Not Ladylike Quotes & Sayings

My style is definitely not ladylike - frills and bows kinda scare me - but I like the military look because I love that olive green khaki color. — Cameron Russell

She will try to find the nice way to exercise intelligence. But intelligence is not ladylike. Intelligence is full of excesses. Rigorous intelligene abhors sentimentality, and women must be sentimental to value the dreadful silliness of the men around them. Morbid intelligence abhors the cheery sunlight of positive thinking and eternal sweetness; and women must be sunlight and cheery and sweet, or the woman could not bribe her way with smiles through a day. Wild intelligence abhors any narrow world; and the world of women must stay narrow, or the woman is an outlaw. No woman could be Nietzsche or Rimbaud without ending up in a whorehouse or lobotomized. Any vital intelligence has passionate questions, aggressive answers; but women cannot be explorers; there can be no Lewis or Clark of the female mind. — Andrea Dworkin

Hell, they'd say in the country club locker room, you know how Milt's getting his. Everybody knew, bearing testimony to the fact that suburban vice, like a peeling nose, is almost impossible to conceal. It went all over town, this talk, like a swarm of bees, settling down lazily on polite afternoon sun porches to rise once more and settle down again with a busy murmur among cautious ladylike foursomes on the golf course, buzzing pleasurably there amid ladylike whacks of the golf ball and cautious pullings-down of panties which bound too tightly. Everybody knew about their affair and everybody talked about it, and because of some haunting inborn squeamishness it would not have relieved Loftis to know that nobody particularly cared. — William Styron

Not that a locked door made a difference to me, since we'd all been rigorously trained in "the ladylike arts of breaking and entering, — Daniel O'Malley

You need to give me some answers. Like, now. I'm done with this bullshit excuse that nothing is different about you." "Swearing isn't ladylike." He responds drily, like that's the only thing I just said. I roll my eyes at his old ways and say just to annoy him, "Bullshit. I'm not a lady which you should know by now, dumbass." I can't believe it, but he actually lifts a corner of his mouth in an almost smile. — Inda Herwood

Luna was remote and ladylike. The only time anyone had ever seen Luna angry was when someone referred to her as 'African-American'.
"I'm an American," she had snapped, whirling on the offender. "I've never even been to Africa. I was born in California, my father was a major in the Marine Corps, and I'm not a hyphenated anything. I have a black heritage, but I also have a white one." She had held out one slim arm and studied the color of it. "Looks to me like I'm brown. We're all just different shades of brown,so don't try to set me apart. — Linda Howard

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike
in the second place, folks don't like to have someone around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates them. Your not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language. — Harper Lee

Impregnation will be regarded in an entirely different manner, more in the light of a surgical operation, so that it will be thought not ladylike to have it performed in the natural manner. — Bertrand Russell

You've no idea what it's like, Captain Drake, to be a woman. To be told all your life that everything you want is foolish and that you're useless except as a broodmare. First it was simple. 'Don't climb that tree, Serenity. Ladies never do such.' Then it was, 'Don't run, it's not ladylike. Don't raise your voice. Don't speak your thoughts. Don't laugh too loudly, don't eat too much, don't cut your hair, don't wear those colors.' My whole life is don't. Now I'm too old to even be a broodmare. (Serenity) — Kinley MacGregor

Chace went to the bar to order the first round, two lagers. The barman was old, and old-fashioned, and when he served her one pine, presumably for Wallace, and a half, presumably for her, she sent the half back.
"No, another pint, if you please."
The barman's eyes turned critical. "Not terribly ladylike."
"I'm a terrible lady. — Greg Rucka

I remember my mother would get upset with me 'cause she said I walked like my dad. But I think it was more like, there's something about you that's not quite ladylike and femme. And then when I got older - once I came out, my mom and grandma were horrified and just kind of like, where did we go wrong? — Jacqueline Woodson

You learned several forms of martial arts."
"yes, and for the most part, because I was doing something physical and most of my instructors enjoyed what they were doing, it was fun. Later, as I got older and they were serious about training me, I was faster than the instructors, and some of them would get angry."
"Honey, that's entirely understandable. You're barely five feet tall, and you can't weigh a hundred pounds. To make matters worse, you're a girl. Kicking some man's butt is not ladylike. — Christine Feehan

I doubt if Dickens did, especially his women-his pretty women-Mrs. Dombey, Florence, Dora, Agnes, Ruth Pinch, Kate Nickleby, little Emily-we know them all through Hablot Browne alone-and none of them present any very marked physical characteristics. They are sweet and graceful, neither tall nor short; they have a pretty droop in their shoulders, and are very ladylike; sometimes they wear ringlets, sometimes not, and each would do very easily for the other. — George Du Maurier

