Quotes & Sayings About Heroines

She did not care for children's books in which the children grew up, as what "growing up" entailed (in life as in books) was a swift and inexplicable dwindling of character; out of a clear blue sky the heroes and heroines abandoned their adventures for some dull sweetheart, got married and had families, and generally started acting like a bunch of cows. — Donna Tartt

were Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and most other fairy tale "heroines" beautiful but helpless? Why did they always have to be rescued by — Timothy Tocher

When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy by his inferiors. It should be a rule that bad writers must start with plain heroines and ordinary mornings, and, if they are able, work up to something better. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The one person whom I would like to be is Meryl Streep. Even at her age, she sits alongside the younger heroines at the Oscars with her name in the nominee list, and others around her wonder whether they still stand a chance. — Rani Mukerji

That was six years ago. We can't keep turning our backs on chances to live or...at least stop denying ourselves pleasure. — Ally Fleming

Remember William Blake who said: "Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius."
The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it everybody knows at once that it is life itself and not made up.
But in ordinary fiction, movies, etc, everything is smoothed out to seem plausible
villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word — Brenda Ueland

The fiction, as always, is secondary to the history; the real women are always more complex and more conflicted, greater than the heroines of the novel, just as real women now, as then, are often greater than they are reported, sometimes greater than the world wants them to be. — Philippa Gregory

I can't just give you all the answers. You have to earn the right to be the Progeny. - Eve — Candace Knoebel

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

I already know you, she told him, and I love what you are. Come!
A bridge opened between them. He crossed over. — B.T. Lowry

It's difficult for a young girl like me. Because there's a certain time for young actresses, which is like a really juicy period when all the parts are love interests and young heroines. Of course, there's always work for men whatever age they are. — Gemma Arterton

This kiss was different from the first one under the olive tree. That one had been unplanned, she was pretty sure. This kiss had intention and hunger branded all over it. It was like one of those kisses you read about in fairy tales - but Alana had never imagined that such a kiss could cause bone-trembling shivers as well as bliss. She'd never considered the downside of the awakening kiss, of how the princess felt when the hero tore through the thorns or scaled the tower and speared heat and sex and life-changing energy into the princess's world. — Pamela Aares

Sis took Eva to the public library and showed her how to get a card. Every week, Eva read her way through the works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, Henry James and Elizabeth Gaskell. She dreamed of heroines from modest backgrounds attracting unprecedented attentions, soaring tales of love across social divides and sudden unexpected reversals of fortunes. In these pages, anything was possible, even for a girl like her. — Kathleen Tessaro

There is this giant void in the culture about women in that age group as heroines, as romantic beings, as sexual beings and as creative beings, and there's not that void for men. Women don't stop being all those things as their lives continue into those decades. — Naomi Wolf

I was treated once more to a novelist's valuable lesson, however - in apprehending that one's perception of plot and character are influenced entirely by one's own experience. To hear Mary tell the story of our Christmas at The Vyne, one would have thought that she was hounded by violence from first to last - perceived more than anybody of the nature of the probable murderer - and barely escaped with her life. It was a lesson in writerly humility. We are each the heroines of our own lives. — Stephanie Barron

Heaven knows, I've exposed myself in my novels through the use of fantasy and imagination ... now my new book is about what really happened to me ... not my heroines. — Judith Krantz

No doubt, much of the joy of a great romance is the moment when these stoic heroes crack open and reveal themselves to their heroines - the only women strong enough to match them. — Sarah MacLean

Good idea. I'll do it. — Mary Connealy

Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women. — Nora Roberts

As women, we are the protagonists of our own personal novels. We are called upon to be the heroines of our own lives, not supporting characters. — Erin Blakemore

Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring. — Cassandra Clare

Love, she told herself, would one day release her from this spell of unreality. She was persuaded that the sublime passion was the key to the enigma; but it was difficult to relate her conception of love to the forms it wore in her experience. Two or three of the girls she had envied for their superior acquaintance with the arts of life had contracted, in the course of time, what were variously described as "romantic" or "foolish" marriages; one even made a runaway match, and languished for a while under a cloud of social reprobation. Here, then, was passion in action, romance converted to reality; yet the heroines of these exploits returned from them untransfigured, and their husbands were as dull as ever when one had to sit next to them at dinner. Her own case, of course, would be different. — Edith Wharton

Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all private citizens. — Martha Gellhorn

Great battles can make great heroes and heroines. — Ezra Taft Benson

Another notable difference between these
fables and their Muggle counterparts is that
Beedle's witches are much more active in seeking their fortunes than our fairy-tale heroines. Asha, Altheda, Amata and Babbitty Rabbitty are all witches who take their fate into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe. — J.K. Rowling

I have to cry out here that language is all we have for the delicacy and truth of telling, that words are the sole heroes and heroines of fiction. Their generosity and forgiveness make one weep. They will accept anything and stand by it, and show no sign of suffering. They will accept change, painlessly, the only pain being that experienced by those who use words, scattering them like beans in a field and hoping for morning beanstalks as high as the sky with heavenly commotion there, upstairs where the giants live. — Janet Frame

The world should not be organized to require heroines, and when one is required but fails to appear, we should not judge. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

YA heroines can choose to have sex & they can choose not to without either decision becoming the focus of their story. — Celine Kiernan

Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love - 'Trojan horse' it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that's fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That's who I tend to write about. — Patrick Ness

The hero sees that the event is ancillary: it must follow him. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Furthermore, some of the best people in the country were connected with the Communist movement in some way, heroes and heroines one could admire. There was Paul Robeson, the fabulous singer-actor-athlete whose magnificent voice could fill Madison Square Garden, crying out against racial injustice, against fascism. And literary figures (weren't Theodore Dreiser and W. E. B. DuBois Communists?), — Howard Zinn

The heroes and heroines who triumph in his stories are not those with the most powerful magic, but rather those who demonstrate the most kindness, common sense and ingenuity. — J.K. Rowling

My heroines are always virgins. They never go to bed without a ring on their fingers; not until page 118 at least. — Barbara Cartland

You know the fairy-tale drill, especially from the Disney versions: the heroines endure awful stuff in rites of passage that lead to a joyous resolution of, usually, marriage to a prince. 'Into the Woods' follows that template, then asks, 'What happens after Happy Ever After?' — Richard Corliss

Last of all, this book owes perhaps its biggest debt to the ultimate models for Kira and Heron and every other awesome girl in the Partials series: my two daughters. May you always have heroines to inspire you, role models to look up to, and the freedom and courage to make your own choices, no matter how simple or scary or hard or eternal they may be. — Dan Wells

After three years of English at Cambridge, being force-fed literary theory, I was almost convinced that literature was all coded messages about Marxism and the death of the self. I crawled out of the post-structuralist desert thirsty for heroines I could cry and laugh with. I was jaded. I craved trash. — Samantha Ellis

The statement I wanted to make was that it makes no sense to put these real-life women into one limited template, so why then are we doing it to our fictitious heroines? — David Trumble

I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out. — Viola Davis

... I wanted to show that the mother was the heroine as soon as possible. I'm tired of love-sick girls and runaway wives. We'll prove that there's romance in old women also. — Louisa May Alcott

Philosophy without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth a hundred books, a thousand theories, a million words. Now as always we need heroes. And heroines! Down with the passive and the limp. — Edward Abbey

Unlike novels with a hero or two heroines, in 'One Amazing Thing,' all the characters tell stories they've never told anyone before, so all the voices become equally important. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Historically, in my generation, all of my heroes and heroines have had issues and problems. We all do. — Anita Baker

However, at fourteen years old, she didn't understand that all those terrible troubles the heroines in her books went through in real life hurt.
That the words were just words on a page, but in real life, the pain was immense. Trials and tribulations to prove your love were exactly that, trials and tribulations. — Kristen Ashley

Heroes are born to be troublemakers. — Mason Cooley

YA heroines can have romances that are subplots: can have goals other than getting/keeping a man: can put their lovers second. JUST LIKE YAheroes DO! — Celine Kiernan

