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ff9973c A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others...thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish. men women C.S. Lewis
2f07ee2 An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know. All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!-that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant . . . women subjectivity Virginia Woolf
14da37f girls please give your bodies and your lives to the young men who deserve them besides there is no way I would welcome the intolerable dull senseless hell you would bring me and I wish you luck in bed and out but not in mine thank you. irony poem poetry women funny death life love bukowski dull girls misogyny rejection sexuality hell Charles Bukowski
5857556 Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves! suffering women love self-sacrifice purity girls Honoré de Balzac
c7ea542 Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems. fiction women on-fiction problems women-writers gender Virginia Woolf
b8ef92f You see, women have been essential to every great move of God. Yes, Moses led the Isaelites out of Egypt, but only after his mother risked her life to save him! Closer to our time, Clara Barton was instrumental in starting the Red Cross. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin put fire into people's heart to end slavery in the United States. Rosa Parks kicked the Civil Rights movement into gear with her quiet act of courage. Eunice Kennedy Shriver created the Special Olympics. Mother Teresa inspired the world by bringing love to countless thought unlovable. And millions of other women quietly change the world every day by bringing the love of God to those around them. women religion spritual Stasi Eldredge
6b64257 On ne nait pas femme: on le devient. women education gender-realization birth upbringing gender Simone de Beauvoir
1778d04 I doubt if there are many normal women who can resist looking at houses. I believe, in fact, that when a house is up for sale more than half the people who look over it are not prospective buyers, but merely ladies who cannot resist exploring someone else's house. women Mary Stewart
f1b90db She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. women Zora Neale Hurston
43ed832 Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated. women sing celebrate Terry Tempest Williams
8d26765 If I be waspish, best beware my sting. women wasps wit William Shakespeare
6a845fa "Sometimes I forget how much I like riding the bike." Most chicks do," I said. "Roar of the engine and so on." Murphy's blue eyes glittered with annoyance and anticipation. "Pig. You really enjoy dropping all women together in the same demographic, don't you?" It's not my fault all women like motorcycles, Murph. They're basically huge vibrators. With wheels." women humor karrin-murphy Jim Butcher
f55a7de She has man's brain--a brain that a man should have were he much gifted--and woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me when He made that so good combination. mankind man woman mind women god heart intelligence combination gifted giftedness purpose brains Bram Stoker
1cca91a "...Whenever someone says to me, 'Jerry Lewis says women aren't funny,' or 'Christopher Hitchens says women aren't funny,' or 'Rick Fenderman says women aren't funny... Do you have anything to say to that?' feminism women humor Tina Fey
38b170b Your man Jesus seems to me a bit of a son of a bitch when it comes to women,'Roland said. 'Was He ever married?' The corners of Callahan's mouth quirked. 'No' he said, 'but His girlfriend was a whore.' 'Well,' Roland said, 'that's a start.' women Stephen King
3b706b4 A yet women -good women- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. women Charles Bukowski
61591ab she wasn't very interesting but few people are. poem poetry people women humanity family death life love bukowski interesting conversation society Charles Bukowski
56f2ec8 Don't tell thin women to eat a cheeseburger. Don't tell fat women to put down the fork. Don't tell underweight men to bulk up. Don't tell women with facial hair to wax, don't tell uncircumcised men they're gross, don't tell muscular women to go easy on the dead-lift, don't tell dark-skinned women to bleach their vagina, don't tell black women to relax their hair, don't tell flat-chested women to get breast implants, don't tell "apple-shaped" women what's "flattering," don't tell mothers to hide their stretch marks, and don't tell people whose toes you don't approve of not to wear flip-flops. And so on, etc, etc, in every iteration until the mountains crumble to the sea. Basically, just go ahead and CEASE telling other human beings what they "should" and "shouldn't" do with their bodies unless a) you are their doctor, or b) SOMEBODY GODDAMN ASKED YOU. people women life inspirational society Lindy West
df4d5f8 Gentlemen, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color. women gentlemen Louisa May Alcott
86b8e04 Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding back love and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then, usually, there was trouble. women Charles Bukowski
be2612e Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself. reading women teaching Virginia Woolf
