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1b30a26 "Really? And what curse befalls the Adams of the world?" Ann opens her mouth and, presumably thinking of nothing to say, closes it again. It is Felicity who answers, eyes steely. "They are weak to temptation. And we are their temptresses." -- men women temptaion power Libba Bray
b4ed666 A choice of pains. That's what living was all about. struggle women decisions gender sad Audre Lorde
d3cd623 "To be popular one must be a mediocrity." "Not with Women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmered Dorian." women Oscar Wilde
686e219 Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is badly out of balance, in favor of men. men courage women sexism Isabel Allende
34996a9 Confidence could be applied like makeup. I knew that for fact. relationships women makeup-and-beauty Barbara Delinsky
e08a2d6 "You must go further than I did," Nedra said. "You know that." "Further?" "With your life. You must become free." She did not explain it; she could not. It was not a matter of living alone, though in her case this had been necessary. The freedom she meant was self-conquest. It was not a natural state. It was meant only for those who would risk everything for it, who were aware that without it life is only appetites until the teeth are gone." risk women mothers-and-daughters James Salter
448d682 Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see. women Zora Neale Hurston
4d91af8 God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of that she should not have sex with anyone except you -- yet you are not willing to observe the same restraint in return. Where you ought to be ahead of your wife in virtue, you collapse under the onset of lechery. ... Complaints are always being made about men's lechery, yet wives do not dare to find fault with their husbands for it. Male lechery is so brazen and so habitual that it is now sanctioned [= permitted], to the extent that men tell their wives that lechery and adultery are legitimate for men but not for women. stereotypes marriage men women morality clichés fidelity wives social-norms misogyny hypocrisy double-standards gender sexuality Augustine of Hippo
af1d004 Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. feminism self-determination women morality empowerment encroachment dignity social-norms liberty suppression misogyny hypocrisy double-standards gender sexuality Virginia Woolf
260f57a When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often then not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover. relationships women secrets Thomas Hardy
2027563 Who doesn't have a friend who worships her lover with a passion that seems baffling to everyone that knows them? Before you met him for the first time, she'd talked him up like he was a cross between Indiana Jones, Barack Obama and The Doctor. When you finally meet him, he's a quiet little thing who looks like a baked bean in glasses, and actually says 'harumph' as spelt. relationships women Caitlin Moran
2acec2b Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?' Nyawira asked rather sharply. 'Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood? Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions? Miriama Ba of Senegal, So Long A Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.' 'I am not much of a reader of fiction,' Kamiti said. 'Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.' 'Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?' Nyawira pressed. 'Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!' 'I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,' Kamiti said, trying to redeem himself. 'Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads ... Not that I read everything, but ...' 'I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,' Nyawira said. 'The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women? poverty feminism suffering women arundhati-roy buchi-emecheta indian-literature meena-alexander miriama-ba susie-tharu tsitsi-dangarembga novels gender-equality women-s-fiction women-writers Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
b3d182f No man can be really free in bed with a woman who is not. sex women nancy-friday Nancy Friday
1704a43 "He found Luciana sitting alone at a table in the Allied officers' night club, where the drunken Anzac major who had brought her there had been stupid enough to desert her for the ribald company of some singing comrades at the bar. "All right, I'll dance with you," she said, before Yossarian could even speak. "But I won't let you sleep with me." "Who asked you?" Yossarian asked her. "You don't want to sleep with me?" she exclaimed with surprise. "I don't want to dance with you." -- sex women Joseph Heller
dcd693c Repression is a seamless garment; a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual codes, which crushes its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and propriety, breeds repressions of other kinds as well. women mysogyny repression propriety gender-equality womens-rights honor Salman Rushdie
ad33fc1 Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is meant to sell soap. And cars. And beer. And religion. women Libba Bray
b1d0afa The day my father came to claim me, my mother did not wish for me to go. 'She is a girl,' she said, 'and I do not think that she is yours. I had a thousand other men.' He tossed his spear at my feet and gave my mother the back of his hand across the face, so she began to weep. 'Girl or boy, we fight our battles,' he said, 'but the gods let us choose our weapons.' He pointed to the spear, then to my mother's tears, and I picked up the spear. women choice a-song-of-ice-and-fire George R.R. Martin
