Women Who Do It All Quotes & Sayings

I know a lot of women who embody what it means to be a feminist but do not want to use that word. The misperceptions about what it's all about have gotten into their heads. — J. Courtney Sullivan

Hair is an issue for most women, and after washing, blow-drying, flat-ironing, curling, braiding, twisting and spending the time and money on it, who wants to mess it up by sweating and having to do it all over again? — Nicole Ari Parker

Well, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it. (Softly) Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it. — Lillian Hellman

But even now, especially now, it seems to me that women have a strength about them that men never had. And I wonder how did men always get portrayed in the movies and such as the strong ones? How did it come to be that women are made to look like the weak ones who need protectin'? Truth is, it's men who need the protectin'. Really they do. Women have the strong thing inside of them and the can get through anything. They just can. They're used to pain of child birthing - pain no man knows - and some women being battered around and not treated right through all the centuries and having to learn at a real young age how to stay alive on the inside when the outside is being hurt real bad. Most all women know that. But men. Those poor men. They just don't have the inside strength the women do. It's harder for men to feel pain. — Sarah Felix Burns

I shall not vote for Sen. Obama and it will not be because he - like me and like all of us - carries African genes. And I shall not be voting for Mrs. Clinton, who has the gall to inform me after a career of overweening entitlement that there is 'a double standard' at work for women in politics; and I assure you now that this decision of mine has only to do with the content of her character. We will know that we have put this behind us when [ ... ] we have outgrown and forgotten the original prejudice. — Christopher Hitchens

Never say never - and I certainly don't judge anyone who does it. But most of the characters I play are going through some kind of emotional turmoil, so my job requires me to have expression. If my face was froze, what right do I have to play that part? All the women who haven't done anything to their faces are still able to play great roles. And some of the ones who have done something have messed it up- they look freakish. Anyway, for me it's about playing women with rich lives - and the longer the life, the deeper the wrinkles. — Naomi Watts

Things became more civilized all of a sudden. Coffee does that. Or maybe it is women who do that. — Elizabeth Wein

His gaze strayed to her mouth as her tongue darted out to swipe cream off her bottom lip. He had to actually bite back a groan at the sight. He'd been with women who knew how to seduce, how to do everything right - because it was all choreographed and fake. With Dominique, he knew there was not artifice.
Even if she was driving him crazy. — Katie Reus

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don't just say I'm grown and ought to know. I don't. I'm fifty and I don't know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want ... well, I didn't always ... now I want. I want some fat in this life."
"Wake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it."
"You don't know either, do you?"
"I know enough to know how to behave."
"Is that it? Is that all it is?"
"Is that all what is?"
"Oh shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?"
"Oh, Mama." Alice Manfred blurted it out and then covered her mouth.
Violet had the same thought: Mama. Mama? Is this where you got to and couldn't do it no more? The place of shade without trees where you know you are not and never again will be loved by anybody who can choose to do it? Where everything is over but the talking?
- Violet Trace and Alice Manfred — Toni Morrison

When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?' Obviously there are differences between men and women - that's what makes it all fun. But we're all people. There's a lot of good writers who are very humanist, but still manage to kind of skip fifty-five per cent of the race. And I just don't get that. Not to be able to write an entire gender? To me, the question isn't how do you do it? It's how can you possibly avoid doing it? — Joss Whedon

Let me explain: There are all sorts of reasons why women pick one colorist over another. Some will go to you if you have the same kind of dog or because they like the way you look. Some will only go to a man, because they want to feel a man's hands on them. Then, of course, you have the editorial mongrels, who will go only to whoever is in this month's Elle or Allure. But no matter what brings them to you in the first place, they'll drop you cold if you're not a good colorist. Which means no mistakes. Not ever. Brain surgeons are allowed more mistakes than hair colorists. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that what I do is brain surgery or in any way important. Between you and me, it's just hair. But a certain kind of woman cares about her hair. A lot. — Kathleen Flynn-Hui

Because we; out of our love for these women who hold our hearts in their hands, have and still would do all manner of things to keep them safe." Hill gave a half shrug. "I'd say we finally know what it's like to have the tables turned. — AlTonya Washington

Clue in, Ally," he immediately volleyed, "Watchin' the Rock Chicks, I know exactly what does and does not fly with you, and just like every one of those men when their women serves up attitude, I don't give a shit. And, just sayin', that attitude, just like with them, is why I'm with you."
"What?" I bit out.
"Babe, every one of those guys had pussy lined up at the door. Bitches were gagging for it. They'd do anything to get their hooks into those men and those men knew it. They didn't want a woman who'd do anything. They wanted a woman who knew her own mind and wouldn't do anything. Not a single one of your posse lets their man walk all over them. And not a single one lets them get away with shit. At least not without dishin' up a fair amount of attitude before they let them get away with it which is the definition of not letting them get away with it. — Kristen Ashley