I've always thought that, as a romance writer, I had the best job in the world. I sit around all day making up emotion-drenched, conflict-laden stories that push my heroes and heroines to the edge of sanity. Then I give them a happy ending. — Ruth Glick

There are very few heroines in literature who have defined their lives morally rather than romantically and likewise but a handful in film. — Molly Haskell

At least I could relate to Rose's sense of adventure and Harriet Jones' wacky determination and ingrained sense of responsibility. I can stomach the Tardis when my heroines are in place. — Chila Woychik

My parents told me any and every fairy-tale from all around the world. I usually gravitated towards ones with interesting, strong heroines. — Sarah J. Maas

I wanted to avoid what some modern tellers have done, quite legitimately, to make fairy tales more like novels and short stories, to characterize the heroes and the heroines much more than they are characterized in Grimm. I like the psychological flatness of them, the fact that they're more like masks than individuals. — Philip Pullman

I really like writing heroes who aren't necessarily 'Hollywood handsome.' Personally, I think men who are self-confident, intelligent, and funny are outrageously attractive - and my heroines tend to think that, too! — Suzanne Brockmann

Who are your favourite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model. — Christopher Hitchens

I am always naturally drawn to heroines that have human flaws because I enjoy people that have lived their life with courage and make big successes and big failures. — Romola Garai

That was how the heroine of a book would play it and Diana was still writing her own story the best heroines she'd always believed took their fate into their own hands. — Anna Godbersen

You care for empresses and queens?" I asked him.
"No. For tragic heroines."
"Why them?"
"Suffering and courageous women who deserve their own immortality. — Ronald Frame

As far as one knows of heroines from history. I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation - but steady every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo! — Elizabeth Gaskell

Nature I believe in. True art aims to, represent men and women, not as my little self would have them, but as they appear. My heroes and heroines I want not extreme types, all good or all bad; but human, mortal
partly good, partly bad. Realism I need. Pure mental abstractions have no significance for me. — Ouida

It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book. — Studs Terkel

Electra Gates would never concern herself with how much lard should be in pie dough, I thought; but then, I was not Electra Gates. I wanted pie, something that didn't seem to interest romantic heroines. — Sharon Pywell

There is this idea that you have to play heroines or women who succeed. — Isabella Rossellini

A YA heroine does not have to pick up a weapon nor wear men's clothing to be equal to her male counterparts. — Celine Kiernan

The standard heroes and heroines of novels, are personages in whom I could never, from childhood upwards, take an interest, believe to be natural, or wish to imitate: were I obliged to copy these characters, I would simply
not write at all. Were I obliged to copy any former novelist, even the greatest, even Scott, in anything , I would not write
Unless I have something of my own to say, and a way of my own to say it in, I have no business to publish; unless I can look beyond the greatest Masters, and study Nature herself, I have no right to paint; unless I can have the courage to use the language of Truth in preference to the jargon of Conventionality, I ought to be silent. — Charlotte Bronte

Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door. — Jane Yolen

I'll believe that when the Underworld freezes over and Centaurs fly. — Amanda Bouchet

Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story. — Ava DuVernay

All my heroines, yes, even the Little Mermaid, even poor, dull, listless Sleeping Beauty, have given me this sense of possibility. They made me feel I wasn't forced to live out the story my family wanted for me, that I wasn't doomed to plod forward to a fate predetermined by God, that I didn't need to be defined by my seizures, or trapped in fictions of my own making, or shaped by other people's stories. That I wanted to write my own life. — Samantha Ellis

In books by women and for women, it should come as no surprise that heroines are the heroes of the action, finding themselves, their power and their future through love. — Sarah MacLean

Some of our national heroines were defined by the fact that they never nested - they were peripatetic crusaders like Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Sojourner Truth, Dorothy Dix. — Gail Collins

Especially for upwardly mobile young females, declaring one's enthusiasm for Austen (whose heroines almost always move up in social and economic status as a result of the sterling marital alliances they form) has been a classic means of indicating one's purported good taste, good breeding, and good sense: I am an especially adorable member of the ruling class. — Terry Castle

