Smart Women Quotes & Sayings

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage! — Andy Rooney

By erasing any nuance and complexity about porn and sexuality, the virginity movement gives young women only two choices of who they can be sexually: sluts or not sluts. While the first choice doesn't seem attractive, I can guarantee you that most young women are going to go with the option that allows them to have sex. And there's no in-between identity for young women who are making smart, healthy choices in their sexual lives. — Jessica Valenti

His gaze didn't stray from my face. "You're a smart woman, Ella."
"Are you intimidated by a woman with a big vocabulary?"
"Hell, yes. Any woman with an IQ higher than room temperature, and I'm gone. Unless she's paying for dinner."
"I could play dumb and you could pay for dinner," I offered.
"Too late. You already used a five-syllable word."
-Jack & Ella — Lisa Kleypas

It is a quote from Mihri Hatun, a lady poet who wrote many centuries ago. 'A talented women is better than a thousand untalented men, and a women of understanding is better than a thousand stupid men. — Karen Essex

If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny, or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don't write that. They only write parts for women where they let everything be steamrolled over them, where they let people wipe their feet all over them. — Teri Garr

My lyrics are for strong, independent women who are both smart and fashionable. — Shameik Moore

You know why doctors slap babies on the bottom when they're born? So the dicks fall off the smart ones."
He laughed. "You know why women don't have dicks? So they can stand closer to the kitchen sink. — Barbara Elsborg

I like playing smart, savvy, sexy women
because it's so not me! — Amanda Tapping

What if not just women, but both men and women, worked smart, more flexible schedules? What if the workplace itself was more fluid than the rigid and narrow ladder to success of the ideal worker? And what if both men and women became responsible for raising children and managing the home, sharing work, love, and play? Could everyone then live whole lives? — Brigid Schulte

You realize we are two smart women who are not acting very smart right now,' she said.
'Huh?'
'We know better than to try to figure out what a man is up to. This'll get worked out when it's suppose to. — Alice Clayton

Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one. — Anna Quindlen

Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. — Jessica Valenti

I like playing smart women very, very much because I definitely learn from them. — Autumn Reeser

Being a friend is hard." "If it was easy, anyone could do it." "I love smart women." "Smart women love you." "I'd better go." "Call me later. — Robert Crais

Sex sells, even to smart, liberated women, and Mr. Darcy was the smart girl's pinup boy. — Karen Doornebos

Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics. — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

I watched women file in, hoping each new one in a smart dress suit was a fairy godmother carrying my new fate. I'd catch her glance as she passed, hoping she'd see the star pattern in my eyes. Oh, it's you. I found you. Does every child have this fantasy - or just the sad ones? — Sarah Hepola

In the melting pot that is America, inclusive trumps exclusive. Whether it's single women, young adults, or minorities, alienating the rapidly growing voting blocs is not smart politics. — Eliot Spitzer

I know it's a guy who will talk to me, he wears his cockiness like an ironic T-shirt, but it fits him better. He is the kind of guy who carries himself like he gets laid a lot, a guy who likes women, a guy who would actually fuck me properly. I would like to be fucked properly! My dating life seems to rotate around three types of me: preppy Ivy Leaguers who believe they're characters in a Fitzgerald novel; slick Wall Streeters with money signs in their yes, their ears, their mouths; and sensitive smart-boys who are so self-aware that everything feels like a joke. — Gillian Flynn

Every woman is multifaceted. Every woman has a switch, whether she's going to be maternal, whether she's going to be a man-eater, whether she has to kick ass, whether she has to be one of the boys, whether she has to show the guys that she's just as smart or smarter, she's just as talented or creative. Women suppress a lot of their sides. — Nicki Minaj

She knew what all smart women knew: Laughter made you live better and longer. — Gail Parent

Do you know anyone who would be willing to die to save those five-thousand serial killers?"
"No. Everyone I know is too smart for that!"
"Yet Someone did die to save all of the serial killers, and all of the old women, and all of the soldiers, and all of the babies that the world has ever known. That one is Jesus Christ. He died for you and for me. He died for everyone, because in this world our sin has condemned us to death, and the only way that we can be saved was for someone who was Himself without sin to be willing to die in our place."
Molly was silent. Her bright smile had faded, and she felt tears well up in her eyes. — Joyce Swann

You know what I like about San Francisco? The women are beautiful, fashionable and smart. San Francisco is one of the only cities I like to visit. I love New York and Chicago - I studied there, and L.A. has the same people as New York. — LeRoy Neiman

Good sex isn't complete without cuddling and aftercare.