What's getting all the attention is we have South Dakota putting out this direct frontal attack. I'm actually just as concerned about what they're doing every day on the ground. If you restrict access to the point there is no one who can or will do it for you, you've taken the right away. And that's becoming the reality for women in many states in this country. — Jackie Payne

This idea of doing it all is the enemy of equality, not the path to do it. It's impossible to do two full-time jobs, and an impossible definition of success is just another way of making women feel like failures ... Any definition of success has to include social policies that honor families and men who raise babies as much as women do. — Gloria Steinem

We are all benefiting from the great feminists who struggled and suffered and worked to give us everything women now enjoy ... I refer to myself as a feminist, and I do it with pride. — Cybill Shepherd

began to move through the group of women. At first she tried to imitate Stephen. Walking. Talking. Praying. Placing hands on those who longed for human acceptance. And then, something happened. It was no longer all about Stephen. It was not even about Stephen's ministry. It was God's Holy Spirit ministering through her hands, her feet, her lips. It was God who had brought her here on this day. To see the need. To realize that in his name she could bring them blessing. To do what he wished her to do for these discarded ones of society. People that he loved, had died for. People he had come to save. — Janette Oke

It's me, you fool. Who do you think it is? I'm coming in."
He was already naked. She turned away from him as he slipped in by her side but he caught her in his arms and felt her body thaw his belly and thighs. That was all, just to lie there listening to the breathing and the silence and feel the warmth colour his belly and thighs and head. She never wore clothes in bed. They were naked and the warmth run out of her. He wanted to laugh, because it was such a marvelous discovery to make, this warmth. She was hissing like a snake.
"No, it's wrong." She went on hissing.
She brought an elbow back smartly and struck him in the paunch. She seemed all elbows, shoulder blades and heels. It was like trying to make love to a dough-mixing machine. She wanted it, didn't she, otherwise why all this hissing and moaning? — P.H. Newby

All women should feel as Sex Subjects if they want and choose so without fear of repressions, condemnations and put down and without the need to pay them for that.

Being freely a sexy and seductive woman is allowed only for few privileged professions: actresses, dancers, models, singers, prostitutes. They all do it for work. You can pay for them being sexy.

If a sexy woman is openly adored by a man, the woman remains as a woman, she is not turning into a table, a cup or a bill of money. She is still the Subject who knows her power. — Mai Loog

All over the world kids and women [are] getting killed right now over beliefs, this is silly to get angry over. If it bothers you just don't attend I'm down for anything positive but this doesn't affect our parties too much. I'm not the promoter, I actually had nothing to do with the rules being implemented, but I do agree with my team. And cause of who I am, I'm the de facto speaker. I have thick skin so u guys that consider yourself PLUR can attack me all you want it doesn't bother me. I'm just here for the music. — Diplo

People's reaction to me is sometimes "Uch, I just don't like her. I hate how she thinks she is so great." But it's not that I think I'm so great. I just don't hate myself. I do idiotic things all the time and I say crazy stuff I regret, but I don't let everything traumatize me. And the scary thing I have noticed is that some people really feel uncomfortable around women who don't hate themselves. So that's why you need to be a little bit brave. — Mindy Kaling

But on Thursday only the committed regulars are there, and they do what they do on Thursday, delving into pagan rituals of worship to the amber gods that let you see to the lurching anger that spins you round and round at the center of things beyond lines and angles and the very floorboards become crazy under your feet so that the floor goes YAAAWW up again down again and suddenly tunk! it hits you on the forehead and your nose bleeds and you cling to it so that you don't begin to slip down it and fetch up against the wall where you were dancing before with all the women in your life who have now vanished and left you alone here and the swaying candelabra are like careening galaxies burning into the back of your head; you don't dare to roll over on your back and look straight into all those stars or you will be blinded; and from the cool floor and the smell of your own puke you gain more and more understanding of the universe. — William T. Vollmann

Don't allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is 'only' your husband to see you. Depend upon it he has no use for faded tea-gowns and badly dressed hair, and he abhors the sight of curling pins as much as other men do. He is a man after all, and if his wife does not take the trouble to charm him, there are plenty of other women who will. — Blanche Ebbutt

One trouble with all the churches is that they have too many incurable saints in them, men and women who pray too much and do too little, who cannot forget their own selfish salvation enough to look after other people's without feeling their own spiritual pulse all the time they are doing it. Of late I've sometimes suspected that it is nearly as debilitating to stay in the church all the time as it would be to stay in a hospital all the time. — Corra May Harris

Women do it all the time to look younger and it would make perfect sense if one of them ever came out looking younger - but they don't. They just look the same; they all get plastic surgery face. No matter who they look like going in, they all come out looking like the girl from the band on 'The Muppet Show. — Dana Gould

Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A women's life revolves around curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them. — Oscar Wilde

