finesse of Bonnie Raitt merged with the primal force of Janis Joplin. It is a rare combination. Her passion is a joy to behold - and her talent is undeniable. She belongs in any conversation about great contemporary female soul singers. If you're up for a revelatory evening, then put her high on your list. — Steve Morse

Okay." She gave a quick snort when Margaret went out. "You're such a dork."
"Excuse me?"
"She was hitting on you and you're, like, oblivious."
"She wasn't hitting on me and you're not supposed to talk that way."
"Was too." Maddy slid onto a stool at the bar. "Women know these things."
"Maybe, but you don't qualify as a woman."
"I've had my period."
He'd started to drink, had to set the glass back down as he winced. "Please."
"It's a biological function. And when a female is physically able to conceive, she is, physically, a
woman."
"Fine. Great." It wasn't a debate he wanted to enter into. "Shut up." He let the wine, such as it
was, lie on his tongue. It was unsophisticated to say the least, highly acidic and oversweet thanks to
the sugar she must have adde — Nora Roberts

It is a great mistake on the part of elderly ladies, male and female, to tell a child that he is seeing his happiest days. Do not you believe a word of it, my little friend. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

That's the most sexist idea I've ever heard," Nellie said harshly. "I'm female, so I have to be clueless. He's male, so he's got a great sense of direction. — Gordon Korman

The great anxious focus on the minutiae of appetite - on calories and portion size and what's going into the body versus what's being expended, on shoes and hair and abs of steel - keeps the larger, more fearsome questions of desire blurred and out of focus. American women spend approximately $1 million every hour on cosmetics. This may or may not say something about female vanity, but it certainly says something about female energy, where it is and is not focused. Easier to worry about the body than the soul, easier to fit the self into the narrow slots of identity our culture offers to women than to create one ... that allows for the expression of all passions, the satisfaction of all appetites. The great preoccupation with things like food and shopping and appearance, in turn, is less of a genuine focus on hunger - indulging it, understanding it, making decisions about it - than it is a monumental distraction from hunger. — Caroline Knapp

At the end of the day I have many answers for it. It has to do with my mom, who was an extraordinary woman, and a great feminist. It has to do with the people in my life. It has to do with a lot of different things, but
I don't know! Because I'm not just writing from the female characters for other people. I have a desire to see them in our culture
that was not met for most of my childhood. Except occasionally by James Cameron.
[From the 2011 San Diego Comic Con, in response to being asked why he writes strong female characters.] — Joss Whedon

That there is a silent genocide of women and girls in the homes, communities and just everywhere is not a new story. That my great grandmother, grandmother, mother, mother-in-law, aunt, sister, cousin, niece, housemaid, co-worker, friend, neighbor and just about every female shares the same pain is not a new story. What is new in this story is how I stood up to say, "Never again." Never again will a girl or woman get raped, killed, drop out of school, be harmed by our culture or be sexually enslaved. That is as long as I know about it. Never Again--not to any woman or girl again is the new story. — Betty Makoni

This is a concept that western culture has forgotten : everything is one! The idea of dichotomy is deeply wrong and nothing is better than a great symbol of China, the Tao, the wheel of yin and yang that represents life. The universe is the harmony of opposites, because there is no water without fire, there is no female with no male, there is no night without day, there is no sun without the moon ... there is no good without evil! This symbol is perfect since the white and black are embracing each other; inside the white there is a black point and inside the black there is a white point. — Tiziano Terzani

The rise to prominence of the Saudi novel in Arabic is the great man-bites-dog of recent world literature. Saudi Arabia is a country without a free press, where European styles and forms are distrusted and where the female half of the population became literate only in this generation. — James Buchan

Burnout at its deepest level is not the result of some train wreck of examinations, long call shifts, or poor clinical evaluations. It is the sum total of hundreds and thousands of tiny betrayals of purpose, each one so minute that it hardly attracts notice. When a great ship steams across the ocean, even tiny ripples can accumulate over time, precipitating a dramatic shift in course. There are many Tertius Lydgates, male and female, inhabiting the lecture halls, laboratories, and clinics of today's medical schools. Like latter-day Lydgates, many of them eventually find themselves expressing amazement and disgust at how far they have veered from their primary purpose. — Richard Gunderman

Golf has been such a gift in my life, and I've enjoyed it so much and enjoyed lots of wonderful times on the golf course with my husband first, and then I got to play in all these celebrity tournaments. I'm often the only female celebrity in the tournament, hence the term 'Token Chick.' So it's been such a great, great gift in my life. — Cheryl Ladd

I've always thought that there is a great female James Bond movie to be done. I'm not literally calling her Jane Bond, I mean, but a female secret agent. — Aaron Sorkin

The intricate and different life cycles of both male and female root-heads, and the great behavioral sophistication shown by the female in reconfiguring a host crab as a support system, all underscore the myopia of our conventional wisdom in regarding rhizocephalans as degenerate parasites because the adult anatomy of internal roots and external sac seem so simple. — Stephen Jay Gould

In the tradition of great female artists, Karla Bonoff, Bonnie Raitt, Christine McVie, Shawn
Colvin, Sarah McLachlan ... now enter Maia Sharp. — Art Garfunkel

My name's not Jerry," he grumbled, raising his head.
"I know, but it's the only way I can get your attention, kid."
"What did you want?" Japhet muttered.
"I said, do you have a girl?"
Japhet squinted at him and rubbed his nose.
"A girl?" he asked.
"Yeah. You do know what a girl is, don't you? Female version of the male? Whole lot prettier. Sweet temperament. Heard they're great for marrying. Thought a handsome, half starved and nearly dead Jew like you would have one of those by now. — Jack Lewis Baillot

Deborah is a great exception to the rule, in a matter of speaking because God chose her to lead Israel. She was the only female judge of Israel which speaks volumes to the fact that God will use anyone who is willing to allow him to lead. — M.S. Kimball

I hope I'm one of many to come in the Dubai World Cup, and hope I see more women making it at this level. There are a lot of great female jockeys. — Chantal Sutherland

I don't understand executives that pit women against each other, the fact that they brought in 'Body of Proof,' Dana Delaney is a friend of mine, and the two of us were just rolling our eyes, it's like, of course, you finally have two great female leads and you're going to put us on against each other. — Julianna Margulies

One cannot deny the great role women have played in the world community. My flight was yet another impetus to continue this female contribution. — Valentina Tereshkova

Great minds think alike-especially when they are female. — Christina Dodd

Upwell is one of the most terrifyingly great bands I have ever known out of Seattle. Their musicianship and songwriting is monstrous ... They're heavy like Soundgarden or Zeppelin with killer female vocals, but with their own unique style. — Jack Endino

There are some great, subversive female writers out there. Gender should not affect anything. It does, but it shouldn't. — Carla H. Krueger