Woman Not A Girl Quotes & Sayings

When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, and so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope. — Mohsin Hamid

It's important for all types of women to know that you don't have to fit a prototype of what one person thinks is beautiful in order to be beautiful or feel beautiful ... People think, Sexy, big breasts, curvy body, no cellulite. It's not that. Take the girl at the beach with the cellulite legs, wearing her bathing suit the way she likes it, walking with a certain air, comfortable with herself. That woman is sexy. Then you see the perfect girl who's really thin, tugging at her bathing suit, wondering how her hair looks. That's not sexy. — Jennifer Lopez

A lot of men wonder what a woman wants. The answer is power. There are many ways to get it, but the easiest way is to tear other girls down. Any girl can play that game, but there's no way to win, except not to play at all. — Mara Wilson

Like all of my important memories, it has a potency that has influenced the pocket of time that holds it, so I can remember that particular Saturday afternoon, even though in many ways it was no different from any other. I can remember, for example, what van der Glick was wearing as she stepped out of the elevator, which was a dress covered with clownish polka dots. Rainie would make these heartbreaking stabs at femininity; indeed, she still does. It's not that she doesn't possess a woman's body now, and didn't posses a girl's body then. But clothes never seemed to fit her correctly, and the more girlish they were, the worse they would hang. — Paul Quarrington

If she has been called a woman of the town, a tart, a bawd, a wanton, a bawdy-basket, a bird-of-the-game, a bit of stuff, a buttered bun, a cockatrice, a cock-chafer, a cow, a crack, a cunt, a daughter of Eve, a gay-girl, a gobble-prick, a high-flyer, a high-roller, a hussy, a hurry-whore, a jill, a jude, a judy, a jug, laced mutton, lift-skirts, light o' love, merry legs, minx, moll, moonlighter, morsel, mutton-broker, mount, nestcock, night-bird, night-piece, night-walker, nymph of darkness, nymph of the pavement, petticoat, pick-up, piece, pillow-mate, pinch-prick, pole-climber, prancer, quail, quiet mouse, or even Queen - it is not surprising. A woman of lively parts is as likely to be slandered as she is to be praised. — Erica Jong

You are a free man now, and Ygritte is a free woman. What dishonor if you lay together?"
"I might get her with child."
"Aye, I'd hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where's the harm in that?"
Words failed him for a moment. "The boy ... the child would be a bastard."
"Are bastards weaker than other children? More sickly, more like to fail?"
"No, but-"
"You are bastard born yourself. And if Ygritte does not want a chile, she will go to some woods witch and drink a cup o' moon tea. You do not come in to it, once the seed is planted."
I will not father a bastard. — George R R Martin

I am a jack-of-all-trades. I edit and teach and at times desire to be a clothing designer or an artist (one who doesn't draw or paint or sew) and I write everything but poetry and I am a mother and a social maniac and a misanthrope and a burgeoning self-help guru and a girl who wants to look pretty and a girl who wants to look sexy and a girl who wants to look girly and a woman in her middle forties who wishes not to look like anything at all, who wishes sometimes to vanish. — Heidi Julavits

Jack: Rose, you're no picnic, all right? You're a spoiled little brat, even, but under that, you're the most amazingly, astounding, wonderful girl, woman that I've ever known ...
Rose: Jack, I ...
Jack: No, let me try and get this out. You're ama- I'm not an idiot, I know how the world works. I've got ten bucks in my pocket, I have no-nothing to offer you and I know that. I understand. But I'm too involved now. You jump, I jump remember? I can't turn away without knowing you'll be all right ... That's all that I want.
Rose: Well, I'm fine ... I'll be fine ... really.
Jack: Really? I don't think so. They've got you trapped, Rose. And you're gonna die if you don't break free. Maybe not right away because you're strong but ... sooner or later that fire that I love about you, Rose ... that fire's gonna burn out ...
Rose: It's not up to you to save me, Jack.
Jack: You're right ... only you can do that. — James Cameron

A man does not marry a girl, nor a woman. He marries a promise, and it shines with a bright purity that is ageless. It shines, in other words, with the glory of lies. The deception is self inflicted. The promise was simple in its form, as befitted the thick-headedness of young men, and in its essence it offered the delusion that the present moment was eternal; that nothing would change; not the fires of desire, not the flesh itself, not the intense look in the eye. — Steven Erikson