Brothers always. Balthazar is with us too. We make this work,' Finnikin said fiercely. 'We bring peace to these kingdoms. We deserve it. Our women do. All of us have lost too much, Froi. We've lost the joy of being children. Let's not take that from Jasmina and Tariq and those who come after them — Melina Marchetta

Unfortunately, victimization convinces men and women who should be looking for a Savior to search for a scapegoat. After all, if I am not to blame for what I do, the Cross is much ado about nothing. How hopelessly out of date the old spiritual sounds to us. "Not my mother or my father, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer." Victims do not need God, just a sympathetic therapist or a good lawyer.41 — D. A. Carson

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

In a day and age where it seems like women want to be with unstable, psychotic, manipulative freaks; allow me to be one to say that I want to be with a man of stability and strength, a man who is steadfast, faithful and happy. No, I don't want to be punched, slapped or called a bitch. I don't want to chase a man around, I don't need to feel like I'm hunting something and I am not attracted to psychos. I also don't need to fix anybody. Just wanted to make it clear that women like me do exist. — C. JoyBell C.

The position of women, over the years, has definitely changed for the worse. we women have behaved like mugs, We have clamoured to be allowed to work as men work. Men, not being fools, have taken kindly to the idea. Why supoort a wife? What's wrong with a wife supporting herself? She wants to do it. By golly, she can go on doing it!
it seems sad that having established ourselves so cleverly as the "weaker sex" we should now be broadly on a par with the women of primitive tribes who toil in the fields all day, walk miles to gather camelthorn for fuel, and on trek carry all the pots, pans, and household equipment on their heads, while the gorgeous, ornamental male sweeps on ahead, unburdened save for one lethal weapon with which to defend his women. — Agatha Christie

I want to tell you something." He placed her palm against her cheek, rough with stubble. "In my life, I've been with women I didn't care about and women I cared a great deal about. But I've never been with a woman who makes me feel the way you do." He lowered his head and whispered against her lips, "Sometimes when I look at you, it's hard to breath. When you touch me, I don't care about breathing." He kissed her slow and sweet, and with each press of his lips and touch of his tongue, her heart swelled and ached. It was wonderful and awful and brand-new. Then he pulled back to say, "I don't know how this is all going to work out, but I want to be with you. You are important to me. — Rachel Gibson

I absolutely don't write for women - far, far from it. It's so not what I want to do. Some of the writers, who have helped out at the beginning and end of the process - they're all men - have suggested quite feminine subjects they want me to explore. And I'm always, simply, 'No.' I don't want to do diets, don't want to. I just can't do it. — Miranda Hart

Women who once aspired to the image of superwoman now worry about becoming superdrudge. Those who wanted to have it all now ask whether they have to do it all. — Ellen Goodman

It is for you this song
You, the stranger who, without fuss,
Though downtrodden yourself still smiled at me,
When the policemen took me off.

You who didn't join the applause when
The upper crust women and men
All the people with good intentions
Laughed to see me being led away.

It was merely a touch of honey
But it warmed my body through
And in my soul it burns on still
As the bright sun would do...

You, the stranger, when you will die
When the mortician bears you off
May he take you across the sky,
To the Father Eternal. — Georges Brassens

The weakness of our age is in want of great men and women. It is hard to resist the current. Someone must completely detach himself from the ordinary run of politicians if he is to save politics; economists must break with the ordinary run of the mill of capital and labor commonplaces, if economics is to be saved. In other words, we need saints. These are not easy to make. First of all - because we do not always want the best; the best demands sacrifice of the ordinary and the discipline of the lower self. God, in His turn, finds it hard to give, because He gives only the best - moral perfection - and few there are who want it. As Augustine said at one point in his life, "I want to be good, dear Lord...but not now - a little later on. — Fulton Sheen

Today, what's normal is being redefined: from vaginal birth to surgical birth; from 'My water broke,' to 'Let's break your water;' from 'It's time' to 'It's time for the induction.' As medical anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd writes, 'in the early twenty-first century, we do not know what normal birth is.' Most practicing obstetricians have never witnessed an unplugged birth that wasn't an accident. Women are even beginning to deny normal birth to themselves: if 'normal' means being induced, immobilized by wires and tubes, sped up with drugs, all the while knowing that there's a good chance of surgery, well, might as well just cut to the chase, so to speak. 'Just give me a cesarean,' some are saying. And who can blame them? They want to avoid what they think of as normal birth. — Jennifer Block

After all, the butt of Fashion's dirtiest jokes is the public. The present American boast, that all women can be beautifully dressed if they choose, has been so clearly stated in so many ways for so long a time, that a large number of American women believe themselves to be beautifully dressed who are actually horrors to behold. Take those $10.75 copies of the dresses worn by the Duchess of Windsor in the summer of 1937. You could tell by the look on the faces of the American girls who wore them that they really felt beguiling enough to snatch off a Duke because they had a modified silhouette corresponding to that of a Duchess. The actual dress, stinted on material, cheaply imitated as to print design, bad in color and ill-fitting, was a horror to behold. You may say, if the girl feels like a Duchess, what more do you ask? I say, she looks to me like the worst mass-pro- duced imitation of a Duchess I can imagine, and it just isn't pretty. — Elizabeth Hawes