d0ecf42 I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in 's of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. opportunities equality feminism self-determination fiction poetry women dreams empowerment dignity social-norms women-writers gender Virginia Woolf
f74306c It was too early in the day for this kind of discussion - but really, was it ever too early to discuss matters of the heart? What if the moment passed and never returned? women Barbara Delinsky
455ec12 Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal. men women queens kings Thomas Hardy
9379999 She wore red lipstick the next time that I saw her, though her hair was more voluminous with dirt than before. Owing, like everything else about these girls, to the fertility of rats. women rats Kathy Acker
9325a55 Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part. women W. Somerset Maugham
16147db She blushed. It is a beautiful thing when a woman blushes; at that instant her body no longer belongs to her; she doesn't control it; she is at its mercy; oh, can there be anything more beautiful than the sight of a woman violated by her own body! women control Milan Kundera
3ae4d06 By God, if women had written stories, As clerks had within here oratories, They would have written of men more wickedness Than all the mark of Adam may redress. men women dishonesty storytelling inequality gender evil wickedness Geoffrey Chaucer
6ee3e75 The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is. A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who'll ask the dark its name? men women womanhood fantasy-fiction manhood Ursula K. Le Guin
be2eed1 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. women Nick Hornby
da97423 The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored. women Ina May Gaskin
f7a1744 I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble. women trouble staring Raymond Chandler
1c8e725 I'd been chasing females all my life, not paying no mind to the fact that whatever's got tail at one end has teeth at the other, and now I was getting chomped. women tail teeth Jim Thompson
a4bdd75 She was a woman still controlled by the traumas of her girlhood. It made more sense to put her three-year-old self in the dock. As Dr Byford explained, she was really the victim of a vicious, peculiarly female psycological disorder: she felt one thing and did another. She was a stranger to herself. And were they still like that, she wondered - these new girls, this new generation? Did they still feel one thing and do another? Did they still only want to be wanted? Were they still objects of desire instead of - as Howard might put it - desiring subjects? No, she could see no serious change. Still starving themselves, still reading women's magazines that explicitly hate women, still cutting themselves with little knives in places they think can't be seen, still faking their orgasms with men they dislike, still lying to everybody about everything. women generation objects Zadie Smith
91443a2 On the other couch a women sits with a young boy looking through a picture book about Babar the Elephant. When I find a magazine and I lean back to start reading it, I can see the women watching me out of the corner of her eye. She moves closer to the child and she leans over and kisses his forehead. I know why she does it and i don't blame her. kiss women James Frey
b8bb7a9 Ellen's life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving. men kindness women Margaret Mitchell
10517dc LADY BRACKNELL Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now. women humor Oscar Wilde
4c2ed5f She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments! understanding women living-alone finding-yourself D.H. Lawrence
c8996a3 Because, Jack, you volunteered to be taken down into eternal torment in place of her. This is the absolute (unless I'm mistaken) that any female requires from her man. relationships women Neal Stephenson
192496f You want to know what I'm afraid of? All right, I'll tell you. I'm afraid of men - yes, I'm very much afraid of men. And I'm even more afraid of women. And I'm very much afraid of the whole bloody human race. Afraid of them? Of course I'm afraid of them. Who wouldn't be afraid of a pack of damned hyenas? [...] And when I say afraid - that's just a word I use. What I really mean is that I hate them. I hate their voices, I hate their eyes, I hate the way they laugh. I hate the whole bloody business. It's cruel, it's idiotic, it's unspeakably horrible. I never had the guts to kill myself or I'd have got out of it long ago. human-race suicide men hate women humanity fear guts cruelty horrible idiotic hyenas idiocy cruel horror Jean Rhys
518ec11 Any woman who dares to make her own destiny will always put herself in danger. history women margery-jourdemayne Philippa Gregory
320d27e I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them--one or two of them particularly-- almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel--to be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average man-- no man short of a sensual savage--will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look 'Come on' he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes. virtue sex men women fear molest socializing seduction Thomas Hardy
2f7ec3d Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other. women monarchy Philippa Gregory
