Women Who Ride Quotes & Sayings

Everyone who sees us
especially Stanhope, who has been friends with us both for years
knows we're just out for a ride. Not out for a ride."
He looked at her, shaking his head in confusion. "Women truly are strange and unknowable creatures — Sarah MacLean

It's not enough to have a few women's studies courses. Why is it more important to study Paul Revere's midnight ride than it is Susan B. Anthony's 50-year effort to transform the face of America for women? When you're in school, most of the events you study are about men. Men's activities lauded and repeated over and over. What about us? What about commemorating the decades-long struggle for suffrage? Why don't we hear those stories over and over and over again. It's almost inconceivable for men to understand what it would be like to live without that constant valorization. — Judy Chicago

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

You have proved yourself, Emma," he said. "You could ride with Gwyn, if you chose." "The Wild Hunt doesn't allow women," she pointed out, the words torn from her mouth by the wind. "The more fool they," he said. "Women are fiercer by far than men. — Cassandra Clare

It's often the outcasts, the iconoclasts, the hyper-religious, the young people, sometimes middle-aged women, those who have the least to lose because they don't have much in the first place, who feel the new currents and ride them the farthest. — Christine Wicker

My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself to the usual lot of women who bow their heads and become concubines. — Trieu Thi Choi

I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history
whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline. — Barack Obama

The most important thing we've done," he said to an audience at Andiquar University, "was to get off-world. That was the single act that opened the universe to us. We owe all that to the men and women who made the Apollo flights possible and especially to those who put their lives at risk, and who sometimes paid the price, to actually ride the vehicles. They got us started. Once we'd set foot on the Moon, it was inevitable that we'd go on to Rimway and Dellaconda and the edge of the galaxy. We knew it would take a while. That we'd get in our own way. That we'd be discouraged by the vast distances involved simply in going to Mars. We understood that we were probably facing an empty and cold universe. But it was the beginning, and in our hearts we must have known we would not be stopped. — Jack McDevitt

Here is part of the problem, girls: we've been sold a bill of goods. Back in the day, women didn't run themselves ragged trying to achieve some impressively developed life in eight different categories. No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for "self care," served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior. You can't balance that job description. Listen to me: No one can pull this off. No one is pulling this off. The women who seem to ride this unicorn only display the best parts of their stories. Trust me. No one can fragment her time and attention into this many segments. — Jen Hatmaker

Have you ever sailed across an ocean, Donald? On a sail boat surrounded by sea with no land in sight. Without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come. To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza Del Campo in Sienna. To feel the surge as ten race horses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie in the Place Des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a women in the cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on summits and smoke cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the wall again. Climb the tower. Ride the river. Stare at the frescoes. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that. Just one time. — Anonymous

Admitting that this job isn't always easy doesn't make somebody a bad mother. At least, it shouldn't. We're all on this ride together. We are not the first ones to ever accidentally tell our children to shut up, or wonder - just for a moment - what it would be like if we'd never had children. We aren't the first mothers to feel overwhelmed and challenged and not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. And we certainly won't be the last. Nothing can be lost by admitting our weaknesses and imperfections to one another. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We will be better mothers, better wives, and better women if we are able to finally drop the act and get real. Who are we pretending for, anyway? — Jill Smokler

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, male nurses ride the "glass escalator"; although they are in the minority, they receive higher wages and faster promotions than women in the same jobs. — Alexandra Robbins

When I watch the show [Westworld], it leaves me looking at the world around me in a new way. It really stays with you. And it's one of those things that you have to figure out. You're going to get little clues along the way, and every time you think you know what's up, we're going to flip it around. It's going to take you for a really awesome, crazy ride, but it's a really, really revolutionary character for women. There's a lot of really fun stuff to look forward to. — Evan Rachel Wood

There are lots of opportunities out there for women to work in these fields, ... Girls just need support, encouragement and mentoring to follow through with the sciences. — Sally Ride

The 'science' behind hormone replacement therapy has put women on a medically engineered, press-fueled, big pharma funded roller coaster ride. — Willow Bay

Gerald's sharp blue eyes noticed how efficiently his neighbors' houses were run and with what ease the smooth-haired wives in rustling skirts managed their servants. He had no knowledge of the dawn-till-midnight activities of these women, chained to supervision of cooking, nursing, sewing and laundering. He only saw the outward results, and those results impressed him. The urgent need of a wife became clear to him one morning when he was dressing to ride to town for Court Day. Pork brought forth his favorite ruffled shirt, so inexpertly mended by the chambermaid as to be unwearable by anyone except his valet. — Margaret Mitchell