There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all BEGIN freely
a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show MORE affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on. — Jane Austen

When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier. — Sheryl Sandberg

Her [Mrs Croft's] manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. Anne gave her credit, indeed, for feelings of great consideration towards herself, in all that related to Kellynch; and it pleased her. — Jane Austen

I hate Mother's Day. If anything, it's an affront to all women who think full-time moms have never worked a day in their lives. Which reminds me of a good joke: What do you call an angry feminist on Mother's Day? You don't. — Kimberly Guilfoyle

Abby: "You were great. I don't know what I'd have done without you."
Dylan: "You'd have done fine. That's one of the most intimidating things about you."
Abby: "Intimidating? Me?"
Dylan: "It isn't easy for a man to get involved with a woman who's totally capable of handling anything that comes along ... It isn't easy for a man to believe that there are woman who can not only do those things but enjoy them ... [But] it's all natural for you isn't it? It's incredible. — Nora Roberts

At a certain point, an eating disorder ceases to be "about" any one thing. It stops being about your family, or your culture. Very simply, it becomes an addiction not only emotionally but also chemically. And it becomes a crusade. If you are honest with yourself, you stop believing that anyone could "make" you do such a thing - who, your parents? They want you to starve to death? Not likely. Your environment? It couldn't careless. You are also doing it for yourself. It is a shortcut to something many women without an eating disorder have gotten: respect and power. It is a visual temper tantrum. You are making an ineffective statement about this and that, a grotesque, self-defeating mockery of cultural standards of beauty, societal misogyny. It is a blow to your parents, at whom you are pissed.
And it is so very seductive. It is so reassuring, so all-consuming, so entertaining.
At first. — Marya Hornbacher

SEEN ACROSS TEN MILES OF sunlit water, Lorbanery was green, green as the bright moss by a fountain's rim. Nearby, it broke up into leaves, and tree-trunks, and shadows, and roads, and houses, and the faces and clothing of people, and dust, and all that goes to make up an island inhabited by men. Yet still, over all, it was green: for every acre of it that was not built or walked upon was given up to the low, round-topped hurbah trees, on the leaves of which feed the little worms that spin the silk that is made into thread and woven by the men and women and children of Lorbanery. At dusk the air there is full of small grey bats who feed on the little worms. They eat many, but are suffered to do so and are not killed by the silk-weavers, who indeed account it a deed of very evil omen to kill the grey-winged bats. For if human beings live off the worms, they say, surely small bats have the right to do so. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Though Women's Studies was supposed to give a voice to "silenced" women, all too many women who dissent from its orthodoxy have themselves felt silenced by intolerant professors - and students, too. Indeed, while some (generally tenured) older professors like Willingham do dare to challenge Women's Studies dogma, younger initiates, whether students or greenhorn instructors, often act as fierce enforcers of dogma, reiterating it (as did Tholen and Alder at the Beijing +15 session) with all the zeal of fresh converts to a fundamentalist faith and bristling at any violation of Holy Writ. Patai and Koertge quote professors who complain about students being "zombified" by Women's Studies, turned into "ideologically inflamed Stepford Wives" who "utter ... stock phrases" and are plainly "terrified of a thought because if they ever had a serious thought, they might start reflecting on this stuff they're taught to repeat. — Bruce Bawer

He shrugged. "When I was younger, I tried to make a good impression on dates. I'd take girls out dancing, bribe the bouncers to get us into trendy clubs, follow all the rules on the pickup artist sites. And one day about five years ago, I realized something: I suck at dancing, I hate trendy clubs, and the women who fall for the standard pickup techniques are airheads. So now I do stuff I like to do anyway. If my date doesn't like it, then we're probably not compatible anyway. — James L. Cambias

Your body is yours to protect and to enjoy." She raises both eyebrows at me meaningfully. "Whoever you should choose to partake in that enjoyment, that is your choice, and choose wisely. Every man that ever got to touch me was afforded an honor. A privilege." Stormy waves her hand over me. "All this? It's a privilege to worship at this temple, do you understand my meaning? Not just any young fool can approach the throne. Remember my words, Lara Jean. You decide who, how far, and how often, if ever."
"I had no idea you were such a feminist," I say.
"Feminist?" Stormy makes a disgusted sound in her throat. "I'm no feminist. Really, Lara Jean!"
"Stormy, don't get worked up about it. All it means is that you believe men and women are equal, and should have equal rights."
"I don't think any man is my equal. Women are far superior, and don't you forget it. Don't forget any of the things I just told you. — Jenny Han