Throughout adolescence, Muslim men receive strong messages about male dominance in Marriage. The Koran is highly male-focused, with women being of little importance. Mohammed married as many women as he wanted, even a nine-year-old girl. Polygamy was acceptable and women were given in marriage with little consideration. Rules and punishments for women are far harsher than for men. [ ... ] Women are told that their purpose is to please the man and have children. Men are taught that sex with an in infidel woman, especially in another country, is not a sin against Allah. For a Muslim woman, sex with any man except her husband is a crime. — Darrel Ray

The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes, grew angry, and said to the Witch, "Give me back my shoe!" "I will not," retorted the Witch, "for it is now my shoe, and not yours." "You are a wicked creature!" cried Dorothy. "You have no right to take my shoe from me." "I shall keep it, just the same," said the Witch, laughing at her, "and someday I shall get the other one from you, too." This made Dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of water that stood near and dashed it over the Witch, wetting her from head to foot. Instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear, and then, as Dorothy looked at her in wonder, the Witch began to shrink and fall away. "See what you have done!" she screamed. "In a minute I shall melt away. — L. Frank Baum

Scientists have been trying to find an answer to the ancient question: What is it that makes a woman decide whether or not she's gonna roll in the hay with a guy she's met. And I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you all on this one, since although being a woman, it's been a mystery to me as well.
Yet one thing I know: the decision is made within the very first minute a girl meets a boy. No exemptions. — Gina Wings

For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded. — Kate Chopin

I wanted more than anything to be something I will never be - feminine, and feminine in the worst way. Submissive. Dependent. Soft spoken. Coquettish. I was no good at all at any of it, no good at being a girl; on the other hand, I am not half bad at being a woman. — Nora Ephron

You want that girl you left behind. I'm not her! Don't you get it? She's gone. I've lost her. I made choices that made me an awful person. I'm not worth all this time and energy you're wasting."
Fuck. I took a step toward her, and she took a step back. "You're wrong there. I don't want the sixteen-year-old girl I left behind. I want the woman she's become. The kind, compassionate, faithful, strong woman I watch from afar every day of my life. I want her. Nothing ever changed for me. Not with you. — Abbi Glines

I love Sweden. In Sweden, the women are just so hot. Their vibe is so amazing. You feel like every girl out there was genetically altered to just be hot. I did not see one ugly woman out there, it was just a line of continuously hot girls. — Kid Cudi

I did not need him to survive. He inspired me to find that strength in myself. — Chrissy Moon

I had to revise all my feelings once again. I pulled out the dregs of affection from the glass of misunderstanding to rebuild my faith. I had to reinvent the cause for love, as it were. It was something I had to draw inside me, a real portrait of her, not just the inspiration but the girl as a whole, with all her shortcomings to be able to love her again. — Anuradha Bhattacharyya

A woman does not marry with a man for his wealth, unless he is too rich and a man does not marry with a girl for her beauty, unless she is too beautiful. — M.F. Moonzajer

There's in my mind a ...
turbulent moon-ridden girl
or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers
and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs
but she is not kind. — Denise Levertov

To bring home the point, she compared New Years resolutions of girls at the end of the nineteenth centyry with those at the end of the twentieth. Heres what a young woman of yore wrote:
Resolved: to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.
And the contemporary girl:
I will try to make myself better in any way i possibly can.... I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories. — Peggy Orenstein

For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men - friends, coworkers, strangers - giddy over these awful pretender women, and I'd want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who'd like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I'd want to grab the poor guy by the lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn't really love chili dogs that much - no one loves chili dogs that much! — Gillian Flynn

Chinese whisper games will start, where one woman will nod at a young dancing girl, asking a question that is passed down the row from one woman to another, before a response comes back up the line in the same manner. These women are in the business of finding wives for their sons and they offer up occasional commentary on the performance before them.
"Not so pretty. Her sister is better."
"That poor one will have a hard time, yes. The dark skin - she is already an old woman. She will have to wait, yes."
Information about the girl's family's honor, purity, and place in society is also exchanged — Jenny Nordberg