Women instinctively know this. Men, if they're smart, figure it out. — Nikki Sex

I'm sorry, but eeeeeeeww. A woman telling another woman that she's not likable because she's smart is gross. It's a big F-U to all the women who have fought and continue to fight for ladies' equality, and furthermore, it continues the cycle of discouraging women from being as well rounded as men are allowed to be. — Phoebe Robinson

You just have to say to yourself, "I am not willing to accept anything less than what I deserve! I am smart! I am Beautiful! I am a good woman and I deserve to be happy!" It all starts with you. — Amari Soul

I love smart commercial fiction. Susan Isaacs, for example and the readers who interest me are, in the preponderance, women. I am one of them; I like the books they like. — Beth Gutcheon

What Tupperware has stood for all these years is the independence of women, allowing women to work from home, earn a living - and that what this Boys & Girls Clubs of America program, the SMART Girls program, is about. — Brooke Shields

Showing up underdressed is as smart as standing in the marketplace and shouting you've become an agent for the crown."
"I'd hang myself first. I hate being a female."
"Well until you sprout a beard and cock there you are. — Lynn Viehl

Okay. It's not hard to find a beautiful woman, right? Definitely not hard to find a smart woman. And there are definitely some women with good hearts. But in my experience, it's extremely rare to find the whole package. — Penelope Ward

I've done a lot of sci-fi, so I was a little hesitant because you get pigeonholed into that genre and world. But at the same time, I love sci-fi because the women are so strong and independent and smart. — Laura Vandervoort

It's probably not just by chance that I'm alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he's terribly strong. And if he's stronger than I, I'm the one who can't live with him. ... I'm neither smart nor stupid, but I don't think I'm a run-of-the-mill person. I've been in business without being a businesswoman, I've loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I've loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I've done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice. — Coco Chanel

She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her
guess what
she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life. — Rush Limbaugh

How do you give smart, accomplished, ambitious women the same opportunities as men to reach their goals? What about universal preschool and after-school programs? What about changing the corporate mind-set about the time commitment it takes to move up the ladder? What about having more husbands step up and take the major load? — Gail Collins

They think the recipe for a 'home-maker' is- a woman who isn't smart enough, lacks skills and above all isn't ambitious enough! Well she is every bit as smart as the woman who puts on a suit to go to work in a man's world to prove- times have changed! She is every bit as intelligent! — Mrinalini Mitra

In fiction, I searched for my favorite authors, women I have trusted to reassure me than not all teenage guys are total ditwads, that the archetype of the noble cute hero who devotes himself to the girl he loves has not gone the way of the rotary phone. That all I had to do was be myself (smart, hardworking, funny) and be patient and kind and he and I would find each other.
As Bea would say, this why they call it fiction. — Sarah Strohmeyer

Scriassine studied me in turn. "You're not so dumb, you know. Generally I dislike intelligent women, maybe because they're not intelligent enough. They always want to prove to themselves, and to everyone else, how terribly smart they are. So all they do is talk and never understand anything. What struck me the first time I saw you was that way you have of keeping quiet. — Simone De Beauvoir

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.' — Anna Quindlen

That occurs everywhere, unfortunately. Powerful, smart women who make it to the end sometimes are not seen as the same charismatic likable guys. — Allison Grodner

couple of women who'd seemed smart, pretty, and nice. — Noelle Adams

I definitely am drawn to strong females who are successful, smart women because I am a woman like that. I think it's important to portray those kinds of women on film and television. Especially as a black woman, I think it's important. — Megalyn Echikunwoke

I know, as an overachiever straight-A student in school, I always responded to smart, strong, women represented on screen. — Allison Scagliotti

I would love to see women be able to be powerful, complex, smart, opinionated and taken seriously, even if they are beautiful. Even more, I would love to see women held to different standards, other than the superficial ones that we're held to. — Amber Heard