33ba8e1 "And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation." women joy fear family hope concepts daughters heritage mothers immigration language perception ideas tradition luck Amy Tan
02ba675 Human kind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies? women inspirational rights Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
12f145e When she can't bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt. women guilt Libba Bray
2f2b7bf Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics. artists arts women empowerment restrictions encroachment careers occupation skills liberation women-writers gender creativity Virginia Woolf
145db46 In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water. women grotesque Natsuo Kirino
c73399a He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex. men women love french Gustave Flaubert
868bd92 She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something. women love wild insane Charles Bukowski
1b4a9e4 "Wine and women make wise men dote and forsake God's law and do wrong." However, the fault is not in the wine, and often not in the woman. The fault is in the one who misuses the wine or the woman or other of God's crations. Even if you get drunk on the wine and through this greed you lapse into lechery, the wine is not to blame but you are, in being unable or unwilling to discipline yourself. And even if you look at a woman and become caught up in her beauty and assent to sin [= adultery; extramarital sex], the woman is not to blame nor is the beauty given her by God to be disparaged: rather, you are to blame for not keeping your heart more clear of wicked thoughts. ... If you feel yourself tempted by the sight of a woman, control your gaze better ... You are free to leave her. Nothing constrains you to commit lechery but your own lecherous heart." stereotypes men temptation women greed beauty clichés drunkenness social-norms misogyny hypocrisy double-standards immorality gender lust sexuality wine Anonymous
55a6e99 Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be embarrassingly good at it... women fantasy humor Terry Pratchett
fffe1d3 No, women like you don't write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness. women writing quisqueya haiti Edwidge Danticat
bc305dc The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain. women beauty humor plainness making-love Oscar Wilde
bb49bed "I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer," said Mrs. Maylie; "I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting." women love Charles Dickens
de7bee1 Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women. It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it. escape women humor eve paradise sarcasm Oscar Wilde
825b6d7 Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness. motherhood women family family-life catholicism womanhood mother women-s-strength G.K. Chesterton
94bb56f "And an unaware witch means a witch who doesn't know she's a witch, and because she's a women that makes her double trouble. Never trust a women." My mothers a women," I said, suddenly feeling a little angry, "and I trust her." Mothers are usually women," said the Spook. "And mothers are usually quite trustworthy, as long as your their son. Otherwise look out!" women witch Joseph Delaney
f264ecc A woman can't do anything about her appearance. Either she's pretty or she isn't. But her character is quite another matter. women beauty character inspirational Julie Garwood
4045c02 Recently abandoned women can be complicated. women complicated Elizabeth Kostova
16667bd Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any. women Charles Bukowski
f28b5f1 "He'd always liked women who'd talk back to him just a little bit. "Girls with balls" were good. Women with an actual mind of their own who could prove him wrong in something were, of course, castrating bitches who should be drowned in bottomless wells." women hypocrisy sexism Warren Ellis
9d160e3 I must be in love with this woman, Sumire realized with a start. No mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. This current's too overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very well be a special place, some place I've never seen before. Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything. But there's no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if it means I'll be burned up, gone forever. women love Haruki Murakami
772aaec On Stripping Bark from Myself (for Jane, who said trees die from it) Because women are expected to keep silent about their close escapes I will not keep silent and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will please mark the spot where I fall and know I could not live silent in my own lies hearing their 'how nice she is!' whose adoration of the retouched image I so despise. No. I am finished with living for what my mother believes for what my brother and father defend for what my lover elevates for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes to embrace. I find my own small person a standing self against the world an equality of wills I finally understand. Besides: My struggle was always against an inner darkness: I carry within myself the only known keys to my death - to unlock life, or close it shut forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color yellow and the sun, I am happy to fight all outside murderers as I see I must. women Alice Walker