I clinked my bottle against his. "To being the only girl a
guy with no standards doesn't want to sleep with." I said,
taking a swig.
"Are you serious?" he asked, pulling the bottle from my
mouth. When I didn't recant, he leaned toward me. "First of
all ... I have standards. I've never been with an ugly woman.
Ever. Second of all, I wanted to sleep with you. I thought
about throwing you over my couch fifty different ways, but I
haven't because I don't see you that way anymore. It's not
that I'm not attracted to you, I just think you're better than
that."
I couldn't hold back the smug smile that crept across my
face. "You think I'm too good for you."
He sneered at my second insult. "I can't think of a single
guy I know that's good enough for you. — Jamie McGuire

The Talmud, the compilation of discussions of Jewish Law which I have quoted earlier in this book, gives examples of bad prayers, improper prayers, which one should not utter. If a woman is pregnant, neither she nor her husband should pray, "May God grant that this child be a boy" (nor, for that matter, may they pray that it be a girl). The sex of the child is determined at conception, and God cannot be invoked to change it. Again, if a man sees a fire engine racing toward his neighborhood, he should not pray, "Please God, don't let the fire be in my house." Not only is it mean-spirited to pray that someone else's house burn instead of yours, but it is futile. A certain house is already on fire; the most sincere or articulate of prayers will not affect the question of which house it is. — Harold S. Kushner

I think behind every great man there's got to be a great woman, whether she's your wife, your girlfriend or not. I'm not gonna say that there's not that special girl out there. But I'm in the music biz, and I'm focused on the music. — Prince Royce

I would not care whether people thought I was special, if my life was truly special. It would not mater to me that people could see me as pious, if I could truly live as a woman scholar of piety. I want to be what I seem to be. I act as if I am specially holy, a special girl; but this is what I really want to be. I really do. — Philippa Gregory

What's the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don't hold back, now.
You're probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank.
Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I've even heard the term "mangina."
Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that's not royally fucked up. — Jessica Valenti

Gisele Bundchen I always admired. I think she is an example for all models. If I could have just a little bit of her career would already be a happy girl. She seems to be a determined woman, a fighter, very strong. I think she is an icon of Brazilian people. Gisele is a woman who is extremely inspiring, not only in the fashion world, she also does great things for the world. — Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Proctor: I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl's a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she's fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone- I have no proof for it.
Elizabeth: You were alone with her?
Proctor: (stubbornly) For a moment alone, aye.
Elizabeth: Why, then, it is not as you told me.
Proctor: (his anger rising) For a moment, I say. The others come in soon after.
Elizabeth: (as if she has lost all faith in him) Do as you wish then. (she turns)
Proctor: Woman. (she turns to him) I'll not have your suspicion any more.
Elizabeth: (a little loftily) I have no-
Proctor: I'll not have it!
Elizabeth: Then let you not earn it.
Proctor: Now look you-
Elizabeth: I see what I see, John. — Arthur Miller

Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade - that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one's first primer ... She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true ... She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture ... All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. — Willa Cather

How far could you trace back such a chain, he wondered, past the Harmon girl being chosen that night to bring his food, past the tree shattering a man's backbone due to a badly notched trunk, past that to an axe unsharpened because a man drank too much the night before, past that to why the man had gotten drunk in the first place? Was it something you never found the end to? Or was there no chain at all, just a moment when you did or didn't step close to a young woman and let you fingers brush a fall of blonde hair behind her ears, did or did not lean to that uncovered ear and tell her that you found her quite fetching." ~G. Pemberton (58) — Ron Rash

Did you see it?" asked Yarvi.
"I had that questionable privilege."
"What do you think?"
"She is wretched. She is all pride and anger. She has too much confidence and too little. She does not know herself." The figure pushed back her hood. A black-skinned old woman with a face lean as famine and hair shaved to gray fuzz. She picked her nose with one long forefinger, carefully examined the results, then flicked them away "The girl is stupid as a stump. Worse. Most stumps have the dignity to rot quietly without causing offense."
"I'm right here," Thorn managed to hiss from her hands and knees.
"Just where the drunk boy put you." The woman flashed a smile at Brand that seemed to have too many teeth. "I like him, though: he is pretty and desperate. My favorite combination. — Joe Abercrombie

yet she could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman, not a girl, of a woman confessing, as to her they often did, some scrape, some folly. And whether it was pity, or their beauty, or that she was older, or some accident-like a faint scent, or a violin next door (so strange is the power of sounds at certain moments), she did undoubtedly then feel what men felt. — Virginia Woolf

