Tears Of Women Quotes & Sayings

Godlike the man who
sits at her side, who
watches and catches
that laughter
which (softly) tears me
to tatters: nothing is
left of me, each time
I see her ... — Catullus

Have you ever stopped to ponder the amount of blood spilt, the volume of tears shed, the degree of pain and anguish endured, the number of noble men and women lost in battle so that we as individuals might have a say in governing our country? Honor the lives sacrificed for your freedoms. Vote. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and comcribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent. — Billy Sunday

Parker had a young white boy with him-one of the neurotic tribe of the lost- and the kid's eyes were filled with wet layers of tears. One big tear in each eye. They did not drop out. It was fascinating. I had seen women sit and look at me with those same eyes before they got mad and started screaming about what a son of a bitch I was. — Charles Bukowski

Man's greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women — Genghis Khan

As Byron shouldered his way inside behind her, she gave him a friendly smile and stood on her toes to brush his chin with a kiss. Mikhail stiffened, then immediately wrapped a possessive arm around her waist. "Carpathian women do not do that kind of thing," he reprimanded her.
She tilted her chin at him, in no way intimidated. "That's because Carpathian males have such a territorial mentality - you know, a beat-their-chest, swing-from-the-trees sort of thing." She turned her head to look at the couple lying on the floor. Her indrawn breath was audible.
"Jacques," she whispered his name, tears in her voice and in her blue eyes. "It really is you." Eluding Mikhail's outstretched, detaining hand, she ran to him.
Let her, Gregori persuaded softly. Look at him. — Christine Feehan

Does a king let his friends die for him?" Yarvi glanced guiltily across at Shadikshirram's sword, and remembered the feeling, punching, punching, the red knife in his red hand, and shivered under his stolen cloak. "Does a king stab women in the back?" The tears were still wet on Nothing's wasted face. "A good one sacrifices everything to win, and stabs whom he must however he can. The great warrior is the one who still breathes when the crows feast. The great king is the one who watches the carcasses of his enemies burn. Let Father Peace spill tears over the methods. Mother War smiles upon results." "That's what my uncle would have said." "A wise man, then, and a worthy enemy. Perhaps you will stab him in the back and we can watch him burn together. — Joe Abercrombie

Toward the end of March, in St. Louis, slush fills the gutters, and dirty snow lies heaped alongside porch steps, and everything seems to be suffocating in the embrace of a season that lasts too long. Radiators hiss mournfully, no one manages to be patient, the wind draws tears from your eyes, the clouds are filled with sadness. Women with scarves around their heads and their feet encased in fur-lined boots pick their way carefully over patches of melting ice. It seems that winter will last forever, that this is the decision of nature and nothing can be done about it. — Harold Brodkey

At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. The mothers show us that it is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change. — Jim Wallis

And that is where I have failed you, Ari. You see, I would have crawled to your mother a million times. I would crawl to her because I need her in order to live. She is my strength. God help me, Ari, I have been a party to the creation of a breed of men and women so hard they refuse to know the meaning of tears and humility. — Leon Uris

The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men. — H.L. Mencken

I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like a hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to — Edwidge Danticat

There's a limit beyond which one cannot progress. The differences between the limiting abilities of those on successively higher steps of the pyramid are enormous. I have not seen described anywhere the shock a talented man experiences when he finds, late in his academic life, that there are others enormously more talented than he. I have personally seen more tears shed by grown men and women over this discovery than I would have believed possible. — Luis W. Alvarez

It is little men know of women; their smiles and their tears alike are seldom what they seem. — Amelia Barr

U.S. troops forced every one of them they could find and catch to walk over a thousand miles to the new Indian Territories in what would one day be Oklahoma, down the Trail of Tears: a cheerful gesture of casual genocide. Thousands of men, women, and children died on the way. When you've won, you've won, — Neil Gaiman

Mitrofanii frowned - he found women's tears hard to bear, especially if they were not shed out of self-indulgence but for some substantial reason, as now. — Boris Akunin