Suzanne Sugarbaker of Designing Women was so right when she said, "There's just nothing better in life than to ride around on the back of a convertible with a crown on your head." Words to live by. — Jill Conner Browne

For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences. — Sally Ride

I have nothing but duct-taped syntax to offer them
noise of jury-rigged verse, of entire days burned
by the focus of a foreman's glare, the labored breath
of an exhausted ride home
while she sings in a tiara and cape
to tuxedoed men and bespangled women.
Yet the world sounds most honest to me
when its timing chain is slightly off.
How it revs, how it almost sputters out
on any given evening after a long day of work. — B.J. Ward

Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained. — Mary Allsebrook

Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent — Martin Luther King Jr.

The world will hear my name." When he spoke again, it was so quiet that Kokchu had to strain to hear him.
"This is not a time of death, shaman. We are one people and there will be no more battles between us. I will summon us all. Cities will fall to us, new lands will be ours to ride. Women will weep and I will be pleased to hear it. — Conn Iggulden

...I didn't want to be a passenger on someone else's motorcycle.
I wanted to be the one riding that motherfucker. — Lily Brooks-Dalton

Suppose you came across a woman lying on the street with an elephant sitting on her chest. You notice she is short of breath. Shortness of breath can be a symptom of heart problems. In her case, the much more likely cause is the elephant on her chest. For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences. That is the elephant. Until the playing field has veen leveled and lingering stereotypes are gone, you can't even ask the question. — Sally Ride

If it wasn't for the women's movement, I wouldn't be where I am today. — Sally Ride

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

Women who were so skinny that their hip bones stuck out just pissed me off. If I wanted a bumpy ride I'd take my bike out to the train tracks. — Bethany Lopez

My climb to political success was no elevator ride, and it has not always been pretty, but I persevered as one of a handful of women in the male-dominated world of politics. — Dalia Grybauskaite

The only ride I'm interested in is on you, cowboy, but I'm sure all the women say that. — Lex Valentine

The astronauts who came in with me in my astronaut class - my class had 29 men and 6 women - those men were all very used to working with women. — Sally Ride

I don't think my father's issue was with my mother in particular. He just didn't like women. He thought they were stupid, inconsequential, irritating. That dumb bitch. It was his favorite phrase for any woman who annoyed him: a fellow motorist, a waitress, our grade school teachers, none of whom he ever actually met, parent-teacher conferences stinking of the female realm as they did. I still remember when Geraldine Ferraro was named the 1984 vice presidential candidate, us all watching it on the news before dinner. My mother, my tiny, sweet mom, put her hand on the back of Go's head and said, Well, I think it's wonderful. And my dad flipped the TV off and said, It's a joke. You know it's a goddamn joke. Like watching a monkey ride a bike. — Gillian Flynn

Horror hostess, bondage goddess, Charles Addams cartoon comes to life, Vampire was every first-generation fanboy's wet dream. Scott Poole takes us on an unforgettable ride through the overlapping underworlds of B&D magazines, Hollywood noir, and early political liberation movements that inspired actress Maila Nurmi to challenge a postwar culture bent on stifling women's choices, bodies, and desires. This book is a subversive masterpiece. — Sheri Holman

If women patronize the wheel the number of buyers will be twice as large. If women ride they must, when riding, dress more rationally than they have been wont to do. If they do this many prejudices as to what they may be allowed to wear will melt away. Reason will gain upon precedent and ere long the comfortable, sensible, and artistic wardrobe of the rider will make the conventional style of woman's dress absurd to the eye and unenduring to the understanding. A reform often advances most rapidly by indirection. An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory; and the graceful and becoming costume of woman on the bicycle will convince the world that has brushed aside the theories, no matter how well constructed, and the arguments, no matter how logical, of dress-reformers. — Frances E. Willard

For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds. — Sally Ride

Women on the streets want money when we meet. I take them for a little ride, chop, chop, chop. — Alice Cooper

My stories may seem to be the stories of men, but a check of my books will show that I have probably written the stories of more strong women than any other writer ... [examples include] Miss Nesselrode of The Lonesome Gods, Ruth Macken of Bendigo Shafter, Echo Sackett of Ride the River, Em Talon of Ride the Dark Trail are some ... [and] one of my favorites is Miss Jessica Trescott of Matagorda. (The Sackett Companion) — Louis L'Amour