a95169b I'll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I'll take up attacking women - it's a bloody hard way to make a living. women Diana Gabaldon
4e98ed3 "Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that." women humor intelligence minds wit William Goldman
f3ee001 "Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?" [...] "'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.'" I stop finish my J&B in one swallow. "What does the other part of him think?" Hamlin asks tentatively. "What her head would look like on a stick" women gein psycho ed Bret Easton Ellis
7b6ad07 ..she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. .. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. women Zora Neale Hurston
603ca28 When exactly did every housewife in America become a whore? women whores Chuck Klosterman
062deba Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap--I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you--because you know how to perform them--have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice--and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you. women freedom-of-choice law John Irving
d96ba61 I have always thought that if women's hair posed so many problems, God would certainly have made us bald. women religion veil hijab religious-beliefs womanhood hair islam Marjane Satrapi
8fea4ff You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman. women desparation Lisa See
04a1ab8 She wanted to be herself again, to recover all that she had been obliged to give up in half a century of servitude that had doubtless made her happy but which, once her husband was dead, did not leave her even the vestiges of her identity. marriage women identity Gabriel García Márquez
3dea1d9 Everyone knows that the Internet is changing our lives, mostly because someone in the media has uttered that exact phrase every single day since 1993. However, it certainly appears that the main thing the Internet has accomplished is the normalization of amateur pornography. There is no justification for the amount of naked people on the World Wide Web, many of whom are clearly (clearly!) doing so for non-monetary reasons. Where were these people fifteen years ago? Were there really millions of women in 1986 turning to their husbands and saying, 'You know, I would love to have total strangers masturbate to images of me deep-throating a titanium dildo, but there's simply no medium for that kind of entertainment. I guess we'll just have to sit here and watch again. sex women porn internet technology Chuck Klosterman
454bca6 It's only through sheer force and luck that she's yet to take over the world. world women humor her takeover Julia Quinn
373946c She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot. She turned the moon into salve, the stars into swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four. women Gloria Naylor
2b38ece Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best -- making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred -- secret hatred: there is disgust -- unspoken disgust: there is treachery -- family treachery: there is vice -- deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies ... All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. god is a masked Death. family-relationships hatred unhappiness injustice marriage women death disparity domestic-life false-belief lovelessness scorn unfreedom disharmony families preconceptions discord married-life worldliness idolatry decay demons matrimony force social-norms society hypocrisy disgust contempt vice expectations Charlotte Brontë
1541f0a A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people's evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction. women peer-pressure Natsuo Kirino
bdbb4da Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper. silence women writing-whisper Terry Tempest Williams
0ae5bfd I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I'm going to bring up my daughter so that she's free and can stand on her own feet. I'm not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he's willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life. sex women W. Somerset Maugham
d63d76d Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was, in terms of permanently memorable, immoderately perceptive, small-area faces, a stunning and final girl. women J.D. Salinger
0819c71 The clue to everything a man should love and fear in her was there right from the start in the ironic smile that primed and swelled the archery of her full lips. There was pride in that smile and confidence in the set of her fine nose. Without understanding why I knew beyond question that a lot of people would mistake her pride for arrogance and confuse her confidence with impassivity. I didn't make that mistake. My eyes were lost swimming floating free in the shimmering lagoon of her steady even stare. Her eyes were large and spectacularly green. It was the green that trees are in vivid dreams. It was the green that the sea would be if the sea were perfect. women love-at-first-sight Gregory David Roberts