Lick your lips, Griet."
I licked my lips.
"Leave your mouth open."
I was so surprised by this request that my mouth remained open of its own will. I blinked back tears. Virtuous women did not open their mouths in paintings. — Tracy Chevalier

Now, hearing Tansi speak, Afua resumed her crying, but it was as though no one heard. These tears were a matter of routine. They came for all of the women. They dropped until the clay below them turned to mud. At night, Esi dreamed that if they all cried in unison, the mud would turn to river and they could be washed away into the Atlantic. — Yaa Gyasi

I will never fully understand why things happen the way they do on this planet. Too many people hold their tongue here. Too many people hide their true feelings. And at the end of the day, that does nothing but hurt someone. The men and women of Tamaran were always taught to live by their emotions, to trust that first reaction, as it is the most pure. Cyborg argues that you need time to make the proper decision. I argue that time blurs the true intent. To Earth standards, I may appear brash and rushed. I never hide what I think. Perhaps that is why Tamaran was a target for so many invasions. Our captors may have enjoyed seeing what pain they inflicted upon us, for our tears were never hidden either. — Geoff Johns

Some women cry easily. The tears fall as gently as fragrant raindrops in a sun-shower, and leave the face clear and clean and almost radiant. Other women cry hard, and all the loveliness in them collapses in the agony of it. — Gregory David Roberts

But the price of freedom is blood, toil and tears. This consolation I have, however, that Africa never forgets. And these martyrs of freedom, these young and budding women, will be remembered and honoured when Africa comes into her own. — Benjamin Pogrund

Who can describe
Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles,
Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies!
Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds,
The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods. — Thomas Otway

Guys always think tears are a sign of weakness. They're a sign of FRUSTRATION. She's only crying so she won't cut your throat in your sleep. So make nice and be grateful. — Donna Barr

For me, the times that I dressed provocatively had been empowering. It felt good. It's those times that I felt comfortable in my own skin. Like really, really comfortable. And let's face it, body self-esteem issues are a hurdle many women struggle to overcome.
So when a person tears a woman down for how's she's dressed, they are tearing her down at a moment she feels at the top of her game. That's where the real shame is - not in how a woman is dressed, but in the desire to minimise her self-worth and empowerment. That's not kind, or well meaning. It's rude and cruel. — Annastacia Dickerson

I love my country, by which I mean I am indebted joyfully to all the people throughout its history, who have fought the government to make right. Where so many cunning sons and daughters, our foremothers and forefathers came singing through slaughter, came through hell and high water so that we could stand here, and behold breathlessly the sight; how a raging river of tears cut a grand canyon of light. Why can't all decent men and women call themselves feminists, out of respect for those that fought for this? — Ani DiFranco

Lancelot: Morgaine, Morgaine - kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.
Morgaine: Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman's tears? ( ... )
Lancelot: No ( ... ) it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable - women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She never cried because she was afraid that something 'would' happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, 'would not' happen. — Roman Payne

Hannah expected this to make her sob even more, but instead she found her tears drying up and her tummy growing warm. How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls? She understood now why her parents go so angry when they saw the result of bombers in the white hot streets of the Middle East, why men and women wailed in anger as well as grief as they lifted the limp bodies of children from the rubble. How dare they? No, she wasn't going to die like this, wrapped up like some helpless baby. — Stephen M. Irwin

O woman! woman! thou shouldest have few sins of thine own to answer for! Thou art the author of such a book of follies in a man that it would need the tears of all the angels to blot the record out. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Never harbor regrets. Such useless emotions detract from an avowed purpose. Spare neither tears nor sentiment, which sap strength and energy. Rather, shake the dust of encumbering people and places from your feet and march bravely into the future. We are the women of the world, and we will not be denied. — Mary Daheim

And it shall come to pass that what men made shall be shattered, and the Shadow shall lie across the Pattern of the Age, and the Dark One shall once more lay his hand upon the world of man. Women shall weep and men quail as the nations of the earth are rent like rotting cloth. Neither shall anything stand nor abide . . . Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born before and shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his coming, tearing apart all ties that bind. Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us, and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light. Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation. — Robert Jordan