How could a very thin woman do all the things that women needed to do: to carry children on their backs, to pound maize into flour out at the lands or the cattle post, to cart around the things of the household - the pots and pans and buckets of water? And how could a thin woman comfort a man? It would be very awkward for a man to share his bed with a person who was all angles and bone, whereas a traditionally built lady would be like an extra pillow on which a man coming home tired from his work might rest his weary head. To do all that you needed a bit of bulk, and thin people simply did not have that. — Alexander McCall Smith

Whatever God can do faith can do, and whatever faith can do prayer can do when it is offered in faith. An invitation to prayer is, therefore, an invitation to omnipotence, for prayer engages the Omnipotent God and brings Him into our human affairs. Nothing is impossible to the man who prays in faith, just as nothing is impossible with God. This generation has yet to prove all that prayer can do for believing men and women. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

Besides,' she said, "it was not a hero I was thinking of. If anybody, it was Catherine Vernon." "Whom you don't like. These women, who step out of their sphere, they may do much to be respected, they may be of great use; but " "You mean that men don't like them," said Hester, with a smile; " but then women do; and, after all, we are the half of creation - or more. — Mrs. Oliphant

Moving heavy objects allowed me to feel manly in the eyes of other men. With the women it didn't matter, but I enjoyed subtly intimidating the guys with bad backs who thought they were helping out by telling us how to pack the truck. The thinking was that because we were furniture movers, we obviously weren't too bright. In addition to being strong and stupid, we were also thought of as dangerous. It might have been an old story to Patrick and the others, but I got a kick out of being mistaken as volatile. All I had to do was throw down my dolly with a little extra force, and a bossy customer would say, Let's just all calm down and try to work this out. — David Sedaris

My own definition is a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

See you just don't understand women the way I do J.D. They want it all: a career apple martinis financial independence great shoes but at the same time - and this they'll never admit - they are drawn to patriarchal men who are dominant and controlling. That's the essence of the Darcy complex. He may be an asshole but he's an asshole that gets the girl in the end. — Julie James

Does this mean that men evolve faster than women do, would we ever live in an integrated society where the sexes would be equal? The bewildered self is unchanging. Men are unchanging when it comes top sex. Inertia. That would be the first word to describe my personality. Frightened and confused when it comes to sex, sensuality and the sexual transaction. Men will give you money to go away. Men do not want you to make trouble for them. I poured myself into After Leaving Mr Mackenzie. I poured myself into Jean Rhys' novels and I saw more than sadness, suffering, losing youth there. I saw human rights. The men perhaps had all the power because they had the money but who was the greater, the woman or the man with her beguiling attractiveness, her youthful appeal, her attractiveness. — Abigail George

It is quite edifying to hear women speculate upon the worthlessness and the duration of beauty. But though virtue is a much finer thing, and those hapless creatures who suffer under the misfortune of good looks ought to be continually put in mind of the fate which awaits them; and though, very likely, the heroic female character which ladies admire is a more glorious and beautiful object than the kind, fresh, smiling, artless, tender little domestic goddess, whom men are inclined to worship - yet the latter and inferior sort of women must have this consolation - that the men do admire them after all; and that, in spite of all our kind friends' warnings and protests, we go on in our desperate error and folly, — William Makepeace Thackeray

I've got a better idea," says my mother. "Tell me about what you did today. Tell me about New York." So I do, I tell the lifelong New Yorker who chucked it for the woods about the streets of the city: how the subway was so crowded this morning I had to let four trains pass in a row and I was a half hour late to work; how I had a meeting in Times Square and I saw an army of painted topless women posing with tourists for money; how I saw two people dressed up as Disney characters get into a fistfight; how I ate a hot dog from a stand after my client meeting bombed and when I finished it I ate another, on one of the chairs scattered in Bryant Park. A string quartet was playing nearby, under a sponsor banner. "The music part was the part that saved me," I say. "All of it would have saved me," says my mother. — Jami Attenberg

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

I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less happy. I realize this is poor consolation for them - but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth, after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only aggravated my imagination and vanity while my heart remained desolate ... I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning, too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant, and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd ... — Mikhail Lermontov

It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland. — Haruki Murakami

When you get into your 40s, the roles do tend to drop off, and I've seen it happening to friends of mine. Hopefully it is improving, and there are female TV executives now who are championing women of all ages in leading roles. But I'm not counting on it. — Keeley Hawes

I've tried Botox, I've tried them all. I'm definitely not one of those people who says, 'You shouldn't do this.' Everyone can individually do what they want. For all time women have wanted to, for the most part, look their best. It's just that what we have available to us today is what it is today and if you want to take advantage of it, yeah. — Kylie Minogue

And then it arose and struck Vimes that, in her own special category, she was quite beautiful; this was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. She couldn't do worse, but then, he couldn't do better. So maybe it balanced out. She wasn't getting any younger but then, who was? And she had style and money and common-sense and self-assurance and all the things that he didn't, and she had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city. — Terry Pratchett

I do not worry very much about the young men and women, including many returned missionaries, who are of such an age that in all likelihood they will be married within a relatively short time. I feel they should not be put under pressure by counsel from Church leaders to rush into it. But neither do I believe that they should dally along in a fruitless, frustrating, and frivolous dating game that only raises hopes and brings disappointment and in some cases heartache.