0fed880 "No guinea of earned money should go to rebuilding the college on the old plan just as certainly none could be spent upon building a college upon a new plan: therefore the guinea should be earmarked "Rags. Petrol. Matches." And this note should be attached to it. "Take this guinea and with it burn the college to the ground. Set fire to the old hypocrisies. Let the light of the burning building scare the nightingales and incarnadine the willows. And let the daughters of educated men dance round the fire and heap armful upon armful of dead leaves upon the flames. And let their mothers lean from the upper windows and cry, "Let it blaze! Let it blaze! For we have done with this 'education!" women Virginia Woolf
1e9e391 Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it, once more, the deceptiveness of beauty, so that all one's perceptions, half-way to truth, were tangled in a golden mesh? Or did she lock up within her some secret which certainly Lily Briscoe believed people must have for the world to go on at all? Every one could not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth as she was. But if they knew, could they tell one what they knew? Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs. Ramsay's knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was, physically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay's knee. women love knowledge intimacy Virginia Woolf
f6911f8 Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in ther loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have visited her in the night, but, finding it hadn't, she did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead. women Zadie Smith
5db1679 As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things. women David Eddings
7a63118 When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one's anger. women apologies Anne Brontë
24b08d4 bitch power is the juice, the sweat, the blood that keeps pop music going. Rick James helped me understand the lesson of the eighth-grade dance: Bitch power rules the world. If the girls don't like the music, they sit down and stop the show. You gotta have a crowd if you wanna have a show. And the girls are the show. We're talking absolute monarchy, with no rules of succession. Bitch power. She must be obeyed. She must be feared. women music rick-james Rob Sheffield
5b59ef9 Nanny Ogg was an attractive lady, which is not the same as being beautiful. She fascinated Casanunda. She was an incredibly comfortable person to be around, partly because she had a mind so broad it could accommodate three football fields and a bowling alley. humour fiction women fantasy Terry Pratchett
8d9338d "Without war there are no heroes." "What harm would that be?" "Oh, Lavinia, what a woman's question that is." war women Ursula K. Le Guin
f2e0593 [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. marriage men feminism women-s-rights history self-determination independence women empowerment wedlock subjugation self-abnegation married-life matrimony social-norms misogyny perception inequality gender Antonia Fraser
bf671ef If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model and the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister, then New York is their cousin. Her hair is dyed autumn red or aubergine or Egyptian henna, depending on her mood. Her skin is pale as frost and she wears beautiful Jil Sander suits and Prada pumps on which she walks faster than a speeding taxi (when it is caught in rush hour, that is). Her lips are some unlikely shade of copper or violet, courtesy of her local MAC drag queen makeup consultant. She is always carrying bags of clothes, bouquets of roses, take-out Chinese containers, or bagels. Museum tags fill her pockets and purses, along with perfume samples and invitations to art gallery openings. When she is walking to work, to ward off bums or psychos, her face resembles the Statue of Liberty, but at home in her candlelit, dove-colored apartment, the stony look fades away and she smiles like the sterling roses she has brought for herself to make up for the fact that she is single and her feet are sore. independence women francesca-lia-block cities new-york Francesca Lia Block
9b2beb9 Upon my soul!' Tietjens said to himself, 'that girl down there is the only intelligent living soul I've met for years.' A little pronounced in manner sometimes; faulty in reasoning naturally, but quite intelligent, with a touch of wrong accent now and then. But if she was wanted anywhere, there she'd be! Of good stock, of course: on both sides! But positively, she and Sylvia were the only two human beings he had met for years whom he could respect: the one for sheer efficiency in killing; the other for having the constructive desire and knowing how to set about it. Kill or cure! The two functions of man. If you wanted something killed you'd go to Sylvia Tietjens in sure faith that she would kill it: emotion, hope, ideal; kill it quick and sure. If you wanted something kept alive you'd go to Valentine: she's find something to do for it. . . . The two types of mind: remorseless enemy, sure screen, dagger ... sheath! Perhaps the future of the world then was to women? Why not? He hand't in years met a man that he hadn't to talk down to - as you talk down to a child, as he had talked down to General Campion or to Mr. Waterhouse ... as he always talked down to Macmaster. All good fellows in their way ... women Ford Madox Ford
1883497 I'll say it: I want to see an ugly woman as a spokeswoman for a women's network. Ugly men are out there all the time - look at Larry King, for God's sake. He looks like someone's talking underwear. Why not give America a spokeswoman who ain't much to look at but is competent as Hell? If accomplishments actually count for women, this ought to be a no-brainer. women underwear John Scalzi
6089d25 Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession. men equality women-s-rights world women women-s-liberation gender Pearl S. Buck