I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there is a terrible emptiness. All at once I find myself in the quarter where I once resided. I recall the life I used to live: meeting friends in the evening, reciting poetry, making love, spending sleepless nights pining for beautiful women and writing verses on their long tresses which held me captive. That was life! What is there left of it? Nothing. — Khushwant Singh

American Jihad
I've heard the lullabies of celestial spheres,
the songs of clouds which falls like tears,
sang paeans of praise to anthem skies,
in soulful strains of knee-jerk lies.

I've shot children clutching Kalashnikovs,
gunned down women tossing molotovs;
'Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."'

Now the dead have camped out in my dreams,
each night I listen to their screams,
I count the lullaby stars, one-by-one,
while under my pillow I keep a gun. — Beryl Dov

The only thing she could do now was to shed a few tears, feeling rather afraid of herself, an intelligent young woman, who had everything going for her, but who tended to make the wrong decisions. She just hoped that this time she was right. — Paulo Coelho

And while we've got you on the table, we can do a little lipo on the thighs. You barely need anything. But a lot of women these days are doing that and then having some of the fat injected into their labia to plump things up down there." Yes. So Rachel can enjoy that for years to come, because what woman doesn't fret over this? After all, don't we all walk around with mirrors in our panties, making sure our labia looks plump enough? I try to fix my face, but I'm fairly sure my disgust shows. "We can even do a little vaginal tightening to enhance sexual pleasure for both you and your husband." My sister bursts into tears. Thank God. — Kristan Higgins

It was funny, what friendship meant in Rebecca's world. It mainly meant lunch, twice a year, and the occasional dinner party, except for Dorothea, who was an old school friend, a genuine friend. Rebecca had realized, ruefully, that she should have made more friends in school; they seemed to be the only ones women really talked to honestly because the shared history meant fewer lies were available to them. With the others shared meals had become a substitute for intimacy, but not the kind of substitute that allowed for dark nights of the soul, calls at 1:00 A.M., tears and drinking and despair in pajamas. — Anna Quindlen

Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark;
Our women's world is sunk so deep, who can help us?
Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas,
Cut off from my family I leave my native land.
Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison,
With heated heart arouse all women's spirits.
Alas, this delicate kerchief here
Is half stained with blood, and half with tears. — Qiu Jin

It's because she wants it told he thought so that people whom she will never see and whose names she will never hear and who have never heard her name nor seen her face will read it and know at last why God let us lose the War: that only through the blood of our men and the tears of our women could He stay this demon and efface his name and lineage from the earth. — William Faulkner

he'd grow up to be nothing like his father. Nothing like the filthy boys who wrapped women up in chains and tore their wings down to seeping stumps that leaked tears instead of blood. — Cole McCade

Aware that a man has no more chance with a woman, armed with the offensive and defensive weapons of tongue, tears, nails, and bamboo, than in a river with an alligator, I, for the first time in my life, acted prudently, and fled the fight. — Edward John Trelawny

This late age of the world's experience had bred in them all, all men and women, a well of tears. — Virginia Woolf

All the way home, his wound pulsing with every hearbeat, he had cursed himself for a fool. How could he think she loved him? He had never been loved in his life, save perhaps by Erik and the other men who had served with him across the sea, and that was the love of comrades. He had never known the love of women, just their embrace. Twice he had found tears running down his face ... — Raymond E. Feist

To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer. — Louise Erdrich

It's a peculiarity of the Norwegian culture and of the English and American, too, that men are not supposed to cry. Stiff upper lip and all that. But the Vikings cried like women in public or privately. They soaked their beards with tears and were not one bit ashamed about it. Yet, they were as quick to draw their swords as they were to shed tears. So, what's all this crap about men having to hold in their sorrow and grief and disappointment? — Philip Jose Farmer