The young men should take the initiative in this matter. It goes without saying that they should be encouraged to live worthy of the companionship of a wonderful partner. They should be taught to put aside any thought of selfish superiority and recognize and follow the teaching of the Church that the husband and wife walk side by side with neither one ahead or behind. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Breast cancer is not just a disease that strikes at women. It strikes at the very heart of who we are as women: how others perceive us, how we perceive ourselves, how we live, work and raise our families-or whether we do these things at all. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

What makes you think I ever got married? Married women work themselves to death, all their money goes to husbands who gamble it away. Why would I ever do that to myself? — Kim Van Alkemade

Being a mother is more exhausting than working, and sometimes I push myself too hard and burn myself out. I can appreciate how exhausting it must be for women who have to do everything themselves all the time. — Salma Hayek

Men and women are learning animals. If you do not see what they have learned, you're blind. They are creatures ever changing, ever improving, ever expanding their vision and the capacity of their hearts. You are not fair to them when you speak of this as the most bloody century; you are not seeing the light that shines ever more radiantly on account of the darkness; you are not. seeing the evolution of the human soul! ... ... True, what you say about war. Yes, and the cries of the dying, I too have heard them; we have all heard them, through all the decades; and even now, the world is shocked by daily reports of armed conflict. But it is the outcry against these horrors which is the light I speak of; it's the attitudes which were never possible in the past. It is the intolerance of thinking men and women in power who for the first time in the history of the human race truly want to put an end to injustice in all forms.
Marius to Akasha (The Vampire Chronicles) — Anne Rice

Women who bring up children by themselves do it heroically, they do it against all odds, men who don't feel responsible for being part of their child's life create real strains on that family. — Jeb Bush

It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who has had children and I think, they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is their little pin holes of terror ... and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move. — Cate Blanchett

To have the external pressure of a job removed is very astonishing. Your own will is now your only motor and it has no horse-power. Sometimes I think that perhaps the most competent business men, and lawyers and doctors, who must be at the office at nine o'clock every morning, do not realize this and take more credit for initiative and industry than they deserve. And it is why all the bright women of the world, who if more were expected of them, might do important work, but who instead have a chronic feeling of ineffectiveness and sloth. — Brenda Ueland

Motherhood is exactly the kind of "special circumstance" that lends itself to memoir. It is a time of transition and sometimes a period of intense identity struggle: Who am I if I spend all day shirtless, trying to nurse a colicky baby? What happened to my former life, my former self? How do I balance my own needs with those of my family? I am drawn to all kinds of motherhood memoirs because I am interested in the different ways that women process the challenges and joys of motherhood, and how they write about life in general through their mother eyes. — Kate Hopper

Credomancy may seek to exploit the human desire for a tidy narrative where an unblemished romantic hero vanquishes all obstacles, but such ideals have very little to with reality. Reality requites pragmatism and compromise. Men fail. Women fail. There are no heroes, only human beings who somehow find the strength to behave heroically, no matter how many times they have been unable to do so in the past. If you understand that, Miss Edwards - if you truly and deeply understand that, then you will understand the most powerful thing anyone with a heart can understand."
"And what's that?" Emily said softly.
"That love is not enough. But it's a start. — M.K. Hobson

When it comes to the education of our young, this privilege should only be given to those whose visions are solely in the uplifting benefit of the child. There is no room for the ego in the education of children! Children should not be looked after, nor educated, by those who have not made a sacrifice within their hearts, laying down their own personal agenda and dreams, for the total ascension of the child. Even if you are to educate the children simply sitting under a tree; if you have the vision and the heart of a sage, those children will grow to be mighty men and women under your watch! And even if you wine and dine the children, putting them up in a palace; if you do not have the vision and the selfless heart of a sage, all you do is in utter vanity! — C. JoyBell C.