200ab09 Women are the ones who knows what's going on,' she said quietly . 'They are the ones with eyes. Have you not heard of Agatha Christie? women Alexander McCall Smith
0936e9c 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... women Daphne du Maurier
079b5da I know, I know, I'm being a girl. stereotypes thoughts women girl-problems over-thinking girl Gillian Flynn
381baf4 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. women dicks noir-style Raymond Chandler
e9cb8da She had always observed that she got on better with clever women than silly ones like herself; the silly ones could never understand her wisdom; whereas the clever ones - the really clever ones - always understood her silliness. understanding women wisdom silliness Henry James
feaa0c4 As they embrace, she kisses him full on the mouth. And suddenly sticks her tongue right in. She has done this before, often. It's one of those drunken long shots which just might, at least theoretically, once in ten thousand tries, throw a relationship right out of its orbit and send it whizzing off on another. Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers. relationships women losing Christopher Isherwood
5e65bbd Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo. women H. Rider Haggard
7e5482b Only a man can see in the face of a woman the girl she was. It is a secret which can be revealed only to a particular man, and, then, only at his insistence. But men have no secrets, except from women, and never grow up in the way women do. It is very much harder, and it takes much longer, for a man to grow up, and he could never do it at all without women. This is a mystery which can terrify and immobilize a woman, and it is always the key to her deepest distress. She must watch and guide, but he must lead, and he will always appear to be giving far more of his real attention to his comrades than he is giving to her. But that noisy, outward openness of men with each other enables them to deal with the silence and secrecy of women, that silence and secrecy which contains the truth of a man, and releases it. I suppose that the root of the resentment--a resentment which hides a bottomless terror--has to do with the fact that a woman is tremendously controlled by what the man's imagination makes of her--literally, hour by hour, day by day; so she becomes a woman. But a man exists in his own imagination, and can never be at the mercy of a woman's.--Anyway, in this fucked up time and place, the whole thing becomes ridiculous when you realize that women are supposed to be more imaginative than men. This is an idea dreamed up by men, and it proves exactly the contrary. The truth is that dealing with the reality of men leaves a woman very little time, or need, for imagination. And you can get very fucked up, here, once you take seriously the notion that a man who is not afraid to trust his imagination (which is all that men have ever trusted) if effeminate. It says a lot about this country, because, of course, if all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination. Or women, for that matter: or men. men women imagination love maturity capitalism James Baldwin
7c312c5 "There are three things, and three things only, that can lift the pain of mortality and ease the ravages of life," said Spider. "These things are wine, women and song"... "Curry's nice too" pointed out Fat Charlie" women song nice wine Neil Gaiman
0f9777e "A self-made man" - not of woman born but alchemized, through sheer force of will, by the man himself. This is what I want to be. I want to be a self-made woman. I want to conjure myself out of every sparkling, fast moving thing I can see. I want to be the creator of myself. I'm going to begat myself" women inspirational growing-up Caitlin Moran
7a7231d If you can master me, that look seemed to say, then you can master whatever else this wicked world might bring. I can see her now, standing amidst her deerhounds that had the same thin, lean bodies, and the same long nose and the same huntess eyes as their mistress. Green eyes, she had, with a kind of cruelty deep inside them. It was not a soft face, any more that her body was soft. She was a woman of strong lines and high bones, and that made for a good face and a handsome one, but hard, so hard. What made her beautiful was her hair and her carriage, for she stood as straight as spear and her hair fell around her shoulders like a cascade of tumbling red tangles. That red hair softened her looks, while her laughter snared men like salmon caught in basket traps. There have been many more beautiful women, and thousands who were better, but since the world was weaned I doubt there have been many more so unforgettable as Guinevere, eldest daughter of Leodegan, the exiled King of Henis Wyren. And it would have been better, Merlin always said, had she been drowned at birth. women redhead the-herione guinevere Bernard Cornwell
7fe576d "What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren't dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret." "Ila was giving me advice on being a woman," Egwene replied absently. He began laughing, and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see. "Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are." "That," Egwene said, "is probably why you make such a bad job of it." men women the-eye-of-the-world wot perrin egwene wheel-of-time Robert Jordan
21b45a8 The sin we commit against each other as women is lack of support. We hurt. We hurt each other. We hide. We project. We become mute or duplicitous, and we fester like boiling water until one day we erupt like a geyser. Do we forget we unravel in grief? women friendship female support Terry Tempest Williams