570631a Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan. I thought of that policeman, Eddie Hazelwurst, saying I'd lowered myself to be in this house of colored women, and for the very life of me I couldn't understand how it had turned out this way, how colored women had become the lowest ones on the totem pole. You only had to look at them to see how special they were, like hidden royalty among us. Eddie Hazelwurst. What a shitbucket. women race Sue Monk Kidd
83bc5d6 Okay, take a deep breath, I told myself. Don't go all hormonal. Get the facts straight. Have a mental doughnut. women Janet Evanovich
4fc22a0 I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths. women Bram Stoker
ac7ba44 "I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women with principle. I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they'd been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. "You get what you pay for." -- men relationships women love inspirational principle purity dating Elisabeth Elliot
8211541 A weapon men use against women is the refusal to take them seriously. women women-s-inspirational women-and-men David Mitchell
f46de37 There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing. sleep woman women sadness happiness waking melancholy William Shakespeare
3b5cdcb I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- . Know this at last. integrity marriage feminism self-determination independence women empowerment love matrimony dignity social-norms conscience gender courtship wooing Charlotte Brontë
1f5e3c7 I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas. women W. Somerset Maugham
253f48e However, the majority of women are neither harlots nor courtesans; nor do they sit clasping pug dogs to dusty velvet all through the summer afternoon. But what do they do then? and there came to my mind's eye one of those long streets somewhere south of the river whose infinite rows are innumerably populated. With the eye of the imagination I saw a very ancient lady crossing the street on the arm of a middle-aged woman, her daughter, perhaps, both so respectably booted and furred that their dressing in the afternoon must be a ritual, and the clothes themselves put away in cupboards with camphor, year after year, throughout the summer months. They cross the road when the lamps are being lit (for the dusk is their favourite hour), as they must have done year after year. The elder is close on eighty; but if one asked her what her life has meant to her, she would say that she remembered the streets lit for the battle of Balaclava, or had heard the guns fire in Hyde Park for the birth of King Edward the Seventh. And if one asked her, longing to pin down the moment with date and season, but what were you doing on the fifth of April 1868, or the second of November 1875, she would look vague and say that she could remember nothing. For all the dinners are cooked; the plates and cups washed; the children sent to school and gone out into the world. Nothing remains of it all. All has vanished. No biography or history has a word to say about it. And the novels, without meaning to, inevitably lie. All these infinitely obscure lives remain to be recorded, I said, addressing Mary Carmichael as if she were present; and went on in thought through the streets of London feeling in imagination the pressure of dumbness, the accumulation of unrecorded life, whether from the women at the street corners with their arms akimbo, and the rings embedded in their fat swollen fingers, talking with a gesticulation like the swing of Shakespeare's words; or from the violet-sellers and match-sellers and old crones stationed under doorways; or from drifting girls whose faces, like waves in sun and cloud, signal the coming of men and women and the flickering lights of shop windows. All that you will have to explore, I said to Mary Carmichael, holding your torch firm in your hand. women writing Virginia Woolf
2d60aef He looked at her and tried to discover behind her lascivious expression the familiar features that he loved tenderly. It was as if he were looking at two images through the same lens, at two images superimposed one on the other with one showing through the other. These two images showing through each other were telling him that was in the girl, that her soul was terrifyingly amorphous, that it held faithfulness and unfaithfulness, treachery and innocence, flirtatiousness and chastity. This disorderly jumble seemed disgusting to him, like the variety to be found in a pile of garbage. Both images continued to show through each other, and the young man understood that the girl differed only on the surface from other women, but deep down was the same as they: full of all possible thoughts, feelings, and vices, which justified all his secret misgivings and fits of jealousy. The impression that certain outlines delineated her as an individual was only a delusion to which the other person, the one who was looking, was subject--namely himself. It seemed to him that the girl he loved was a creation of his desire, his thoughts, and his faith and that the girl now standing in front of him was hopelessly other, hopelessly alien, hopelessly . He hated her. sex relationships women Milan Kundera
db0cd2c I have seen sights and travelled in countries you cannot imagine. I have been afraid and I have been in danger, and I have never for one moment thought that I would throw myself at at a man for his help. women inspirational fearless Philippa Gregory