ALEXIS
I have made some converts to the principle that men and women should be coupled in matrimony without distinction of rank. I have lectured on the subject at Mechanics' Institutes, and the mechanics were unanimous in favour of my views. I have preached in workhouses, beershops and Lunatic Asylums, and I have been received with enthusiasm. I have addressed navvies on the advantages that would accrue to them if they married wealthy ladies of rank, and not a navvy dissented!
ALINE
Noble fellows! And yet there are those who hold that the uneducated classes are not open to argument! And what do the countesses say?
ALEXIS
Why, at present, it can't be denied, the aristocracy hold aloof.
ALINE
Ah, the working man is the true Intelligence after all!
ALEXIS
He is a noble creature when he is quite sober. — W.S. Gilbert

I think women should have choices and should be able to do what they like, and I think it's a great choice to stay at home and raise kids, just as it's a great choice to have a career. But I don't entirely approve of people who get advanced degrees and then decide to stay at home. I think if society gives you the gift of one of those educations and you take a spot in a very competitive institution, then you should do something with that education to help others ... But I also don't approve of working parents who look down on stay-at-home mothers and think they smother their children. Working parents are every bit as capable of spoiling children as ones who don't work - maybe even more so when they indulge their kids out of guilt. The best think anyone can teach their children is the obligation we all have toward each other - and no one has a monopoly on teaching that. — Will Schwalbe

I have never thought I could take it, not even
for the children. It is all I have wanted to do,
to stand between them and and pain. But I come from a
long line
of women
who put themselves
first. — Sharon Olds

I had no idea what to say to this. I had been nurtured in the U.S. school system on a steady diet of the Great Men theory of history. History was full of Great Men. I had to take separate Women's History courses just to learn about what women were doing while all the men were killing each other. It turned out many of them were governing countries and figuring out rather effective methods of birth control that had sweeping ramifications on the makeup of particular states, especially Greece and Rome.
Half the world is full of women, but it's rare to hear a narrative that doesn't speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things. More often, women are talked about as a man's daughter. A man's wife. — Kameron Hurley

She told me, "I sexualize men. You can't just be afraid of men that sexualize women when I do practically the same thing, and I'm a woman." I told Lily the honest fucking truth. "You can't physically overpower a fucking man the way that a man can overpower you." It doesn't matter who's thinking about sex. We all are. It matters who's in a position of dominance. Who has the chance to abuse that - and it's mostly men. Bad fucking men. — Krista Ritchie

What I don't understand is where women suddenly get power. Because they do. The kids, who almost always turn out to be a pile of shit, are, we all know, Mommy's fault. Well, how did she manage that, this powerless creature? Where was all her power during the years she was doing five loads of laundry a week and worrying about mixing the whites with the colors? How was she able to offset Daddy's positive influence? How come she never knows she has this power until afterward, when it gets called responsibility? — Marilyn French

Captain Harvile: Poor Phoebe, she would not have forgotten him so soon. It was not in her nature.
Anne Elliot: It would not be in the nature of any woman who truly loved.
Captain Harvile: Do you claim that for your sex?
Anne Elliot: We do not forget you as soon as you forget us. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You always have business of some sort or other to take you back into the world.
Captain Harvile: I won't allow it to be any more man's nature than women's to be inconstant or to forget those they love or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe ... Let me just observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose, and verse. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which did not have something to say on women's fickleness.
Anne Elliot: But they were all written by men. — Jane Austen

It is an honor to be with thousands of leaders from around the world who are united in their mission to eradicate violence against women. Avon is proud to share their commitment to this goal. We are honored to be a leading supporter of the 2nd World Conference of Women's Shelters, and are grateful for the work that all of you do day in and day out to ensure that women across the world can find ways to live their lives free of violence. — Andrea Jung

When you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women ... And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame? — Moderata Fonte

A book came out recently written by scientists and environmentalists that made me so angry. It said the only thing we have to worry about is big industry. Each individual who tries to make his or her own environment better is useless. I find this criminal, because then you have a billion people all saying, It doesn't matter what I do because I'm just one person. But if you turn that around and a billion people say, What I do does make a difference, then it will make a difference. — Jane Goodall

Ah! candid and unadulterated mind! you have learned early to reflect; but take care lest this habit, hitherto so well applied, should totally unfit you for society. It will strew thorns in your path, while other young women of your age seek only flowers. By imagining yourself in the place of others, as you now continually do, you will learn to feel for all the unhappy, or even for those who appear so; whereas it might save a great deal of (for the most part useless) pain, if you could contrive to feel only for yourself. — Charlotte Turner Smith

It is possible the world is divided into three genders - there are men, there are women and then there are women who choose to have nothing to do with children. How about men without children, he answered quickly, aren't they also different from fathers? She shook her head firmly, daring him to contradict her: no, all men are the same. — Christos Tsiolkas

Quick! What aisle are the douches in? I've got three bitches at the beach cottage and they all stick to high heaven."...
"You do carry Massengill, don't you? That's the best brand, according to my research."
"Ah..." What kind of man researches douches? A man who goes to bed with three women...
"Would you mind checking your inventory in the back? I'll need more."
"I'm not allowed to leave the register, but I'll be happy to page our stock boy."
Douche-man grunted and flipped the package around. "It's gonna take at least two boxes for Loa. She's big. Got wide hips. Skinny legs, though. Kinda like a twenty-gallon tank on toothpicks. — Vonnie Davis