8e2e9d4 ...proved that woman isn't a half but a whole human being, and can stand alone. women louisa-may-alcott Louisa May Alcott
7b5fdaa Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me-so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in that growing, we came to separation, that place where work begins. women love Audre Lorde
dadbe1d Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief. Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth. More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty. women Terry Pratchett
b2ba311 ...on some occasions, women, like dreams, go by contraries. women louisa-may-alcott Louisa May Alcott
e5dd8ef Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. women sewing Nathaniel Hawthorne
4fd9593 Girls are cruelest to themselves. Someone like Emily Bronte, who remained a girl all her life despite her body as a woman, had cruelty drifted up in all the cracks of her like spring snow. poem poetry women self-cruelty the-glass-essay girls Anne Carson
2976dbd I have a rule for working out if the root problem of something is, in fact, sexism. And it is this: asking 'Are the boys doing it? Are the boys having to worry about this stuff? Are the boys the centre of a gigantic global debate on this subject? women Caitlin Moran
0f8bc2a To be the mistress of a married man is to have the better role. Do you realize? His dirty shirt, his disgusting underwear, his daily ironing, his bad breath, his hemorrhoid attacks, his fuss, not to mention his bad moods, and his tantrums. Well all that is for his wife. When a married man comes to his mistress... he's always bleached and ironed, his teeth sparkle, his breath is like perfume, he's in a good mood, he's full of conversation, he is there to have a good time with you. sex men women love pros iran married mistress europe lust Marjane Satrapi
ab83652 Women collect grievances, hold grudges and change shape. They pass hard, legitimate judgments, unlike the purblind guesses of men, fogged with romanticism and ignorance and bias and wish. Women know too much, they can neither be deceived nor trusted. I can understand why men are afraid of them, as they are frequently accused of being. women Margaret Atwood
9b11e2b I suppose she only wanted what she couldn't have. Well, people were that way. To hell with people. The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that. Good advice, anyways. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it. women church Ernest Hemingway
a1cacf6 We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed until we drop. women edith-wharton the-house-of-mirth fashion Edith Wharton
0e50e5c It was as easy as breathing to go and have tea near the place where Jane Austen had so wittily scribbled and so painfully died. One of the things that causes some critics to marvel at Miss Austen is the laconic way in which, as a daughter of the epoch that saw the Napoleonic Wars, she contrives like a Greek dramatist to keep it off the stage while she concentrates on the human factor. I think this comes close to affectation on the part of some of her admirers. Captain Frederick Wentworth in , for example, is partly of interest to the female sex because of the 'prize' loot he has extracted from his encounters with Bonaparte's navy. Still, as one born after Hiroshima I can testify that a small Hampshire township, however large the number of names of the fallen on its village-green war memorial, is more than a world away from any unpleasantness on the European mainland or the high or narrow seas that lie between. (I used to love the detail that Hampshire's 'New Forest' is so called because it was only planted for the hunt in the late eleventh century.) I remember watching with my father and brother through the fence of Stanstead House, the Sussex mansion of the Earl of Bessborough, one evening in the early 1960s, and seeing an immense golden meadow carpeted entirely by grazing rabbits. I'll never keep that quiet, or be that still, again. This was around the time of countrywide protest against the introduction of a horrible laboratory-confected disease, named 'myxomatosis,' into the warrens of old England to keep down the number of nibbling rodents. Richard Adams's lapine masterpiece is the remarkable work that it is, not merely because it evokes the world of hedgerows and chalk-downs and streams and spinneys better than anything since , but because it is only really possible to imagine gassing and massacre and organized cruelty on this ancient and green and gently rounded landscape if it is organized and carried out against herbivores. jane-austen literature silence women 1960s earl-of-bessborough gassing hampshire hiroshima mansions myxomatosis napoleonic-wars new-forest persuasion-novel richard-adams sussex theatre-of-ancient-greece townships war-memorials watership-down wind-in-the-willows napoleon countryside meadow massacre rabbits cruelty world-war-ii quiet england europe literary-criticism Christopher Hitchens
7bd4478 It doesn't have to be dreads. You can wear an Afro, or braids like you used to. There's a lot you can do with natural hair women black hair race Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
761fcf4 I'm sure you could have. Fending off unwanted male attention is a skill every attractive woman must acquire. But you're also a lady who was reluctant to cause a scene.. (Hammond Cross) women sandra-brown the-alibi Sandra Brown
1290cd7 There was something rather blousy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like women with untidy hair women Daphne du Maurier
418eb55 I have periods now, like normal girls; I too am among the knowing, I too can sit out volleyball games and go to the nurse's for aspirin and waddle along the halls with a pad like a flattened rabbit tail wadded between my legs, sopping with liver-colored blood. women Margaret Atwood