I think it's important for little girls growing up, and young women, to have one in every walk of life. So from that point of view, I'm proud to be a role model! — Sally Ride

You're Shane, right?'
He inched away from her and managed a quick nod as he twisted the rag he held in his fingers.
'Heidi sad you were willing to teach me how to ride.' Her expression shifted from entertained to confused, as if she was wondering why no one had mentioned he was a can or two shy of a six-pack.
'A horse,' he clarified, then wanted to kick himself. What else but a horse? Did he think she was here to learn to ride his mother's elephant?
One corner of Annabelle's perfect, full mouth twitched. 'A horse would be good. You seem to have several.'
He wanted to remind himself that he was usually fine around women. Smooth even. He was intelligent, funny and could, on occasion, be charming. Just not now, with his blood pumping and his brain doing nothing more than shouting "it's her, it's her" over and over again.
Chemistry, he thought grimly. It could turn the smartest man into a drooling idiot. Here he was, proving the theory true. — Susan Mallery

A pedestrian seems in this country to be a sort of beast of passage - stared at, pitied, suspected and shunned by everyone who meets him ... Every passing coachman called out to me: "Do you want to ride on the outside?" If I met only a farm worker on a horse he would say to me companionably "Warm walking sir," and when I passed through a village the old women in their bewilderment would let out a "God Almighty! — Karl Philipp Moritz

Women. No offense. But she doesn't even realize what she just said. These are her accomplishments. Challenges she's lived through. Shithead was just standing along for the ride. In the background. Like wallpaper. You can change the color of the walls anytime, and it might look different, but the room's still the same. — Emma Chase

Given the realities of the U.S. criminal justice system, the prosecution may be unable to salvage this case. But just because that system fails victims on the regular doesn't mean we have to, too. French commentators are already calling for DSK to jump back into the country's presidential race and ride a wave of sympathy into office. Really, the stakes are greater than even that political prize. If we accept the narrative that only perfect women are raped, we risk sacrificing justice not only for this woman, but for victims of sexual assault everywhere. After all, nobody's perfect. — Jaclyn Friedman

When Muslim radicals and fundamentalists look at the West, they see only the openness that makes us, in their eyes, decadent and promiscuous. They see only the openness that has produced Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. They do not see, and do not want to see, the openness - the freedom of thought and inquiry - that has made us powerful, the openness that has produced Bill Gates and Sally Ride. They deliberately define it all as decadence. Because if openness, women's empowerment, and freedom of thought and inquiry are the real sources of the West's economic strength, then the Arab-Muslim world would have to change. And the fundamentalists and extremists do not want to change. — Thomas L. Friedman

So many preachers," she said, "get off onto one thing and ride it like a hobbyhorse. Some get off on women's dress. That's all they ever preach about - and dressing one way or the other will not get you to heaven, or send you to hell. You need to preach Jesus, get the people saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, and let the Lord tell them what to do. "Don't fight other denominations. Don't fight fellow Christians," she advised. "Just preach Jesus, the Cross, the Blood, and the Resurrection. I've learned God will meet people I never thought He'd reach, because their hearts are hungry. I don't preach against anything. I preach for something. — Kenneth E. Hagin

Percy, you are dismissed from my service."
"Me? Why, my lord?"
"Why? Because, Percy, far from being a fit consort for a prince of the realm, you would bore the leggings off a village idiot. You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly, and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be. If you put on a floppy hat and a funny codpiece, you might just get by as a fool, but since you wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave you a haircut, I doubt it. That's why you're dismissed."
"Oh, I see."
"And as for you, Baldrick ... "
"Yes."
"You're out, too. — Richard Curtis

People ask me why I'm so hard on men. It's because they've gotten a really easy ride. And it's not that I think women should take over the world. But I do think it should be 50/50. — Chelsea Handler

Man is the hunter; women are the game; those sleek and shining creatures of the chase. We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; they love us for it, and we ride them down. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

A cowboy huh? I would rather be who I am now. I never had dreams of being anything but an Alpha. Besides, cowboys ride horses...wolves ride women! There's much more fun to be had that way. CADE — M. Corchis

And to Rhaego son of Drogo, the stallion who will mount the world, to him I also pledge a gift. To him I will give this iron chair his mother's father sat in. I will give him Seven Kingdoms. I, Drogo, khal, will do this thing.' His voice rose, and he lifted his fist in the sky. 'I will take my khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride the wooden horses across the black salt water as no khal has done before. I will kill the men in the iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak to bow down beneath the Mother of Mountains. This I vow, I, Drogo son of Bharbo. This I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness. — George R R Martin