If a boy is not trained to endure and to bear trouble, he will grow up a girl; and a boy that is a girl has all a girl's weakness without any of her regal qualities. A woman made out of a woman is God's noblest work; a woman made out of a man is His meanest. — Henry Ward Beecher

Kathleen doesn't look like you," Henry said suddenly, staring at me.
"Uh, no. She doesn't. Not really," I stammered, not knowing what else to say. Without another word, Henry turned and left the kitchen. I heard him run up the stairs and looked at Georgia who met my gaze with bafflement.
"Did you hear that, woman?" I asked Georgia. "Henry doesn't think Kathleen looks like me. You got something to tell me?"
Kathleen shrieked again. Georgia wasn't moving fast enough with the jar of bananas she'd produced.
Georgia smirked and stuck out her tongue at me, and Kathleen bellowed. Georgia hastily dipped the tiny spoon into the yellow goo and proceeded to feed our little beast, who wailed as she inhaled.
"She may not look like you, Moses. But she definitely has your sunny disposition," Georgia sassed, but she leaned into me when I dropped a kiss on her lips. It didn't hurt my feelings at all that my dimpled baby girl looked more like her mother. — Amy Harmon

The two guys with the Weimaraners did note that Amanda looked a little like the girl in the Twilight movies, if not in the hair and the cheekbones, then in the nose and the forhead and the close-set-eyes, but then they got into an argument over whether said actress was a Kristen or a Kirsten, and I wandered over to the middle-aged woman before it devolved into a Team Edward vs Team Jacob imbroglio — Dennis Lehane

I'm not a sexist. I believe if a man can to go work all his life, a woman can. Who am I to say, 'Don't do that because you're a girl?' — Tyson Fury

I knew I was going to fall out of the tree. Girls as athletically challenged as I was should never climb trees. At the very least, I was going to snag my underwear on a branch and be stuck wearing only a tank top high up in the tree. I shuddered in horror. I was NOT that kind of girl. I had a decent rear-end, but I don't think anyone's butt looks good climbing trees. At the very worst, I would impale myself on a sharp branch like a pig on a spit. Knowing me, both would happen, and I would soon be pantiless and impaled. I could just see the story in the local newspaper: "Local Woman Found Dead and Half Naked in Tree. — Amy Harmon

You do realize that you are addressing the emperor of the Crescent Empire."
"And you are addressing a free woman of the desert. You are not my emperor. Therefore, I am your equal. — Sarah Beth Durst

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda? — Ogden Nash

Recovery is a resumption of the work that was not completed when the woman was a girl. It is a coming into her own. It is an opportunity to resume the normal process of development that was sidetracked, perhaps first by constrained roles, perhaps by trauma, and then multiplied many times by hiding in the addiction. Her development was sidetracked by not accepting her needs as legitimate and not finding healthy ways to meet them, by not even knowing her needs. And so this is what recovery is: a developmental process of finding and building a new self. Recovery is a process of radical growth and change. When you are in recovery, you give birth to a new self. [...] Many women initially think that recovery means a move from bad to good. They think that being addicted is evidence of shameful neediness, of deep and lasting failures. Recovery is not a move from bad to good, but from false to real. [...] It is reality, being real, that now guides her rather than her efforts to be good or bad. — Stephanie Brown

This is what I will forever hold against men in general: that they have carefully selected out and inoculated intelligent women with a sense of specialness: you're not like other girls. Damn, for a woman, you sure are bright as hell! — Dorothy Uhnak

She didn't look like a Willow Queen. Of course, I'm not sure what exactly I expected - maybe something akin to Glinda the Good Witch. But this woman looked like Surfer Girl Barbie. — Richelle Mead

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

For men like him, to fuck or rape a whore is not an achievement. Putting his filth into a hole that has already served hundreds before him does not engender the slightest masculine pride. Isn't that right, my sang-e saboor? You should know. Men like him are afraid of whores. And do you know why? I'll tell you, my sang-e saboor: when you fuck a whore, you don't dominate her body. It's a matter of exchange. You give her money, and she gives you pleasure. And I can tell you that often she's the dominant one. It's she who is fucking you." The woman calms down. Her voice serene, she continues, "So, raping a whore is not rape. But raping a young girl's virginity, a woman's honor! Now that's your creed! — Atiq Rahimi

Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr. Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a house, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. — Charles Dickens

All men have magic wands. A woman gets a babe after a man raises his wand and pokes her with it. If she feeds him first, she gets a boy, and, if she licks his wand first, she gets a girl." Barwolf waved a hand in front of her, fanning her neck. "You do want babies, do you not? — Mary McCall

One day, the soldiers chased out everybody in the street where we were "Yudengasse" (Jew Street). My parents and myself took our sacks to go to the rail road station. While we were going with the rest of that day's contingent, half way to the station, a woman walked by and said: "They called your name at the certificate station." On the spur of the moment, I said to my parents: "You continue going. I am going back, get the certificate and will take you out." Nobody would have let all three of us go back without a permit. Of course, it was easier said than done. The military watched all along the roads and they said that Jews can go only one way - toward the rail road station, not back. I was a young girl, 21 years old and desperate to go look for that elusive piece of paper. — Pearl Fichman

C... wasn't actually sure how things went forward from here. Normally, if he had a fight with a girl, then the relationship was over and he moved on to the next girl. Of course, that usually happened after a week or two, not after months with a woman he'd known for years, and was pretty sure he'd be content to spend the next couple of decades getting to know better. — Amy Jo Cousins

Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living. — Germaine Greer

I laughed because he told me funny stories and it was so easy and light. I realized how long it has been since I've enjoyed that most simple of pleasures: company and conversation on a sunny afternoon. I am impatient for such pleasures, Katy. I am no longer a girl - I am a woman, and I want things, things that I will not have; but it is human, is it not, to long for that from which we are barred? What — Kate Morton

What she did not yet realize was that those boundaries were much looser for a child in the progressive circles of Salem and Boston, where a young girl who "poured out her whole heart" would be kindly received by adults eager to see proof of the innocent wisdom of childhood. As she grew older, Elizabeth would have to reckon with the fact that others began to find that same forthright manner disturbing in a young woman. — Megan Marshall

I hope through The L Word to become an honorary member of the gay tribe. I cherish the thought that some young girl or woman somewhere may one night turn on the television and for the first time ever see her life represented
not as an isolated incident but as a multiplicity. Her overwhelming fear may have been that she might never find her tribe, she might never find love and now she knows that they are both out there waiting for her. — Jennifer Beals

There are so many things to grieve ... All the dogs & cats & birds & snakes we have loved & lost, & old lovers, but what else? ... it took me forever to see that one of them was my own daughter, my baby, a young woman I thought of only as a girl, a child, & there she was, suddenly a woman, & I felt this ache gnaw at me as if I hadn't eaten in a year ... I stood there watching my daughter gesture & move & laugh with the grace of a grown-up, & I just started crying like a baby. It wasn't unlike the same type of sorrow we all feel when we realize something we once had that was very precious is not longer there. That it is forever lost, changed, deceased. Like a baby, gone, except in your memory ... My own daughter is now a woman. I get it. Another passage, another form of loss, another reason to grieve, another part of this life process. — Kris Radish

Rather than seek to be squired and dated by their rivals why should it not be possible for women to find relaxation and pleasure in the company of their 'inferiors'? They would need to shed their desperate need to admire a man, and accept the gentler role of loving him. A learned woman cannot castrate a truck-driver like she can her intellectual rival, because he has no exaggerated respect for her bookish capacities. The alternative to conventional education is not stupidity, and many a clever girl needs the corrective of a humbler soul's genuine wisdom. — Germaine Greer

Not everything in life has to be about finding "The One." Sometimes a girl just wants to have fun. — Mandy Hale

Again the water rose, they both took a breath; again they were submerged and his leg hooked over something, an old pipe, unmoving. The next time, they both reached their heads high as the water rushed back, another breath taken. He heard Mrs. Kitteridge yelling from above. He couldn't hear the words, but he understood that help was coming. He had only to keep Patty from falling away, and as they went again beneath the swirling, sucking water, he strengthened his grip on her arm to let her known: He would not let her go. Even though, staring into her open eyes in the swirling salt-filled water, with sun flashing through each wave, he thought he would like this moment to be forever: the dark-haired woman on shore calling for their safety, the girl who had once jumped rope like a queen, now holding him with a fierceness that matched the power of the ocean - oh, insane, ludicrous, unknowable world! Look how she wanted to live, look she wanted to hold on. — Elizabeth Strout