One Kashmiri morning in the early spring of 1915, my grandfather Aadam Aziz hit his nose against a frost-hardened tussock of earth while attempting to pray. Three drops of blood plopped out of his left nostril, hardened instantly in the brittle air and lay before his eyes on the prayer-mat, transformed into rubies. Lurching back until he knelt with his head once more upright, he found that the tears which had sprung to his eyes had solidified, too; and at that moment, as he brushed diamonds contemptuously from his lashes, he resolved never again to kiss earth for any god or man. This decision, however, made a hole in him, a vacancy in a vital inner chamber, leaving him vulnerable to women and history. Unaware of this at first, despite his recently completed medical training, he stood up, rolled the prayer-mat into a thick cheroot, and holding it under his right arm surveyed the valley through clear, diamond-free eyes. — Salman Rushdie

Over the years I have photographed thousands of people. I have never stopped being curious and trying to discover new worlds. I have used my camera as a mirror for my subjects as well. I remember photographing a woman in her 80s for my book, Wise Women, who told me it had been a long time since anyone had really been interested in "seeing" or photographing her. When she saw the picture, she burst into tears. She saw something in the photograph, an inner beauty and soul, she felt had long ago vanished. — Joyce Tenneson

In the healing ways of women that remained mysterious to [him] even as he watched them do their work, tears were followed by reminiscences that brought a smile and soothed, and hope was always found to be the flower that bloomed from every seed of hopelessness. — Dean Koontz

Well, most women are full to the brim, that's all ... We are, most of us, ready to explode, especially when our children are small and we are so weary with the demands for love and attention and the kind of service that makes you feel you should be wearing a uniform with "Mommy" embroidered over the left breast, over the heart ... If a stranger had come up to me and said, "Do you want to talk about it? I have time to listen," I think I might have burst into tears at the relief of it. — Elizabeth Berg

When women and men can shed an equal quantity of tears in public, that's when we'll have equal power. — Madeleine M. Kunin

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman dispenses with the office of the mighty member, when she sheathed her natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more formidable enginery; to tears it may be, a solvent more powerful than that with which Hannibal softened the alpine rocks ... — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be. — Bram Stoker

Her eyes heated with the anger and hurt that had been held inside her
for too long. "Your trips to the village have not gone unnoticed."
A look of confusion crossed his too-handsome face. "What does my
going to the village have to do with us?"
"I know there are women
"
He swore and gripped her arm, jerked her up against his chest. "Who
put such nonsense in your head?"
She didn't say anything, her throat hot and tight from the ball of tears
constricting it.
"Finlay," he said flatly. She looked at him in surprise. " 'Tis no secret
that he despises me, but I am surprised that you listened to his venom."
"It's not too difficult to believe. You are a man."
"Aye," he said softly. "But I've not had another woman, Elizabeth."
Her heart faltered. Her eyes shot to his, not daring to believe ... He
cradled her cheek tenderly in his big hand.
"How can I when I want someone else?"
He hasn't been with a woman ... he wants me. — Monica McCarty

Drying a widow's tears is one of the most dangerous occupations known to man. — Dorothy Dix

Women were far more fragile, and if there was one thing Michael could not bear, it was a woman's tears. Seeing the telltale rim of moisture pooling at the bottom of a woman's eyes was all it took to make him helpless. When a woman's voice wobbled with impending tears, all his extravagant strength and courage collapsed like a withered leaf in a gust of autumn wind. — Elizabeth Camden

They rounded up the Indians in camps, the women and children and whatever they could carry on their backs, and marched them west of the Mississippi. The Trail of Tears and Death, — Colson Whitehead

Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.' ... Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall - all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be. — Bram Stoker

Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Words start wars and end them, create love and choke it, bring us to laughter and joy and tears. Words cause men and women to willingly risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Our world, as we know it, revolves on the power of words. — Roy Williams

She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches. — Sarah Addison Allen

