Women Quotes

She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip-shod and in curl-papers, all day.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Independence is a complex word in a foreign tongue. To resist occupation, whether you're a nation or merely a woman, you must understand the language of your enemy. Conquest and liberation and democrac and divorce are words that mean squat, basically, when you have hungry children and clothes to get out on the line and it looks like rain.

~ Barbara Kingsolver

If you women continue to demand your choice to work, you will so upset the economy of this country that the time will come when you will not have a choice. You will have to work.

~ Helen B. Andelin

Maybe that was the root of my dislike for her: she had what I wanted, which earned her my jealousy, and since I was ashamed of myself for wanting it, my scorn, as well.

~ Nenia Campbell

It comes down to this. Some one must wash the dishes. Now, would you expect man, man made in the image of God, to roll up his sleeves and wash the dishes? Why, it would be blasphemy. I know that I am but a rib and so I wash the dishes.

~ Marie Jenney Howe

The power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I told Mama and Savannah about Ruben's proposal. That got us to talking about marriage and we laughed and cried some, and missed Papa, and it felt good to belong to each other. I don't feel as lonely today as I have in months. At least I know there are other women around me.

~ Nancy E. Turner

In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.

~ Nicholas D. Kristof

No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you.She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsm

~ Charlotte Brontë

Sybil’s female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars.  The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.

~ Terry Pratchett

Women who disapprove of men - and there's plenty to disapprove of - should remember how we started out, and how far we had to travel.

~ Nick Hornby

A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.

~ Raymond Chandler

When I say that we must establish values with originate in sisterhood, I mean to say that we must not accept, even for a moment, male notions of what non-violence is. These notions have never condemned the systematic violence against us. The men who hold these notions have never renounced the male behaviours, privileges, values and conceits which are in and of themselves acts of violence against us.

~ Andrea Dworkin

[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.

~ Antonia Fraser

She liked me because she said that we both hated everything and knew that friendship was an act of desperation. She said that for a man I was alright. She said that people were half-way and if it was up to her a lot of people would get killed and a lot of men would be walking around without their balls. She said that they should go on sale for women to hang off their rearview mirrors.

~ Henry Rollins

The less we love her when we woo her,The more we draw a woman in

~ Alexander Pushkin

Some women seem so voluptuous in every sense, richly bountiful and fertile with generous gifts of plenty, sensual and confident in their female strength that they are called earth mot

~ Vera Nazarian

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women's rights as part of its reforms. Ironically, the section on women's rights was added by a senator from Virginia who opposed the whole thing and was said to be sure that if he stuck something about womens' rights into it, it would never pass. The bill passed anyway, though, much to the chagrin of a certain wiener from Virginia.

~ Adam Selzer

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

~ Peter Prange

So you see, the most vital question then becomes, what type of woman will conquer our hero? If she be of poor quality, he’ll become a slave. But if she be great, then her greatness will elevate the man to greater heights than he could ever have attained on his own.

~ Bryan M. Litfin

So I'm back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life's rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably.

~ Marian Keyes

Catholics are frequently criticised because of the prominence and respect given to the Virgin Mary while simultaneously condemned for not giving enough prominence and respect to women.

~ Michael Coren

It is back to basics here,’ Jason said. ‘What women seek to find in a man is dictated by evolution and the role of the man as a hunter gatherer. Women want a bad boy who will treat them well but not so well that they will have nothing to bitch about to their female friends. Bitching about the male of the species is how females bond with each other…another one of evolutions little jokes.

~ J.d. Gallagher

Goddammit! How does the world keep spinning with women on the planet?Ian St. John in THE POMPEII SCROLL

~ Jacqueline Latourrette

Most women are more into real estate than sex. They want to own you.

~ Stephen Dobyns

Women do not become exhausted they only exhaust others.

~ Robert Jordan

DON PEDROCome, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.BEATRICEIndeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.DON PEDROYou have put him down, lady, you have put him down.BEATRICESo I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.

~ William Shakespeare

Rumours voiced by women come to nothing.

~ Aeschylus

Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other--outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend -- if possible, a deaf one.

~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind.

~ Barbara Taylor Bradford

Woman in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow, into private ownership mostly, or out of it altogether.

~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

And while you and the rest of your kind are battling together—year after year—for this special privilege of being 'bored to death,' the 'real girl' that you're asking about, the marvelous girl, the girl with the big, beautiful, unspoken thoughts in her head, the girl with the big, brave, undone deeds in her heart, the girl that stories are made of, the girl whom you call 'improbable'—is moping off alone in some dark, cold corner—or sitting forlornly partnerless against the bleak wall of the ballroom—or hiding shyly up in the dressing-room—waiting to be discovered!

~ Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

how lacking in intuition men could be in persuading themselves that mending some stranger's socks, and attending to his comfort, could content a woman...

~ Daphne Du Maurier

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

~ Virginia Woolf

Are you listening, Jasper? Sometimes you'll be walking in the city late at night, and a woman walking in front of you will spin her head around and then cross the street simply because some members of your gender rape women and molest children!

~ Steve Toltz

When I was extremely young and shockingly stupid, I thought you weren't supposed to ever get angry at anybody you cared about (lest you suspect I'm exaggerating the shockingly stupid part, I also thought Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon). I honestly believed that people who were truly in love would never dream of having a good, old-fashioned, knock-down, drag-out fight. I guess when you're the type of girl who walks around thinking that the wind just sort of sculpted Teddy Roosevelt into the side of a mountain, the concept of a fairy-tale relationship makes total sense.

~ Lisa Kogan

Papa, I'm ashamed that you think women are so simple. We can make decisions for ourselves too, you know. I'm not a child or a baby anymore, so I'm allowed to speak my mind. And if you don't wish to hear it, just tell me so and I'll go into another room-but I'll speak it anyway. I want this for myself as much as I've never wanted the diplomatic corps and I'm going to get it-even if I have to do it alone. Excuse me.

~ Steve Kluger

Now that I think about it, maybe he is a werewolf. I can picture him lunging over the moors in hot pursuit of his prey, and I'm certain that he wouldn't think twice about eating an innocent bystander. I'll watch him closely at the next full moon. He's asked me to go dancing tomorrow--perhaps I should wear a high collar. Oh, that's vampires, isn't it? I think I am a little giddy. (After meeting Mr. Markham V. Reynolds, Jr.)

~ Mary Ann Shaffer

It seems to Henry, as he takes his seat in his usual middle pew, that women are far braver than men

~ Elizabeth Strout