2e23fa1 Yes, I have patterns of love addiction. But I'm a woman. Of course I do. women love love-addiction Emma Forrest
ca9b97e ...men never forgive like women. men women louisa-may-alcott Louisa May Alcott
3c0b244 Amy's lecture did Laurie good, though, of course, he did not own it till long afterward. Men seldom do, for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole. men women louisa-may-alcott Louisa May Alcott
4791c4e "If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at, You can let them look at you. But do not mistake eyes for hands, Or windows for mirrors. Let them see what a woman looks like. They may not have ever seen one before. If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch, You can let them touch you. Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for. Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwich, a Pulitzer, another woman - But their hands found you first. Do not mistake yourself for a guardian, or a muse, or a promise, or a victim or a snack. You are a woman - Skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat You are not made of metaphors, Not apologies, not excuses. If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold, You can let them hold you. All day they practice keeping their bodies upright. Even after all this evolving it still feels unnatural, Still strains the muscles, holds firm the arms and spine. Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you, Admit they don't have the answers they thought they would by now. Some men will want to hold you like the answer. You are not the answer. You are not the problem. You are not the poem, or the punchline, or the riddle, or the joke. Woman, if you grow up the type of woman men want to love, You can let them love you. Being loved is not the same thing as loving. When you fall in love, It is discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping. It is realising you have hands. It is reaching for the tightrope after the crowds have all gone home. Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of woman men will hurt. If he leaves you with a car alarm heart. You learn to sing along. It is hard to stop loving the ocean, Even after it's left you gasping, salty. So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made, The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night, And know this. Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours. Let the statues crumble. You have always been the place. women women-s-inspirational womanhood women-s-strength Sarah Kay
3ff6337 Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks. men women William Faulkner
c6816d0 Yes: but aren't love and marriage notoriously synonymous in the minds of most women? Certainly very few men get the first without promising the second: love, that is--if it's just a matter of spreading her legs, almost any woman will do that for nothing. marriage women Truman Capote
62f53ed Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most. war women David Mitchell
791d7fc Men were not gods after all, but as human and as clumsy as girls. women E.M. Forster
54d3714 It's easier to love a woman when you can't understand a word she's saying. women Ann Patchett
086fc70 I am, at this moment, what I have always been to him: an object of beauty. He has never loved me as a woman. history women love objectification objectification-of-women Philippa Gregory
8372692 If women had power what would men be but women who can't bear children? And what would women be but men who can? women power Ursula K. Le Guin
a04acfc Sometimes in the summer evenings they walked up the hill to watch the afterglow clinging to the tops of the western mountains and to feel the breeze drawn into the valley by the rising day-heated air. Usually they stood silently for a while and breathed in peacefulness. Since both were shy they never talked about themselves. Neither knew about the other at all. men personality nature women mountains John Steinbeck
b3c572d "Invalidating a woman's life choices by saying things like, "Oh, but you'll regret it if you don't have kids," or, "I didn't think I wanted kids either until I had one," is like me going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and telling the newly sober that eventually when they grow old, they'll want to take the edge off with a little gin and tonic and that if they could only just be mature enough to control themselves, they could go on a fun wine-tasting tour in the Napa Valley." kids women funny comedy Jen Kirkman
68e0072 Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me.how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think yo do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens. women Zora Neale Hurston
1fd1bbe "I saw the movie," he said. "I know what it's about. Listen to this. When girls get to be about twelve or so"--he leaned toward us--"their tits bleed." women Jeffrey Eugenides
8946ae4 The most difficult thing for a wise woman to do is to pretend to be a foolish one. women maugham W. Somerset Maugham
3695cff "Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?" "Ah specs it's kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes' knows whut dey thinks dey wants. An' givin' dem whut dey thinks dey wants saves a pile of mizry an' bein' a ole maid. An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense at all. It doan make a gempmum feel lak mahyin' a lady ef he suspicions she got mo' sense dan he has." marriage men women lady Margaret Mitchell
fdd8115 Clear nights are sometimes the coldest. women Luanne Rice