People in books were always so charming, and all their thoughts and actions so comprehensible. They all invariably had a clear, well-defined object in life, and strove through a few hundred engrossing pages to attain this object. They were all noble and generous, and their lives were bright and beautiful. What interesting and delightful moments Irene had passed in their society! They had made her laugh and cry and suffer and rejoice, and had entertained her with the brilliancy of their wit. How dull and colourless real people had appeared beside these heroes and heroines of fiction. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

My childhood was spent embracing one literary heroine after another. I identified passionately with each one and would slavishly imitate them. — Sophie Kinsella

In the early years of the Roaring Twenties, American women not only won the right to vote but they also earned headlines along side their male counterparts during the Golden Age of American sports. Michael Bohn shares an engaging story of how two sports heroines, tennis player Helen Wills and swimmer Gertrude Ederle, helped embolden women to seek self-fulfillment by challenging the status quo. — Donna De Varona

Actresses talking about characters they've played often use the phrase "strong woman", which kind of irks me. Firstly, the description appears to be reserved for two kinds of female: the gun-toting chick in tiny-vest-and-shorts combo, or the tough-talking businesswoman who secretly longs for a man to bring out her softer side. So obviously, our idea of strength is pretty narrow and one-dimensional. Secondly, why isn't Brad Pitt ever asked about how much he enjoys playing a "strong man"? Is it automatically assumed that men's roles will be complex and interesting? — Rosie Blythe

Johanna sat by the fire every night and worked on her tapestry. Dumfries waited until she was settled in her chair and then draped himself across her feet. It became a ritual for Alex to squeeze himself up next to her and fall asleep during her stories about fierce warriors and fair maidens. Johanna's tales all had a unique twist, for none of the heroines she told stories about ever needed to be rescued by their knights in shining armor. More often than not, the fair maidens rescued their knights.
Gabriel couldn't take issue with his wife. She was telling Alex the truth. It was a fact that maidens could rescue mighty, arrogant warriors. Johanna had certainly rescued him from a bleak, cold existence. She'd given him a family and a home. She was his love, his joy, his companion.
She was his saving grace. — Julie Garwood

Why aren't midwives the heroines of society that they should be? Why do they have such a low profile? They ought to be lauded to the skies, by everyone. — Jennifer Worth

May We Love Ourselves.
May We Love Each Other.
May We Believe that Our Dreams Can Come True.
We Are Strong.
We Are Wise.
We Are the Heroines of our Own Lives
-The Heroine's Club benediction — Melia Keeton-Digby

Heroines did not pick their own battles - the ones they knew they could win. On the contrary, they managed what they had to manage, and they did not lie to themselves about relying on others for help instead of accomplishing the thing alone. — Gordon Dahlquist

I think, with the gay liberation movement has had need for heroes and heroines, and it would be rather nice to have Abraham Lincoln as your poster boy, wouldn't it? — David Herbert Donald

A female character can: Like babies, Be devoted to her lover, Cry, Be gentle, Be scared, Be uncertain, Take advice, and still be a YA heroine — Celine Kiernan

I brandished my parasol at him like a rapier. You, sir, are an abominable scalawag of a man, and I'll be damned if I let you threaten me. — Susan Dennard

Jane Austen had created six heroines, each quite different, and that gave Charlotte courage. There wasn't just one kind of woman to be. — Shannon Hale

There's a thing that creeps into this conversation ... that if you complain about the depiction of women [in comics], it becomes, 'Well, but ladies - the dudes are idealized too.' And the thing is that the dudes are idealized for strength and the women are idealized for sexual availability. It's very, very different. The women's costumes are cut in such a way that I could give a cervical exam to 90% of our heroines. And I don't have a medical degree! So if I can find it, that's impressive. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

Heroes and heroines OR ... Your lead character doesn't have to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and he doesn't have to stop speeding bullets with his bare hands, but he darn well better know the difference between right and wrong, and he better be kind to animals, and it sure wouldn't hurt any if he brushed his teeth regularly"
Dean Koontz in "How To Write Best Selling Fiction — Dean Koontz

In you, I see the heroines of Shakespeare's tragedies.
You, unhappy lady, were
never saved by anybody. — Marina Tsvetaeva

No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we're not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan and Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us. — Adrienne Rich