efc42a4 He didn't know why, but seeing her made him feel like a man. She was something out of a dream - a dream in which he was not a spoiled young prince, but a king. woman women woman-and-man princes kings women-and-men prince manhood Sarah J. Maas
32be300 When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt. pain women hurt voice Terry Tempest Williams
571aaa2 Come to think of it, an Aes Sedai would probably follow a man off a cliff, too, if only to explain to him - in detail - all the things he was doing incorrectly in the way he went about killing himself. women Robert Jordan
2424915 We want different things. Men want to have sex with a woman. Then they want to have sex with another woman. And then another. Then they want to eat cornflakes and sleep for a while, and then they want to have sex with another woman, and another, until they die. Women,' and I thought I'd better pick my words carefully when describing a gender I didn't belong to, 'want a relationship. They may not get it, or they may sleep with a lot of men before they do get it, but ultimately that's what they want. That's the goal. Men do not have goals. Natural ones. So they invent them, and put them at either end of a football pitch. And then they invent football. Or they pick fights, or try and get rich, or start wars, or come up with any number of daft bloody things to make up for the fact that they have no real goals.' 'Bollocks,' said Ronnie. 'That, of course, is the other main difference. sex men women monogamy Hugh Laurie
13e56d2 You don't need princes to save you. I don't have a lot of patience for stories in which women are rescued by men. fairy-tales women love inspriational lesbianism strong-heroine women-s-strength Neil Gaiman
5ecbaff "Gruff," I said, "I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what's in a fae woman's mind." women humor Jim Butcher
c6aa821 I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing. women humor harry-dresden Jim Butcher
791edb7 Sarcasm is the language of the devil. women Barbara Delinsky
71f8972 Was not Hypatia the greatest philosopher of Alexandria, and a true martyr to the old values of learning? She was torn to pieces by a mob of incensed Christians not because she was a woman, but because her learning was so profound, her skills at dialectic so extensive that she reduced all who queried her to embarrassed silence. They could not argue with her, so they murdered her. murder women learning education hypatia-of-alexandria philosophers dialectics skills superiority greatness suppression knowledge Iain Pears
9d4e82e Then, what's the matter?' I wonder, in fact, how many times I have said that or something equal to it to a woman passing palely through my life. Love is what this means, of course. Or at least, second best: surrender. Or at the least, take some time regaling me with why you won't, and maybe by the end you will. men relationships women surrender Richard Ford
4a4b467 For he was aware of the great secret of life: Women don't look for handsome men. Women look for men who have had beautiful women. Having an ugly mistress is therefore a fatal mistake. women relationship love mistress ugly Milan Kundera
489a9c1 She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was must be ; what was must be . Shirley was judged. understanding prejudice jealousy passion women empathy morality music love musicality preconceptions feeling fidelity expression faithfulness propriety singing social-norms judgment society gift hypocrisy talent rejection gender expectations Charlotte Brontë
0b8b218 the great lack of parity between husbands and wives has always been spawned by the disproportionate degree of self-sacrifice that women are willing to make on behalf of those they love. women wives Elizabeth Gilbert
0a587d7 You can forgive a young cunt anything. A young cunt doesn't have to have brains. They're better without brains. But an old cunt, even if she's brilliant, even if she's the most charming woman in the world, nothing makes any difference. A young cunt is an investment; an old cunt is a dead loss. All they can do for you is buy you things. But that doesn't put meat on their arms or juice between their legs. women cunts females Henry Miller
098c10e How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil? A woman who didn't love me? Oh, all my life! women Oscar Wilde
c64fc02 Whether it's men, women--it doesn't really matter. The human race is filled with passion and lust. And to coin terms like heterosexuality, homosexuality or even bisexuality makes no sense to me. You are human. You love who you love. You fuck who you fuck. That should be enough--no labels. No stigmas. Nothing. Just be to be. But life isn't that kind. People will always find things to hate. human-race men hate passion women no-labels no-stigmas homosexuality heterosexuality lust Krista Ritchie
cae4b93 Searching for self implied either not liking who you are or wanting to escape who you've been. women Barbara Delinsky
25fc956 I was never really on my side in any argument. I liked the Old Testament spitefulness of the phrase Sometimes women do. women mistreated Gillian Flynn
310277a She says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate. marriage women love W. Somerset Maugham
31a62f9 For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not the very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them. men women W. Somerset Maugham