It's such a funny thing when you see your daughter transitioning from your baby, your little girl, to suddenly being a young woman. If you're not really looking for it, you can miss it, and Lily-Rose is on that road already, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. — Johnny Depp

I think it's great for my boys to have a girl in the house, just to understand at least a little bit about what makes a woman tick - not that I can certainly figure that out, because I can't. — Gisele Bundchen

Pam (from The Office) is not intimidating, like one of those women who wears makeup and tailored clothes, and has a good job that she enjoys, and confidence, and an adult woman's sexuality. There's nothing scary about Pam, because there's no mystery; she's just like the boys who like her; mousy and shy. The ultimate emo-boy fantasy is to meet a nerdy, cute girl just like him, and nobody else will realize she's pretty. And she'll melt when she sees his record collection because it's just like hers ... and she'll never want to go out to a party for which he'll be forced to comb his hair, or buy grown-up shoes or tie a tie, or demonstrate a hearty handshake, or make eye contact, or relate to people who work in different fields, or to basically act like a man. — Julie Klausner

For me, 'I Am Woman' is all about transition. I turned 21 in December, so I'm not completely grown up yet but I'm not a little girl anymore. Just in that in-between stage. The song is everything I have ever heard a woman say. I loved this song for me and every young lady, girl and woman to be able to feel empowered in being female. — Jordin Sparks

I think that the path that I took was normal in the American society where young women and men are not trained as to how to make the transition from being a girl to being a woman, from being a boy to being a man. And so I think that most young people in America live by trial and error, and not by parental instruction, community guidance. — Sister Souljah

Here Spring just grows and greens and warms, spreading life, wrapping us in her arms, until suddenly we realize that she's not a girl anymore. She's a woman. A woman named Summer. — N.D. Wilson

A woman's destiny, they say, is not fulfilled until she holds in her arms her own little book. — Caroline Mytinger

We've come to kill Zarek of Moesia, and if you get in our way, little girl, we're going to kill you. (Otto) I'll be damned. He speaks. Or rather growls. (Jess) But not for long if he doesn't watch his mouth. For the record, Squire, it would take more man than you to even scratch me. (Syra) I live for a woman who scratches. Just make sure you keep it on the back, baby. I don't like scars. (Otto) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

On our flight back from Arizona where we adopted our daughter three years after our ungreen one-headed son a stewardess ... paused to to adore the little girl my wife was holding. The woman was very attractive and seemed happy and easy with herself - confident enough to say to my wife 'Well congratulations and my don't you look terrific too.' My wife said 'Well we've just adopted her.' And the stewardess said 'How wonderful Congratulations again I was adopted too.' Happily the enthusiastic remark was not lost on our three-year-old boy nor was it lost on him that in Pheonix we had stayed in a close to luxurious resort hotel. He didn't know or care about the dreary heavy rain that fell in Atlanta when he came into our lives - all he knew about adoption at this point really was that it involved a warm whirpool tub cornucopian buffet breakfasts and a fascinating differently private-partsed baby. — Daniel Menaker

By the by ... " He glances at Jeb's back and leans closer, murmuring low. "Tumtum juice alters a person's inhibitions, magnifies their hunger. But it's not hunger for food. It's experiences they crave. Had it been me instead of your toy soldier, I would've found a means to slake your ravenous hunger without resorting to berries." His arrogance simmers my blood. "You don't have the equipment to satisfy anything. Moth. Remember?" He laughs, dark and soft, under his breath. "I am a man in every way that counts. Just like you are a woman, even if some people believe you're nothing more than a scared little girl in constant need of saving. — A.G. Howard

Nay, he needs a woman, not a girl. And Laoghaire will be a girl when she's fifty. — Diana Gabaldon

If you can get to a girl and make a difference in her life, you're actually going to have a greater impact on a woman's life. If you don't get to her as a girl, you may not be able ever to help her as a woman. — Kathy Calvin