Jesus no longer belongs to the past but lives in the present and is projected toward the future; Jesus is the everlasting "today" of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples, and all of us: as victory over sin, evil, and death - over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you, dear sister, you, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness...and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive! — Pope Francis

Because orgasmic sex would lead to women's autonomy, knowing who you are and what we want: Women are not going to follow what some jackass tells us we must do. Not all women are going to get married, be monogamous and raise a family. It will destroy the current social structure based on a sexual double standard that we're currently living under. — Betty Dodson

There was only one hope she didn't and wouldn't allow herself to hold on to: that if, in almost thirty years, she hadn't found a man, not a single one, who was exclusively significant for her, who had become inevitable to her, someone who was strong and brought her the mystery she had been waiting for, not a single one who was really a man and not an eccentric, a weakling or one of the needy the world was full of - then the man simply didn't exist, and as long as this New Man did not exist, one could only be friendly and kind to one another, for a while. There was nothing more to make of it, and it would be best if women and men kept their distance and had nothing to do with each other until both had found their way out of the tangle and confusion, the discrepancy inherent in all relationships. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me. — Mark Andrus

I get female groupies, but I don't get male groupies. I have women who offer to sleep with me all the time. But not men. They're all talk and nay action
as we'd say in Scotland. If I go anywhere near most of our male following, they are freaked. Absolutely freaked. I think my height has got a lot to do with it. I'm really tall. I'm five-eight, and with heels, I'm six foot, so people are like. 'Whoa, Amazon!' People are a wee taken aback by that 'cause I think people expect me to be small. — Shirley Manson

Gazing down at the black water remembering all the stories of women who had thrown themselves into it. They'd done it for love, because that was the effect love had on you. It snuck up on you, it grabbed hold of you before you knew it, and then there was nothing you could do. Once you were in it- in love- you would be swept away, regardless. Or so the books had it. — Margaret Atwood

It's kind of the yin and yang that fascinate me. That for all the evil men do, there are also people who work obnoxiously long hours and sacrifice their personal lives because it is a calling - if they don't keep our streets safe, if they aren't there to advocate for and save beaten women and children and murder victims, who will? — Lisa Gardner

When we allow material things to be more important than spiritual things, we lost a lot of very important ways in life, many fear dying and are so concerned about what they do if someone stole all their position, did we not come into this world naked? can we take all our riches with us when we pass? is success what really makes a man or women hear? can we actually buy real love? the twisted ways of thinking come from greedy people, a person who work hard should be paid more than one who work less but that's not the case here, it is all backwards this is what a man has brought forth because of the attitude that being certainly religion or family tree entitles them to it what they really forget is what we are from the same family — Wisdom

Gretel in Darkness:


This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch's cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas....

Now, far from women's arms
And memory of women, in our father's hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln--

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel
we are there still, and it is real, real,
that black forest, and the fire in earnest. — Louise Gluck

And so of course we won't define 'biblical womanhood' well using a list of chores or a job description, a schedule or income level. After all, healthy God-glorifying homes look as different as the image bearers that entered into the covenant, biblical doesn't mean a baptized version of any culture, ancient or modern.
No, I am a biblical woman because I live and move and have my being in the daily reality of being a follower of Jesus, living in the reality of being loved, in full trust of my Abba. I am a biblical woman because I follow in the footsteps of all the biblical women who cam before me.
Biblical womanhood isn't so different from biblical personhood. Biblical personhood becomes a dead list of rules when it becomes a law to keep. If we have a long list of rules - Put others first! Be generous! Give money! Believe this! Do that! - it's a dead religion from a glorified rule book. — Sarah Bessey

It is important to note that research has shown that men who have abusive mothers do not tend to develop especially negative attitudes toward females, but men who have abusive fathers do; the disrespect that abusive men show their female partners and their daughters is often absorbed by their sons.
So while a small number of abusive men do hate women, the great majority exhibit a more subtle-though often quite pervasive-sense of superiority or contempt toward females, and some don't show any obvious signs of problems with women at all until they are in a serious relationship. — Lundy Bancroft

Just as the archetype of the supermom
the woman who can do it all
minimizes the real needs of women, so too the archetype of the"superkid" minimizes the real needs of children. It makes it all right to treat a young child as if he or she were older. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

Guys who would make fun of girls for sexual inexperience are terrible people, and when girls do it to other girls it feels even shittier. Guys who shame girls who haven't had sex want them to feel like they aren't doing their job, which is to be sexually available and attractive to guys. (And never mind if they are gay, or just uninterested.) Girls who shame other girls for these reasons are helping those guys. They are saying this: You are not accomplished where it matters, and I am better than you. I have proven that men find me attractive, and that is what counts. These people, boys and girls and men and women alike, are all dickheads. — Katie Heaney