e88a1a2 She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male. women post-office respect James Joyce
309a79f Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. men women Mark Z. Danielewski
de89612 "His heart cracked, and he fell in love. He wondered if she would marry him. "Tu sei pazzo," she told him with a pleasant laugh. "Why am I crazy?" he asked. "Perche non posso sposare." "Why can't you get married?" "Because I am not a virgin," she answered. "What has that got to do with it?" "Who will marry me? No one wants a girl who is not a virgin." "I will. I'll marry you." "Ma non posso sposarti." "Why can't you marry me?" "Perche sei pazzo." "Why am I crazy?" "Perche vuoi sposarmi." Yossarian wrinkled his forehead with quizzical amusement. "You won't marry me because I'm crazy, and you say I'm crazy because I want to marry you? Is that right?" "Si." "Tu sei pazz'!" he told her loudly. "Perche?" she shouted back at him indignantly, her unavoidable round breasts rising and falling in a saucy huff beneath the pink chemise as she sat up in bed indignantly. "Why am I crazy?" "Because you won't marry me." "Stupido!" she shouted back at him, and smacked him loudly and flamboyantly on the chest with the back of her hand. "Non posso sposarti! Non capisci? Non posso sposarti." "Oh, sure, I understand. And why can't you marry me?" "Perche sei pazzo!" "And why am I crazy?" "Perche vuoi sposarmi." "Because I want to marry you. Carina, ti amo," he explained, and he drew her gently back down to the pillow. "Ti amo molto." "Tu sei pazzo," she murmured in reply, flattered. "Perche?" "Because you say you love me. How can you love a girl who is not a virgin?" "Because I can't marry you." She bolted right up again in a threatening rage. "Why can't you marry me?" she demanded, ready to clout him again if he gave an uncomplimentary reply. "Just because I am not a virgin?" "No, no, darling. Because you're crazy." marriage women Joseph Heller
4f4dae2 I only want one thing of men, and that is, that they should leave me alone. men women sassy leave D.H. Lawrence
0ec5edf But some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one. women Thomas Hardy
6a51ac9 "Susan hardly had begun to slow down when Tera appeared from between a couple of buildings and loped over to the car. I leaned forward, opened the door, and she got into the backseat. I threw her the extra clothes I had picked up, and she began to dress without comment. It worked," I said. "We did it." Of course it worked," Tera said. "Men are foolish. They will stare at anything female and naked." sex men women Jim Butcher
82454b8 At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? human-rights india equality women reality truth inspirational environmental-degradation false-gods narmada-valley dam government-corruption corporations nationalism economics government capitalism exploitation Arundhati Roy
9e8869d If you were offered the chance to live your own life again, would you seize the opportunity? The only real philosophical answer is automatically self-contradictory: 'Only if I did not know that I was doing so.' To go through the entire experience once more would be banal and Sisyphean--even if it did build muscle--whereas to wish to be young again and to have the benefit of one's learned and acquired existence is not at all to wish for a repeat performance, or a Groundhog Day. And the mind ought to, but cannot, set some limits to wish-thinking. All right, same but with more money, an even sturdier penis, slightly different parents, a briefer latency period... the thing is absurd. I seriously would like to know what it was to be a woman, but like blind Tiresias would also want the option of re-metamorphosing if I wished. How terrible it is that we have so many more desires than opportunities. money opportunity youth women life philosophy conundrums groundhog-day self-contradiction tiresias wishful-thinking parents desire old-age Christopher Hitchens
2428b8f "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, unsmiling. "And ask in what sense that young man is worthy of ?" integrity marriage men equality feminism self-determination independence women self-awareness empowerment suitability worthiness marriage-proposal matrimony dignity social-norms inferiority gender courtship wooing Charlotte Brontë
2b765d4 "And since a novel has this correspondence to real life, its values are to some extent those of real life. But it is obvious that the values of women differ very often from the values which have been made by the other sex; naturally this is so. Yet is it the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are "important"; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes "trivial." And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. 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." war literature women Virginia Woolf
f7de6a3 Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy. women humor karrin-murphy Jim Butcher
92a3b29 Women are delicate creatures. Fragile. Gentle. Made by God to be sheltered from the harshness of this world.. Morgan MacDonnell women Teresa Medeiros