But because she was not a girl now, she was not awed, but only wondered at how men ordered their world into this dance of masks, and how easily a woman might learn to dance it. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The day after we returned from Iorn Fist I woke up and I want either one of them anymore. Somewhere in between a girl I thought was long dead and a woman that was too blood thirsty for me to particularly like. But I thought about all that had happened the day before and decided that I liked being alive. So I wanted to than you for not letting me die. — Michael A. Stackpole

Oh, Pandora. Where's your willpower? You were told not to open that box, you snoopy girl, you typical woman with your insatiable curiosity; now look what you've gone and done. When for one thing it was a jar, not a box, and for another - how many times does she have to say it? - nobody said a word about not opening it! — Liane Moriarty

When I was first at court and he was the young husband of a beautiful wife, he was a golden king. They called him the handsomest prince in Christendom, and that was not flattery. Mary Boleyn was in love with him, Anne was in love with him, I was in love with him. There was not one girl at court, nor one girl in the country, who could resist him. Then he turned against his wife, Queen Katherine, a good woman, and Anne taught him how to be cruel. — Philippa Gregory

It is not cheerful for a girl to discover within twenty-four hours of her wedding that her husband is a hopeless drunkard, and to see him die of delirium tremens within six weeks. An experience so vivid, like lightning must blast something in a woman's conception of life. Because one man's kisses reeked of whisky the kisses of all male humanity were anathema. — William John Locke

His blood rushed through his veins like lava as his cock turned rock hard. "Get a hold of yourself. You're not some horny teen chasing after the first girl who smiled at you."
True, but there was something about this woman. Something that put a slow burn in his blood.
Yeah, she wants to beat your ass, you masochistic bastard.
-Syn — Sherrilyn Kenyon

His touch was simple, but specific, meant to show me he could be like a lover, gentle, intimate, but also that he was a man unaccustomed to hearing the word no. Yes. I understood. He was a man, and I? I was nothing but a girl, not even a woman. I was meant to fall at his feet and worship at the altar of his masculinity, grateful that he'd deigned to acknowledge me. All this, from a simple touch. — C.J. Roberts

I know you're not ready to believe it," he added. "Just like I wasn't. Until I met you I thought I could never love again. But here I am, yelling it down an alley because I am not letting you go without a fight. You said you're not the same, so prove it. Prove you're not the scared little girl anymore and turn and face me like the woman I know you are. Because that woman has changed me too, Sophie. That woman has made me fall in love again. So don't you dare walk away from me. — Lindsay J. Pryor

In England, I was quite struck to see how forward the girls are made
a child of 10 years old, will chat and keep you company, while her parents are busy or out etc.
with the ease of a woman of 26. But then, how does this education go on?
Not at all: it absolutely stops short. — Fanny Burney

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. — Alexandra Petri

There's a girl calm people don't know about. It's a girl teen standstill. A motionless peace. It doesn't come from anywhere but inside us, and it only lasts for a few years. It's born from being a not woman yet. It's free flowing and invisible. It's the eye of the violent storm you call my teenage daughter. In this place we are undisturbed by all the moronic things you think about us. Our voices like rain falling. We are serene. Smooth. With more perfect hair and skin than you will ever again know. Daughters of Eve. — Lidia Yuknavitch

She smoothes the front of the dress, looking down at her hands, at her bitten fingernails, at her big feet in the pointy-toes shoes. This is a woman's dress, she thinks, a young woman's dress. It is not a girl's dress. It is solidly on the other side of the line outside of girlhood. It is a dress that says something big in a very quiet way; it is a dress that is talking to Alice right now, a dress that is making her feel possibilities never before considered, the possibility of perfume and pretty and dancing and boys. This dress is who she might be, only more so. — Laura Harrington

I'm not a girl that will lay in diamonds but I will run through the flowers of the seeds we plant together. — Nikki Rowe