Honey, it's about so much more than the romance. America wants a man they can fall in love with, a minimum of two women they can root for, at least one woman they can hate, a cat fight or two, buckets of tears, no less than three betrayals, an ambulance is always good for ratings and there still has to be that something else. — Lizzie Shane

Do you want to know what General Putnam is thinking? It's this. He's thinking that he can't win the war if he doesn't keep the people on his side. He's thinking that he can't keep the people on his side if the troops are running amok among the civilian population - raping the women, stealing cattle, burning houses. He is determined to scare the wits out of the troops to keep them in line. And he's thinking that it doesn't matter very much who he executes to do it. So many men have died, so many mothers have wept, so many brothers and sisters have cried. He is thinking that in the long run if he executes somebody, he'll shorten the war and save more lives. It doesn't matter to him very much who he executes; one man's agony is like another's, one mother's tears are no wetter than anybody else's. And that's why he's going to have Sam shot. — James Lincoln Collier

Good," I said, completely provoked. "You deserve it. Maybe that will teach you to go haring round the countryside kidnapping young women and k-killing people, and ... " I felt myself ridiculously close to tears and stopped, fighting for control.
Dougal was growing impatient with this conversation. "Well, can ye keep one foot on each side of the horse, man?"
"He can't go anywhere!" I protested indignantly. "He ought to be in hospital! Certainly he can't
"
My protests, as usual, went completely ignored.
"Can ye ride?" Dougal repeated.
"Aye, if ye'll take the lassie off my chest and fetch me a clean shirt. — Diana Gabaldon

And still, still, there is more to describe-
we paint because drawing breath is an agony
and exhaling an ecstasy
and somewhere in the space in-between
we think we once found a truth;
and the eternal part of us desires
to share this truth at all costs
only it's never quite how we pictured it,
and it's never quite received the way we want
and the paint drips with our own blood
the handles of our brushes are our own bones
our own tears become the words to our most beautiful love songs
and we know we'll never get it right before we die-

getting up every morning and facing our own limited truth
is a courage so divine
most men quell and women stay enslaved in silence. — Marie Anzalone

Because he was always tremendously generated towards complete relationship with his women to the point where they ended up in one convoluted octopus mess of souls and tears and fellatio and hotel room schemes and rubbing in and out of cars and doors and great crises in the middle of the night ... (p. 128) — Jack Kerouac

My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In life; there are two things you should never believe: the tears of women and the hearts of men, and there are two things you should always believe in life; the hearts of women, and the tears of men. — Eyden I.

I am not prone to weeping as our sex commonly are; the want of which vain dew perchance shall dry your pities;
but I have that honorable grief lodged here which burns worse than tears drown. — William Shakespeare

For women's tears are but the sweat of eyes. — Juvenal

Holiday's eyes pooled with tears. And that pretty much made it a cry fest. Even Della joined in the tear party.
Right then, Burnett walked in the office. His gaze went from one female to the other. Kylie could almost hear him groaning inwardly.
"I ... I'll be ... right out there." Obviously even a hard-bodied vampire trained by the FRU wasn't capable of dealing with four crying women. — C.C. Hunter

Millions and Millions, he whispered to himself: and the enormity of the evil seemed to grow with every repetition of the word. All over the world, millions of men and women lying in pain; millions dying, at this very moment; millions more grieving over them, their faces distorted, like that poor old hag's,the tears running down their cheeks. Ad millions starving, millions frightened, and sick and anxious. Millions being cursed and kicked and beaten by other brutal millions. And everywhere the stink of garbage and drink and unwashed bodies, everywhere the blight of stupidity and ugliness. The horror was always there, even when one happened to be feeling well and happy
always there, just around the corner and behind almost every door. — Aldous Huxley

To see cartoon-me positioned (alphabetically) amongst so many of my women heroes and role models ... well, I just broke down and cried. Happy tears. I surely hope that this one-of-a-kind collection of radical American women reaches the hands of all children who want to grow up and become amazing women. — Kate Bornstein