You do not take your place in your father's tent, letting men make your decisions. You ride as a man, you fight as a man, and you think as a man - " "I think as a human being," she retorted hotly. "Men don't think any differently from women - they just make more noise about being able to." As — Tamora Pierce

I drive my car to supermarket,
The way I take is superhigh,
A superlot is where I park it,
And Super Suds are what I buy.
Supersalesmen sell me tonic -
Super-Tone-O, for Relief.
The planes I ride are supersonic.
In trains, I like the Super Chief.
Supercilious men and women
Call me superficial - me,
Who so superbly learned to swim in
Supercolossality.
Superphosphate-fed foods feed me;
Superservice keeps me new.
Who would dare to supersede me,
Super-super-superwho? — John Updike

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel ... the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. — Susan B. Anthony

Since the time I had ridden Vodalus's charger out of Saltus, I had supposed in my innocence that all mounts might be divided into two sorts: the highbred and swift, and the cold-blooded and slow. The better, I thought, ran with the graceful ease, almost, of a coursing cat; the worse moved so tardily that it hardly mattered how they did it. It used to be a maxim of one of Thecla's tutors that all two-valued systems are false, and I discovered on that ride a new respect for him. My benefactor's mount belonged to that third class (which I have since discovered is fairly extensive) comprising those animals that outrace the birds but seem to run with legs of iron upon a road of stone. Men have numberless advantages over women and for that — Gene Wolfe

Some of the dairy people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening after their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to fragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed; noted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by the leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her contented pauses, the occassional laugh upon which her soul seemed to ride - the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women - unlike anything else in nature. They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not yet alighted. — Thomas Hardy

In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks. — Scott Adams

You are a terrifying creature," the Voice told her solemnly. "You do not take your place in your father's tent, letting men make your decisions for you. You ride as a man, you fight as a man, and you think as a man
"
"I think as a human being," she retorted hotly. "Men don't think any differently from women
they just make more fuss about being able to. — Tamora Pierce

I think maybe it's too bad that our society isn't further along and this is such a big deal. I think it's time ... that people realize that women in this country can do any job they want to do. — Sally Ride

The ride back to Kathmandu was comfortable and relaxing. There were more overturned trucks (the gas-powered ones seem to tip the most often, I'm surprised there weren't more explosions), goats being herded across the highway by ancient women, children playing games in traffic, private cars and buses alike pulling over in the most inconvenient places for a picnic or public bath, and best of all the suicidal overtaking maneuvers (or what we would call 'passing') by our bus and others while going downhill at incredible speeds or around hairpin turns uphill with absolutely no power left to actually get around the other vehicle. — Jennifer S. Alderson

Women can be a rough trip, but there's no better ride on earth. — Steven Manchester

Not in San Salvador, he thinks, where the shanty slums press against gleaming high-rises like the thatched huts of medieval peasants pressed against castle walls. Except these castle walls are patrolled by private security guards wielding automatic rifles and machine pistols. And at night, the guards venture out from the castle walls and ride through the villages ...and slaughter the peasants, leaving their bodies at crossroads and in the middle of village squares, and rape and kill women and execute children in front of their parents.

So the survivors will know their place.

It's a killing ground, Art thinks.

El Salvador.

The Savior, my ass. — Don Winslow

A third myth is that men think that women like guys who are dangerous. As a result, guys will often smoke cigarettes, drink too much, and ride a motorcycle without a helmet. The reality? Women don't like guys who are dangerous. Women want us to think that because women are trying to kill us. — Dennis Miller

She'll be a fierce woman, that one. It'll take a hell of a man to love her right. Be like living with a thunderstorm. Same as her mother. A fierce woman. Force of nature. The kind of woman you just hand on for the ride. The most exciting and the most heartbreaking woman you could ever meet. They don't know their own minds most of the time, but their hearts are so damn big it hurts em inside. — Brian Doyle

Office. "Freaking glorious." I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder and I headed out. Tank was standing guard on the sidewalk, in front of my car. "I have a couple FTAs," I said to Tank. "One's in the Burg and one's in Hamilton Township. I have to stop at my apartment first to get some clean clothes and stuff." "It might be easier if we took one car for the busts," Tank said. I agreed. "Do you want to drive or ride shotgun?" Tank's eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. Shocked that I would even consider driving. Tank only rode shotgun to Ranger. "It's the twenty-first century," I told Tank. "Women drive." "Only in my bed," Tank said. "Never in my car." I didn't have a reply to that, but I thought it sounded like an okay philosophy. So I beeped the Escape locked, got into Tank's SUV, and we chugged off for my place. — Janet Evanovich