eed5be2 Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one's shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades. Words like 'full', 'round' and even 'pert' creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down. Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn't about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer. Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword. All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. women fantasy humor Terry Pratchett
6866128 An intelligent, energetic, educated woman cannot be kept in four walls -- even satin-lined, diamond-studded walls -- without discovering sooner or later that they are still a prison cell. women-s-rights women empowerment women-s-liberation double-standards inequality prison Pearl S. Buck
0f05a22 How unbearable, for women, is the tenderness which a man can give them without love. For men, how bittersweet this is. men women albert-camus notebooks Albert Camus
c1a431b DON PEDRO Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, 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 PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. men women honesty love falsehood payback dishonesty deceit hearts William Shakespeare
8857d4e Right Jo better be happy old maids than unhappy wives or unmaidenly girls running about to find husbands. happy women Louisa May Alcott
3bf3910 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. woman women sybil-vimes wife discworld Terry Pratchett
45e895c We think of women at every age: while still children, we fondle with a naive sensuality the breasts of those grown-up girls kissing us and cuddling us in their arms; at the age of ten, we dream of love; at fifteen, love comes along; at sixty, it is still with us, and if dead men in their tombs have any thought in their heads, it is how to make their way underground to the nearby grave, lift the shroud of the dear departed women, and mingle with her in her sleep women Gustave Flaubert
76f4f28 "When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen." women inspirational literary historical David McCullough
1243109 - You look fine. - Right. I look fine. Except I don't, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust. women mother Zadie Smith
e685918 Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right. marriage women humor Oscar Wilde
dd7cc99 "Nicasia said that as mortal power grows, land and sea ought to be united. And that they would be, either in the way she hoped or the way I should fear." "Ominous," I say. "It seems I have a singular taste for women who threaten me." women mortal ominous threaten power Holly Black
11ec41b For men, the softer emotions are always intertwined with power and pride. That was why Karna waited for me to plead with him though he could have stopped my suffering with a single world. That was why he turned on me when I refused to ask for his pity. That was why he incited Dussasan to an action that was against the code of honor by which he lived his life. He knew he would regret it--in his fierce smile there had already been a glint of pain. But was a woman's heart any purer, in the end? That was the final truth I learned. All this time I'd thought myself better than my father, better than all those men who inflicted harm on a thousand innocents in order to punish the one man who had wronged them. I'd thought myself above the cravings that drove him. But I, too, was tainted with them, vengeance encoded into my blood. When the moment came I couldn't resist it, no more than a dog can resist chewing a bone that, splintering, makes his mouth bleed. Already I was storing these lessons inside me. I would use them over the long years of exile to gain what I wanted, no matter what its price. But Krishna, the slippery one, the one who had offered me a different solace, Krishna with his disappointed eyes--what was the lesson he'd tried to teach? men women pride power Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
6280a54 Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway. women Terry Pratchett
244adad Cheap jewelry, however, is worse than no jewelry at all, and there are very few things in life than are worse than no jewelry at all. women jewelry Jill Conner Browne
c8ab6ea . . . [O]nce we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. political women inspirational social sexuality Audre Lorde
1259501 I love doubt in a woman. It's nearly as sexy as determination. sex doubt women Irvine Welsh
3d7dd0f There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why. women inspirational Terry Tempest Williams
24678bf "NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE To be an Artist you need talent, as well as a wife who washes the socks and the children, and returns phone calls and library books and types. In other words, the reason there are so many more Men Geniuses than Women Geniuses is not Genius. It is because Hemingway never joined the P.T.A. And Arthur Rubinstein ignored Halloween. Do you think Portnoy's creator sits through children's theater matinees--on Saturdays? Or that Norman Mailer faced 'driver's ed' failure, chicken pox or chipped teeth? Fitzgerald's night was so tender because the fender his teen-ager dented happened when Papa was at a story conference. Since Picasso does the painting, Mrs. Picasso did the toilet training. And if Saul Bellow, National Book Award winner, invited thirty-three for Thanksgiving Day dinner, I'll bet he had help. I'm sure Henry Moore was never a Cub Scout leader, and Leonard Bernstein never instructed a tricycler On becoming a bicycler just before he conducted. Tell me again my anatomy is not necessarily my destiny, tell me my hang-up is a personal and not a universal quandary, women women-the-arts muse talent Rochelle Distelheim