I'm not in a position to tell anyone anything about how to live his or her life, but I think it's worth noting that no one can lie to us as effectively as we can lie to ourselves. We know exactly what to say! And I do think that women, even extremely smart women, can be very, very vulnerable to men. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

This is a competitive business - there are a lot of women who want these jobs, but experience, education, and smarts go a long way. I'm still figuring it out - I learn new things every day. Once you stop learning, you should get out of the business. It's just really about being hungry for more. — Nicole Lapin

Two things make smart men stupid, beautiful women and sports — Colin Cowherd

Quinn lifted Lady Meade's hand and pressed a very correct kiss on her bony knuckles. Then he bent and brushed his lips over Viola's cheek.

Smart man. If he'd put her hand anywhere near his mouth, she'd have curled her fingers into a fist and clouted him a good one.

"I'll see you at home later, dearest."

"You know how we women are when we're shopping," She smiled venomously at him. "Don't wait up."

Quinn lifted a brow at that, but kept a smile firmly in place for her mother's sake. "Yes, well, try not to spend all my money in one place."

"Of course not," she said sweetly. "I know lots of places to spend all your money. — Mia Marlowe

Brains are an asset to the woman in love who's smart enough to hide 'em. — Mae West

Many of the religious apologists out there are not stupid people, they are often brilliant. People working in the field of theology and philosophy smart people everywhere. What they are those religious apologists are smart poeple who can build these amazingly intricate rationalizations for whatever weird practice they favor. Whether it's ritual cannibalism, or praying to spirits, or treating women as chattel. And they always building this on terrible shaky foundation of false premises. — PZ Myers

If a woman cannot make her mistakes charming, she is only a female. — Oscar Wilde

I don't think women should look like costumes. I don't think they should look like fashion victims. I think these (clothes) are for women that want to look sexy. They want to look smart. — Ralph Lauren

And get some self-esteem. What the fuck is that? It's so annoying to see a pretty girl see herself as not worthy. You know what it makes us guys think you aren't worthy? We see you how you see you. You're pretty and funny and smart. Stop being such a douche-canoe. — Tara Brown

I'm attracted to women who are smart and funny and ambitious and have lives of their own and great families. Isn't that what attracts anyone? — Tom Brady

Read. Read until your eyes are sore. Then read some more. — Lisa Bloom

You're smart enough to recognize that the subjects of migraines and cats never fail with the women. Lead the old girl toward the mint tea. — Hanif Kureishi

This is a strange pocket of the western world where it is still deemed utterly acceptable to take smart, successful women and reduce them to beauty pageant contestants, — Hadley Freeman

Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do. — Hillary Clinton

I had a number of great teachers and the ones that really were the strongest influences on me were women. They were really, really smart and interesting women. — Meryl Streep

Her voice was erudite, interesting; the voice of someone who straddled two cultures with a surety and style that I wished my boyfriend could find. She was smart, funny, and, above all, completely capable of controlling her life and what happened to it. — Ruth Ahmed

The sad thing about our society is that women are put in one of two categories. You're either in the beautiful category and you're seen as sexy and beautiful, or some version of that, or you're put into another category.The latter category affords women the opportunity to be smart, funny, independent, mean, strong, intelligent and opinionated. We take them seriously as politicians, if they fit into that latter category. We respect their opinions more and give them higher expectations. That latter category is what allows female actors to be characters. — Amber Heard

Live and let live.
Love thyself, in order to love thy man.
Smart, independent women attract men. — Titania Hudson

I do think women can have it all - but not all women. If you take daring steps and are smart about it, you can probably have it all. But you might have to wait a while. — Gail Sheehy

Not at all. It's why people come. They say it's about looking smart, or beautiful, or professional, but it's not. Gray-haired ladies try to recapture their former brunette. Brunettes want to go blond. Other women go for colors that don't arise in
nature. Each group thinks it's completely different than the others, but I don't see it that way. I've watched them looking at themselves in the mirror, and they're not interested in conforming or rebelling, they just want to walk out of here feeling like themselves again. — Antony John