Neither Emma's tears nor her rage were enough to make Joseph monogamous, however; nor were the prevailing mores of the day. He kept falling rapturously in love with women not his wife. And because that rapture was so wholly consuming, and felt so good, it struck him as impossible that God might possibly frown on such a thing. — Jon Krakauer

Because sometimes women cry when there's good news. Tears of relief. You know, catharsis." His expression was utterly blank. "Haven't you ever cried when you, I don't know, you get a new batch of that fancy stationery you like with the watermarks on it?" He looked bewildered. "That's what you think I'd cry tears of relief about?" "You do like your office supplies. — Chloe Neill

American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough. — Pat Conroy

Maybe someday shedding tears in the workplace will no longer be viewed as embarrassing or weak, but as a simple display of authentic emotion. And maybe the compassion and sensitivity that have historically held some women back will make them more natural leaders in the future. In the meantime, we can all hasten this change by committing ourselves to both seek - and speak - our truth. — Sheryl Sandberg

Now it has been said from ancient times that all women who weep may be divided into three sorts. There are those who lift up their voices and their tears flow and this may be called crying; there are those who utter loud lamentations but whose tears do not flow and this may be called howling; there are those whose tears flow but who utter no sound and this may be called weeping. Of all those women who followed Wang Lung in his coffin, his wives and his sons' wives and his maid servants and his slaves and his hired mourners, there was only one who wept and it was Pear Blossom. — Pearl S. Buck

Do the strong cry every night for a month? she asked softly.
When they need to, I countered, clasping her hand. Women, Arjumand, women are taught that there's no strength in our tears. But why are one's tears powerless, if those tears lead to insight, or a sense of peace? — John Shors

Why are you afraid of death? Is it perhaps because you do not know how to live? If you knew how to live fully, would you be afraid of death? If you loved the trees, the sunset, the birds, the falling leaf; if you were aware of men and women in tears, of poor people, and really felt love in your heart, would you be afraid of death? Would you? Don't be persuaded by me. Let us think about it together. You do not live with joy, you are not happy, you are not vitally sensitive to things; and is that why you ask what is going to happen when you die? Life for you is sorrow, and so you are much more interested in death. You feel that perhaps there will be happiness after death. But that is a tremendous problem, and I do not know if you want to go into it. After all, fear is at the bottom of all this - fear of dying, fear of living, fear of suffering. If you cannot understand what it is that causes fear and be free of it, then it does not matter very much whether yo u are living or dead. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. — Patricia A. McKillip

No novel is anything, for the purposes either of comedy or tragedy, unless the reader can sympathise with the characters whose names he finds upon the pages. Let an author so tell his tale as to touch his reader's heart and draw his tears, and he has, so far, done his work well. Truth let there be, --truth of description, truth of character, human truth as to men and women. If there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can be too sensational. — Anthony Trollope

mong the hundred thousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on the smallest provocation: it is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying. — Wilkie Collins

I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears. — George R R Martin

May 1, 2011
Young jubulent Americans celebrating the killing of a murderer of women and children, and people ask;
"Is it right to celebrate?"
I watched these Americans in Times Square, D.C. and the world , a great generation, that died for freedom and that of the oppressed, and people ask; "Is it right to feel joy?"
"Yes, I sat proudly with tears in my eyes."
I was watching footage of the end of World War Two ... Johnny Flora — Johnny Flora

I regularly frequent St. George';s, Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage season; and though I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy in any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least concerned in the operations going on
old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion, and may naturally taken an interest in the ceremony
I say it is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs; and heaving, old and young, with emotion. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Justice Denied
Thousands of women, probably more
I cannot reach them behind justice doors
Many stay silent, barred just like me.
Haunted by demons, faces unseen.
Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve
Duty and country, active and reserve.
Thankless, forgotten through America's wars
Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.
Volunteered to go to the shores.
Died like the others, shamed to the core.
Where is the dignity, long since denied?
Lost in the White House of Justice Denied
Women in service since beginning of time
Often they're treated like victims in crime.
Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?
It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears! — Diane Chamberlain