Think, Dagny, what it is to sit by the window in the eventide and hear the kelpie wailing in the boat-house; to sit waiting and listening for the dead men's ride to Valhal; for their way lies past us here in the north. They are the brave men that fell in fight, the strong women that did not drag out their lives tamely, like thee and me; they sweep through the storm-night on their black horses, with jangling bells! Ha, Dagny! think of riding the last ride on so rare a steed! — Henrik Ibsen

There are two kinds of women in the world: those who savor, and those who don't. The ones who savor know how to enjoy a good time when it happens. We dig in the claws and ride a rush as hard and as long as we can.
And then there are those other gals. I don't know if they feel guilty about having fun or if they take themselves too seriously - or maybe they're just afraid they'll get their hair mussed if they throw their head back and have a good time. Whatever it is, they'll push back from the table at d'Annunzio's, still flushed from some masterpiece of chocolate-raspberry bliss, and their first words uttered will involve 'walking it off. — Chris Dee

Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and chatter at tea parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable mauve. — Oscar Wilde

In the past I had often tried to escape the grown-up world of sorrow through my imagination- dreaming that a handsome young lieutenant would ride to my rescue or that a great empresario would discover my musical talents and whisk me away. I had envisioned knights in shining armor and happily ever after scenes to escape from rules or boredom or pain; including a vision of my mother walking through our front door whole and well again. Now I knew that a lifetime of escape led to a life like Aunt Bertie's. My imagination was a gift, but I had to live in the real world. My eyes had been opened this summer to poverty and crime and abuse and I needed to use my imagination not to escape, but to help people like Irina and Katya, to make my own contribution as the women in the women's pavilion had done. I couldn't do it in the same way Jane Adams and my grandmother and Aunt Mat were, but I would find my own way and my own time. — Lynn Austin

I argued last year on my shared blog that selling the right to immigrate would be the best approach to legal immigration. Among other benefits, the revenue from immigrants' payments could reduce taxes. Paying for the right to immigrate would also negate the argument that immigrants get a free ride when they gain health care and other benefits. Moreover, making immigrants pay would attract the type of immigrants who came much earlier in American history: young men and women who are reasonably skilled and want to make a long-term commitment to the United States. — Gary Becker

You're kidding, right? The whole town will know where we are just by the idle on that thing."
He feigned a look of shock. "That thing is a 1966 GTO. It has a name, okay? It's Mack - as in 'to mack on women.' I rebuilt it last year, and I was told the engine makes girls hot."
"Someone actually used those words? Is it true?"
"TBD," he said.
"You're goofy. Let's ride in my Jeep. Its name is Jeep."
Quinn chuckled. "Kavanagh has a smart mouth. — Laura Anderson Kurk

It was a real honor for me to get to be the first woman astronaut. I think it's really important that young girls that are growing up today can see that women can be astronauts too. There have actually been a lot of women, who are astronauts, that that's a career that's open to them. — Sally Ride

The prospect of going home again scared them. They couldn't imagine how they could ever settle to it. How they could just walk around the streets and pretend to be normal, look women in the eye again after what they had done and seen, ride on trams, sit at a table with a white cloth, and control their hands and just slowly eat. It was the little things that scared them. The big things you could hide in. It was little ones that gave a man away. — David Malouf

Edwina always enjoyed a morning ride. Some mornings she rode the horse, and some mornings she rode the groom. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

Chorus of old men: If we give them the least hold over us, 'tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights like Artemisia; nay if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine, firm seat for the gallop. Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men. — Aristophanes

The ocean, whose tides respond, like women's menses, to the pull of the moon, the ocean which corresponds to the amniotic fluid in which human life begins, the ocean on whose surface vessels (personified as female) can ride but in whose depth sailors meet their death and monsters conceal themselves ... it is unstable and threatening as the earth is not; it spawns new life daily, yet swallows up lives; it is changeable like the moon, unregulated, yet indestructible and eternal. — Adrienne Rich

All history, and most especially the history of the 20th century, argues against placing ideas in the saddle and allowing them to ride mankind. Too often, they end up riding individual men and women into mass graves. — Terry Teachout