Girls have always been told that their value is tied to their appearance; their accomplishments are always magnified if they're pretty and diminished if they're not. Even worse, some girls get the message that they can get through life relying on just their looks, and then they never develop their minds. [ ... ]
Being pretty is fundamentally a passive quality; even what you work at it, you're working at being passive. — Ted Chiang

How can smart women be so stupid about men sometimes? Lack of knowledge. It's what men have kept secret for so long. — Steve Harvey

I've never really had any luck with women in my life. Well, at first I was fairly lucky. Then all of a sudden, they all thought they had to get married for some reason. And not to me. It's especially strange, because I almost always fell in love with the very smart girls. Even that didn't help matters. I don't see how any intelligent person could seriously want to get married. — Max Frei

My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called 'opinionated' is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish. My only hope is that, one day soon, women who have all earned the right to their opinions
instead of being called 'opinionated' will be called smart and well-informed, just like men. — Teresa Heinz

I really want women to throw their shoulders back and stand up straight and use their big girl voices and not feel like they're compromising their femininity to be strong and smart. — Katie Aselton

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of. — Julie Burchill

People who label erotica writers as sluts/men-whores remind me of the mob that once condemned smart women as witches. Mankind has not evolved much. — Anna Bayes

As a woman, I know you're young but you gotta hear it now,the most valuable part about you is your brain. Get an education,don't let anybody tell you that your body or the size that you wear or any of that bullshit matters because it doesn't. Your brain matters, so be the smart girl in the room because to be funny you have to be smart, because you have to get the joke — Sophia Bush

I would advise a stupid woman always to follow her hsuband - however, a smart woman should rely on her own instincts. — Peter Prange

Yes, I'm a feminist, because I see all women as smart, gifted and tough. — Zaha Hadid

My wife and I said good-bye the next morning in a little sheltered place among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like to do their crying before folks.
She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour.
("Kentucky's Ghost") — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Women are still not reaching the most senior levels of corporations. This is not the shortcoming of women. We're talented and smart. — Ruth Porat

Using one's beauty was the only way a smart girl could get by, at least that's how it was back then, though even for a smart girl there were really only three professions. You could be a nurse or a teacher or a wife. — Shannon Celebi

The women I know are smart, interesting people who aren't just there to service the men's stories, so I don't know why our art continues to do that. — Carrie Coon

Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children. — Marie Colvin

Then there's the intelligence that practically radiates from you. Did I ever tell you smart women seriously turn me on?" His thumbs began caressing her cheeks and he bent to whisper close to her ear. "You're a walking contradiction, Hayden. Prim and proper one moment, wild and uninhibited the next. And the more I get to know you, the more I like what I find. — Elle Kennedy

I find many women are intimidated by "career women"! Bottom line: snap judgments about what you think others' perceptions might be about you, personally or professionally, can be more dangerous or damaging to you than those who are uncomfortable with your stature or your smarts. If you are smart and focused on your career, remind yourself that no one can ever take away your drive and your passion. — Jenna Lee

Men are strong, women are smart, but no matter how smart, their bellies are always there to betray women and that's their downfall. — Simone Schwarz-Bart

Women can be strong, be smart, be sexy, be mothers, be wives, and be powerful. We don't need to compromise. — Amber Valletta

I was asked once if I ever got tired of playing bimbos, and I answered that I've never played a bimbo. I've always played smart, manipulative women. Marilyn Monroe and Judy Holliday, who were not stupid, could play stupid really well, but I don't do it well. — Morgan Fairchild

I know you're still young but I want you to understand and learn this now. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You're a very very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated Laila. No chance. — Khaled Hosseini

She was different from any other women he'd been with. Something he'd known from the moment he'd met her and she'd made a smart-ass comment about him looking like GI Joe on vacation. — Katie Reus

The times today are too dangerous for the young and the smart to be not bothered. Know the truth. Remember, "We can deny the truth. But, we can't avoid it." We have been there; we have all been there. Ask a female friend who is fighting for a better pay scale, ask the father of an immigrant who is nervous about the future of his daughter, ask a gay friend who is fighting for the right to marry, ask an African-American friend who wants her younger brother to be unafraid and proud, ask a homeless worker in Bangladesh whose house just got swept by rising sea levels, ask a young child in Beijing who breathes an air polluted by fossil fuels, ask a child labor in India who works ten hours and twelve hours to get two square meals a day. And, when you ask, you will know. You will know why we need to take it personally. — Sharad Vivek Sagar