If you read fairy tales carefully, you'll notice they are mostly about people who aren't heroes. They don't have special powers, or gifts. Often they are despised as stupid, They are bullied, beaten up, robbed, starved. But they find they are stronger than their misfortunes. — Amanda Craig

It wasn't long before God made me realise that the true glory is that which is eternal and that, to achieve it, there is no need to perform outstanding deeds. Instead, one must remain hidden and perform one's good deeds so that the right hand knows not what the left hand does. When I read stories about the deeds of the great French heroines - especially of the Venerable Joan of Arc, I longed to imitate them and felt stirred by the same inspiration which moved them. It was then that I received one of the greatest graces of my life, for, at that age, I didn't receive the spiritual enlightenment which now floods my soul. I was made to understand that the glory I was to win would never be seen during my lifetime . . . — John Beevers

Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she'd mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn't really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines.
On the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne's home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from over two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being. — Mary Jane Hathaway

We are drawn to the Renaissance because of the hope for black uplift and interracial empathy that it embodied and because there is a certain element of romanticism associated with the era's creativity, its seemingly larger than life heroes and heroines, and its most brilliantly lit terrain, Harlem, USA. — Clement Alexander Price

She remembered the heroines of novels she had read, and the lyrical legion of those adulterous women began to sing in her memory with sisterly voices that enchanted her. Now she saw herself as one of those amoureuses whom she had so envied: she was becoming, in reality, one of that gallery of fictional figures; the long dream of her youth was coming true. — Gustave Flaubert

The token females of most superhero teams often had to suppress their femininity in order to be taken seriously by their male compatriots. When heroines like Invisible Girl or Wasp do display an interest in traditionally female pursuits like love, fashion or the latest hairstyle, their male teammates chide them for being frivolous females. — Mike Madrid

My body shook from pain, exhaustion, and the beginning of shock. I'd pay for all the powers I'd used, but the portal most of all. Good girls weren't supposed to open hell dimensions. — Lola Dodge

She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. — Oscar Wilde

At this point, harking back to the stuff about souls, Andersen bolts on a perplexing Christian salvation message about how the Little Mermaid can earn a soul if she is good for three hundred years, but every time she sees 'a rude, naughty child', she'll get more time in purgatory. Don't be rude or naughty or the mermaids will suffer? Please. Even as a child, I knew this was ridiculous. — Samantha Ellis

Villains made no special guest appearances in our Once Upon A Time story games. They scared Laura and bored me, so instead we made up heroines with ghastly itchy skin but magnificent tresses of hair, and the occasional sleeping disorder. Those heroines had enough on their hands without having to worry about warding off true evil. — Rachel Cohn

There are always these moments in life when the limits of suffering are reached and we become heroes and heroines. — Katherine Mansfield

Fairy tales have always been about getting through the worst of everything, the darkest and the deepest and the bloodiest of events. They are about surviving, and what you look like when you emerge from the trial. The reason we keep telling fairy tales over and over, that we need to keep telling them, is that the trials change. So the stories change too, and the heroines and villains and magical objects, to keep them true. Fairy tales are the closets where the world keeps its skeletons. — Catherynne M Valente

My hips bristle with totems and talismans, proof that I am not simply a character in a fixed book or film. I am no single narrative. As neither Rebecca de Winter nor Jane Eyre, I am free to revise my story, to reinvent myself, my world, at any given moment. Advancing beside Archer, I am resplendent in my savage finery of seized power. In my service charge the collected blackguards of a dozen tyrants now dispatched to a lesser oblivion. My fingers, stained crimson with the blood of despots, are not the fingers which paged through the paper lives of helpless romantic heroines. No more am I a passive damsel who waits for circumstance to decide her fate; now have I become the scalawag, the swashbuckler, the Heathcliff of my dreams bent on rescuing myself. For now do I embody all the traits I had so hoped to find in Goran. Meaning: No longer am I limited. — Chuck Palahniuk

Novelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture - still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish. — Charlotte Bronte

I've done nothing for the past five years but try to be the hero who protects her. The problem? Heroines don't need protecting. — Colleen Hoover