It's funny, you know, they're always telling me to be a man, take it like a man, act like a man, like they're afraid if they don't keep reminding me I'll grow up to be a centaur or a dining room table, like they know, somehow, that I'm not a man, like it's a spell they can cast, if they say it enough I'll be tricked into being a man forever."
... "Yes." Tamburlaine nodded. "They always say: be a lady, speak like a lady, behave like a little lady, that's not very ladylike, is it, dear?"
"Well, I won't be a man, or take anything like one or act like one!" The troll inside him rubbed his hands gleefully, crackling with anticipation.
"Come on, then ... Don't let's be men, or ladies either. Don't let's act like them or behave like them or speak like them! — Catherynne M Valente

Miriam snorted. It was not a very ladylike snort. She was the sort of woman one expected to find tramping the countryside in tweeds with a gun under her arm and a bulldog at her side, probably one of her own breeding. — Marie Brennan

Apparently, Clytius hadn't expected her to be quite so suicidal. He was slow raising his sword. By the time he slashed, Hazel had ducked between his legs and jabbed her Imperial gold blade into his gluteus maximus. Not very ladylike. The nuns at St. Agnes would never have approved. But it worked. — Rick Riordan

Fits did not go over well in my house. There was a lot of discipline and obedience and you had to be very ladylike. Ladies didn't curse and I still don't curse in front of my parents. — Daisy Fuentes

It will just upset you."
No my freaking way! He didn't just tell me I'm weak to him, did he?
"Yes, Ian. Thanks for reminding me I am just a dang girl in your eyes." A string of not ladylike curse words went across the marquee of my brain.
"Be reasonable," he snipped out at me.
Oh.No.He.Didn't. "Reasonable caught a train to Canada. Meet her peeved counterpart who wants to snap boy parts off and sterilize them to spare the future generations of learning that equal doesn't mean jack squat." - Grace — Cyndi Goodgame

Why, whatever were we thinking, Cassie?" I find my voice and try to keep up with the banter. "We're not being very ladylike, at all! — Kandi Steiner

As different as we all are, there's one thing most young women have in common: We're all brought up to feel like there's something wrong with us. We're too fat. We're dumb. We're too smart. We're not ladylike enough - 'stop cursing, chewing with your mouth open, speaking your mind'. We're too slutty. We're not slutty enough.
Fuck that.
You're not too fat. You're not too loud. You're not too smart. You're not unladylike. There is nothing wrong with you. — Jessica Valenti

Thanks," I muttered and added under my breath, "Douchebag."
He laughed, deep and throaty. "Now that's not very ladylike, Kittycat."
I whipped around. "Don't ever call me that," I snapped.
"It's better than calling someone a douchebag, isn't it?" He pushed out the door. "This has been a stimulating visit. I'll cherish it for a long time to come."
Okay. That was it. "You know, you're right. How wrong of me to call you a douchebag. Because a douchebag is too nice of a word for you," I said, smiling sweetly. "You're a dickhead."
"A dickhead?" he repeated. "How charming."
I flipped him off. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I do think anger is so difficult for women. Girls think it undermines their femininity; it's not very ladylike. — Koren Zailckas

I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful. — Michael Cunningham

Me, I am not a lady,' announced her grace. 'I have been very well educated, and I will drink port. — Georgette Heyer

Go to the devil, Captain Drake. (Serenity)
That's not very ladylike! (Morgan)
Then try this one. Go to hell, and ... and rot! (Serenity) — Kinley MacGregor

We do not serve spirits to the ladies.'
'As you have probably guessed, I am not a lady — M.R.C. Kasasian

Justus?" she whispered. "I know it is not ladylike for me to ask, but I very much would for you to kiss me again."
Those sensuous lips of his curved in a smile that made her belly flutter. "See, you are my counterpart, for I was just going to do just that. — Brooklyn Ann

Not very ladylike. — Rick Riordan

I try hard to look hip but ladylike; current, but not like I'm trying to be 16. — Morgan Fairchild

took the magazine from him and turned it the right way round. There they were again, the images of my childhood: bold, striding, confident, their arms flung out as if to claim space, their legs apart, feet planted squarely on the earth. There was something Renaissance about the pose, but it was princes I thought of, not coiffed and ringleted maidens. Those candid eyes, shadowed with makeup, yes, but like the eyes of cats, fixed for the pounce. No quailing, no clinging there, not in those capes and rough tweeds, those boots that came to the knee. Pirates, these women, with their ladylike briefcases for the loot and their horsy acquisitive teeth. I — Margaret Atwood

You know it's not very ladylike to play with engines. Boys tend to like girls who dress and act like girls. — Amy Clipston

I'm not sure I have the words to describe that moment but if there's a word that means the exact opposite of "ladylike", that would be a good start. — Jenny Lawson