Both Elizabeth [Smart] and Ruby [Jessop] were fourteen when they were kidnapped, raped and "kept captive by polygamous fanatics." The main difference in the girls' respective ordeals ... is that "Elizabeth was brainwashed for nine months," while Ruby had been brainwashed by polygamist fanatics "since birth." Despite the similarity of their plights, Elizabeth's abusers were jailed and charged with sexual assault, aggravated burglary, and aggravated kidnapping, while Ruby ... "was returned to her abusers, no real investigation was done, no charges brought against anyone" involved. — Jon Krakauer

So I grew up feeling that I wasn't good enough, and that no-one would love me unless I was perfect. But no-one's perfect, we're not meant to be perfect. We're meant to be complete. But it's hard to be complete if you're trying to be perfect, so you kind of become disembodied. And I spent a lot of my life that way.""And if you don't own your strength ... Women like me tend to always look over their shoulder to see who ... "Who's the leader? Who's the smart one?" Never thinking it might be ME. Took a long time for me to get over that. — Jane Fonda

I believe there need to be women visual in our every day landscape, working hard and doing their own thing, whether you like it or not, whether it's acceptable or not ... I especially hope to inspire young women because often I feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are. I'd like to change that, change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman. — Margaret Kilgallen

Fortunately, we have a lot of really smart women in the business. — Rosanna Arquette

She wasn't bored. She was surprised to find herself having fun, not being shushed for wisecracks
or expected to sit quietly and behave. It was, she thought, a lot like hanging out with Theo and their
father - only different. Good different. And she was smart enough to realize it was the first women's
outing she'd ever had. Smart enough to understand Pilar knew it, too.
She didn't even mind being dragged into the dress shop, or having the conversation turn absolutely
and completely to clothes and fabric and color and cut.
And when she watched Sophia dash in, windblown, flushed, happy, Maddy at not quite fifteen had
a revelation. She wouldn't mind being like her, like Sophia Giambelli — Nora Roberts

She knew that it was not smart to address her concerns about money directly, for men despised women who confronted them in this way. She knew that the smart wife, especially one no longer willing to parlay sexual favors, would find a way to bring up matters sweetly, pouring honey all over the problem before showing it to the husband. But she was out of patience. — Karen Essex

I'd rather be thought of as smart, capable, strong, and compassionate than beautiful. Those things all persist long after beauty fades. — Cassandra Duffy

My wife was a riddle. I think all women are. Men are not riddles, even the smart ones. We are independent clauses, such as: "I like meat." "Water feel good. — Harrison Scott Key

As long as she doesn't turn too smart for men
For the stupid ones, she will, Madame. But who wants them anyway? A stupid man is every woman's' downfall. — Nina George

'TV Guide' is smart to aim toward women. More women will go there to find out what's on - just like when guys won't ask for directions, a woman will break out the map. — Kate Flannery

Sweetness peppered with spice. A smidgen of naughtiness with the nice. Toss in some goofiness with the smart. Throw in some strength to support the heart. Cupfuls of love to even it all out and tenaciousness sprinkled in to combat the doubt. Cook over some fire to meld it all in and you've got one good woman underneath this skin. 2012 — Jenna Cornell

My 94-year-old grandmother has always been so inspiring to me. She is kind, smart, brave, and independent. After graduating number one in her medical school class at a time when it was extremely rare for women to attend medical school, she worked with the World Health Organization in North Africa to eradicate tuberculosis. — Kelsey Chow

This predilection of bright women to twist themselves into bizarre submissive postures from which only humor can release them is something die-hard feminists will never address. But Iris and I were in agreement: there is nothing that warms a smart girl's heart like the smile on the face of a sadist. — Emily Prager

I just want to hear the true voices of women self-expressing - smart ones, stupid ones, ugly ones, beautiful ones, good ones, bad ones, fat ones, thin ones, all of it - until the profound silence that has resounded throughout history is filled with a healthy chorus coming from our side of the aisle. — Liz Phair