1bfd8a8 I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought that natural. I shouldn't really have blamed him. I should have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are so unscrupulous. men women W. Somerset Maugham
4b67e0d Perhaps all women are part faerie, for what woman can deny her faerie blood when the portals to her own land are open; when the full moon sings its insistent song; when sorrow and passion and rage pulse through her body at moon times. This is why women are the chosen ones of Faerie, pat of the vibrant, fluid, emotional soul of the world... women mystical Brian Froud
3efba57 "Women aren't very bright," Rip says. "Studies have been done." women Bret Easton Ellis
d2b1cd9 We have a world full of women who are unable to exhale fully because they have for so long been conditioned to fold themselves into shapes to make themselves likeable. women Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
6e2128b Never let stress shape your strategy. Most women think better after a brisk walk, a light meal, a massage and a nap. women Barbara Taylor Bradford
816a19d I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do. women Henry James
5999e19 I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman. money murder women noir James M. Cain
4332e1d "With women who do not love us, as with the "dear departed," the knowledge that there is no hope left does not prevent us from continuing to wait." women unrequited-love Marcel Proust
a171a13 She brooded and bit her rich lips: my soul began its first sink into her, deep, heady, lost; like drowning in a witches' brew, Keltic, sorcerous, starlike. women Jack Kerouac
85bd190 Feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive. It is misogynistic to suggest that they are. Sadly, women have learned to be ashamed and apologetic about pursuits that are seen as traditionally female, such as fashion and makeup. But our society does not expect men to feel ashamed of pursuits considered generally male - sports cars, certain professional sports. In the same way, men's grooming is never suspect in the way women's grooming is - a well-dressed man does not worry that, because he is dressed well, certain assumptions might be made about his intelligence, his ability, or his seriousness. A woman, on the other hand, is always aware of how a bright lipstick or a carefully-put-together outfit might very well make others assume her to be frivolous. feminism women makeup misogyny femininity Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
0584ec5 The hearts of women are like those little pieces of furniture with secret hiding - places, full of drawers fitted into each other; you go to a lot of trouble, break your nails, and in the bottom find some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness! women Gustave Flaubert
096a6ed I believe a woman, in order to be a good wife, must be (among other things) both sensual and maternal. marriage women Elisabeth Elliot
d7e5fca The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. The power of the glamorous resides in their supposed happiness: the power of the bureaucrat in his supposed authority. women publicity envy fashion glamour John Berger
7b0926d Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress? sex women love seduction Haruki Murakami
0e0add0 Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind. women Barbara Taylor Bradford
657b092 In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. literature men people women humor property rural-society village-life ownership Elizabeth Gaskell
5cff7a8 People don't get what they deserve; they get what they work for. women Barbara Delinsky
d4037c8 "Free women," said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinizing glance from her friend: "They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them." men women freedom Doris Lessing
c89acc1 What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage. irony marriage women empowerment love disharmony subjection discord matrimony storytelling inequality gender courtship sarcasm Charlotte Brontë
71071b2 In my experience, men who understand women seem to rarely want to have anything to do with them. women Khaled Hosseini
a5b8192 "...when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language. .......When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversion, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considering that, and replying to it. All these other conversations have been going on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know they existed...... I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. .....So ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it's tempting fate to think to yourself, "The man can't possibly be that stupid!" But yes. Yes, he can." men women Jim Butcher
2a33ced People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit. women humor Georgette Heyer
339cf09 I don't like compliments and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean. words men women flattery hypocrisy Oscar Wilde
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