Why do you continue your... charade? Your current position would seem to be a good one for revealing the truth'.
'A few people know, sir. Bobby, Jane, some of the Leatherbacks. For the rest... it just seems easier to keep things as they are.' Winter thought of Novus and his tirade. 'It would be one thing if I had just joined up, but it's been so long. People might be upset that they'd been fooled. And...'
Janus raised an eyebrow. Winter hesitated.
'It's all right for the Girl's Own,' she said. 'They joined up because Vordan needs them, and when the war's over they'll go home. I... I haven't anywhere to go.' She tugged the collar of her uniform. 'This is who I am now, for better or worse. This is my home. After the war, maybe it will be all right for a woman to keep this on, but... maybe not.'
Winter found her throat getting thick. She'd never put it that way before, never even thought it so bluntly. This is my home. — Django Wexler

Carmel's a very pretty girl," she says hopefully. "Thomas seems to think so." She sighs, then smiles. "Good. He could use a woman's touch."
"Mom," I groan. "Gross." "Not that kind of touch," she laughs. — Kendare Blake

I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers. — Patrick Ness

There are some men who will always prefer to deal with another man, any man, rather than a woman ... I can see him struggling to place me: I'm not married to him, clearly I'm not his mother, I didn't go to school with his sister and I'm sure as hell not going to go to bed with him. So what, he must be asking himself as he chews on his pigeon, is this girl doing here? What is she for? — Allison Pearson

A raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can't protect their women; that they have little social standing; and that they're not respectable. It's worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl - or a boy - is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property. No one is raped only once. — Louise Brown

Emily supposed the modern world was fortunate in the progress of science. But she could not help but feel at this moment the impropriety of male invasiveness. She knew he was working to save this poor woman, but in her mind, too, was a sense of Wrede's science as adding to the abuse committed by his fellow soldiers. He said not a word. It was as if the girl were no more than the surgical challenge she offered. — E.L. Doctorow

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. — Sylvia Plath

I used to not like being called a 'woman architect': I'm an architect, not just a woman architect. Guys used to tap me on the head and say, 'You are okay for a girl.' But I see the incredible amount of need from other women for reassurance that it could be done, so I don't mind that at all. — Zaha Hadid

But a girl's love is not a woman's love; above all, it is not a modern woman's love. I, at thirty, cannot accept your views, adopt your methods, and believe your heresies, as you might be able to teach me to do if I were eighteen, - and if I loved you. I have found out my own life-truths, and they do not accord with yours. — Florence Converse

He prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world. — Mohsin Hamid

Maybe it's not a lesson so much as it's a magic trick. You can make a little girl into anything if you say the right words. Take her apart until all that's left is her red, red heart thumping against the world. Stitch her up again real good. Now, maybe you get a woman. If you're lucky. If that's what you were after. Just as easy to end up with a blackbird or a circus bear or a coyote. Or a parrot, just saying what's said to you, doing what's done to you, copying until it comes so natural that even when you're all alone you keep on cawing hello pretty bird at the dark. — Catherynne M Valente

Emma shook her head. "There are some things that a woman always keeps to herself." She smiled at Melbourne. "I never told Portman, for example, that I only accepted him because the man I really loved could never be my husband."
"Emma!" He felt tears coming to his eyes, unbidden and unwelcome. "I had no idea."
"It was a long time ago, William, and I am not that girl any longer. But I remember how she felt." She smiled at him. "And that is how I know that, for Victoria, they will always be your flowers. — Daisy Goodwin

I like being a woman, not a girl. — Sharon Stone

A gray V-neck T-shirt hugged his wide shoulders and broad chest, then hung loose over his tight abdomen. a pair of worn Levi's lovingly cupped his generous package, embraced long legs, and broke across the tops of well-worn cowboy boots. Jackson had the type of physique that made a woman's girl parts tingle. She'd have to be dead not to include herself in that party. Especially since her girl parts had been told "No" way too many time sin recent years. — Candis Terry

I'm not a 'sexy' 'beautiful' woman. It takes a lot of work to make me look like a girl. — Megan Fox

Are you all right?" he asked Olivia. His heart was still racing with terror that she'd been hurt. "I heard a woman scream."
"Ah, that would have been me," Sebastian said.
Harry looked down on his cousin, face frozen in disbelief. "You made that noise?"
"It hurt," Sebastian bit off.
Harry fought not to laugh. "You scream like a leettle girl. — Julia Quinn

I am not the same kind of Mormon girl I was when I was seven, eight, or eighteen years old. I am not an orthodox Mormon woman like my mother. I am an unorthodox Mormon woman with a fierce and hungry faith. — Joanna Brooks