The empire of woman is an empire of softness, of address, of complacency. Her commands are caresses, her menaces are tears. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You and your dyke music, Erica remarked once. I hadn't thought of them as dykes, my beloved Indigo Girls, my Michelle Shocked, Dar Williams, Shawn Colvin, Le Tigre, my Ani DiFranco. I just knew that at those shows I was whole and right. I was a person. I mattered. I was in fact not stupid or fat or ugly or lame; I was smart and valid and right and well. I had a fucking voice. The women at those shows weren't gussied up like geishas. They talked of art, life, politics. They felt entitled to feelings and opinions and rage and poetry and laughter and tears and bodies. There was dissent. Looking "cute" was low on the list. Practical shoes were high. It mattered only that one articulate oneself properly — Elisa Albert

Selfishness so often is the basis of money problems, which are a very serious and real factor affecting the stability of family life. Selfishness is at the root of adultery, the breaking of solemn and sacred covenants to satisfy selfish lust. Selfishness is the antithesis of love. It is a cankering expression of greed. It destroys self-discipline. It obliterates loyalty. It tears up sacred covenants. It afflicts both men and women. — Gordon B. Hinckley

We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret.
We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may.
Which of us were fortunate
who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love
life.
Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you. — Richard Aldington

I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history and there her destiny is evolving. — Anna Julia Cooper

The day my father came to claim me, my mother did not wish for me to go. 'She is a girl,' she said, 'and I do not think that she is yours. I had a thousand other men.' He tossed his spear at my feet and gave my mother the back of his hand across the face, so she began to weep. 'Girl or boy, we fight our battles,' he said, 'but the gods let us choose our weapons.' He pointed to the spear, then to my mother's tears, and I picked up the spear. — George R R Martin

Over your breasts of motionless current,
over your legs of firmness and water,
over the permanence and the pride
of your naked hair
I want to be, my love, now that the tears are
thrown
into the raucous baskets where they accumulate,
I want to be, my love, alone with a syllable
of mangled silver, alone with a tip
of your breast of snow. — Pablo Neruda

A strong woman is a woman at work, cleaning out the cesspool of the ages, and while she shovels, she talks about how she doesn't mind crying, it opens the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up develops the stomach muscles, and she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose. — Marge Piercy

It's a fine wake I'll be wanting, with the best if everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in their distress, and brave men lamenting and telling fine tales of me in my great days. — Neil Gaiman

Those who cannot conquer must bend the knee. They must find strength, or serve those of us who have. You are my generals. I will send you out: my hunting dogs, my wolves with iron teeth. When a city closes its gates in fear, you will destroy it. When they make roads and walls, you will cut them, pull down the stones. When a man raises a sword or bow against your men, you will hang him from a tree. Keep Karakorum in your minds as you go. This white city is the heart of the nation, but you are the right arm, the burning brand. Find me new lands, gentlemen. Cut a new path. Let their women weep a sea of tears and I will drink it all. — Conn Iggulden

When the colonizers spoke of indigenous women - ignoring their own patriarchy, which they doubtlessly considered normal, just like today - it was always with tears in their eyes. They only referred to the differences between these two patriarchical regimes - the French one and the Algerian one - at the cost of any mention of their far more considerable commonalities. — Christine Delphy

Unlike men, women got less sintimental as we aged, I was discovering. We cried enough, when we were young; vessels overflowing with the tears of everyone we loved. — Melanie Benjamin

And now she's right where she wants to be,Lucy thought with a stab of fury. How easily men were taken in by women! A few tears, some sweet Southern helplessness. Oh,it must have been ridiculously easy for Raine.And here she, Lucy, was, harboring the woman under her own roof! It had the makings of a fine farce. — Lisa Kleypas

The tears in my eyes are now running down my cheeks at the thought that I have been his wife and his bedfellow, his companion and his duchess, and even now, though he is near to death, still he does not love me. He has never loved me. He never will love me. — Philippa Gregory