482fa67 hearing women singing about themselves - rather than men singing about women - makes everything seem wonderfully clear, and possible women music singing Caitlin Moran
817d973 Ka thought it strangely depressing that the suicide girls had had to struggle to find a private moment to kill themselves. Even after swallowing their pills, even as they lay quietly dying, they'd had to share their rooms with others. women womens-rights Orhan Pamuk
51803a7 However impatient she might be in the day, however filled with little sudden angers, at night she was all tenderness. woman women Pearl S. Buck
54c1454 lns lqwyt y`rWDn llkhTr twzn l`lm ldhy yufDWlu lrjl , lhdh ys`wn l~ mDyqthn wtdmyrhn women strong Isabel Allende
be93517 The thing about her is, she's good-natured. He knew it the second he saw her standing by the parking meters. He could just tell from the soft way her belly looked. With women, you keep bumping against them, because they want different things, they're a different race. Either they give, like a plant, or scrape, like a stone. In all the green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature. relationships women John Updike
6211eb0 Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insect-buzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days. history humour women larps reenactment wenches hobbies historical wit Terry Pratchett
d3e8a2b "Hey!" Sam snapped, ducking the sticky shrapnel. "Keep your snot to yourself." Dev scoffed at that. "Oh, so now you don't want to touch me, huh?" He tsked. "What is it with women? the instant you put a little slime on them, they get squeamish and have no more use for you." women Sherrilyn Kenyon
6d2b3fb If a man is unmarried, he is called a bachelor. If a woman is unmarried, she is called a spinster or an old maid. What is it about an unmarried woman that poses such a threat to the patriarchal order? Mainly, it is that women are no one's property when we're unmarried. We're under no one's control, and neither are our children. There is no telling what we might do or say. women marianne-williamson Marianne Williamson
e893e0c He told himself she wasn't really such a bad person, she was just a pest, she was sticky, there was something misplaced in her make-up, something that kept her from fading clear of people when they wanted to be in the clear. fiction women david-goodis pulp noir David Goodis
0649449 In fact I've reached the stage where I look at people and say - he or she, they are whole at all because they've chosen to block off at this stage or that. People stay sane by blocking off, by limiting themselves. women Doris Lessing
ee4f415 Women were still strange and inscrutable creatures. Men didn't understand them. And women didn't understand themselves either. It was always a performance of some sort. Everywhere you went, it was like there was a spotlight shining down on your head. You were on a stage when you were on the trolley. You were being judged and judged and judged. Every minute of your performance was supposed to be incredible and outstanding and sexy. You were often only an ethical question away from being a prostitute. women Heather O'Neill
99aa1e6 I can never get used to the fact, though I know it, that women are born cynics. Men have to learn cynicism. Infant girls could teach it to them. women sexism Ursula K. Le Guin
ebe2447 And a woman by herself is missing a man, while a man by himself is his own master. Trousers. That's the secret. Trousers and a pair of socks. I never dreamed it was like this. Put on trousers and the world changes. We walk different. We act different. I see these girls and I think: Idiot's Get yourself some trousers! women polly Terry Pratchett
546ca8a It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do. The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default? women Emily Giffin
2b87da7 Ah, when love dies, women lose two and a half inches in height. women love M.C. Beaton
1ed1305 "How can so many (white, male) writers narratively justify restricting the agency of their female characters on the grounds of sexism = authenticity while simultaneously writing male characters with conveniently modern values? The habit of authors writing Sexism Without Sexists in genre novels is seemingly pathological. Women are stuffed in the fridge under cover of "authenticity" by secondary characters and villains because too many authors flinch from the "authenticity" of sexist male protagonists. Which means the yardstick for "authenticity" in such novels almost always ends up being "how much do the women suffer", instead of - as might also be the case - "how sexist are the heroes". women writing fantasy femlae-agency male-privledge writing-femlae-characters sf genre authenticity sff sexism Foz Meadows
e895589 "The questions that we have to ask and to answer about that procession during this moment of transition are so important that they may well change the lives of men and women forever. For we have to ask ourselves, here and now, do we wish to join that procession, or don't we? On what terms shall we join that procession? Above all, where is it leading us, the procession of educated men?...Let us never cease from thinking--what is this "civilisation" in which we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of them? Where in short is it leading us, the procession of the sons of educated men?" feminism women Virginia Woolf
30f1649 No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move. women choice abortionists adoption John Irving
622637e Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does? men women sharon kay penman
529e876 Replace worry with prayer. Make the decision to pray whenever you catch yourself worrying. men prayer women comfort jesus faith god worry decision worrying Elizabeth George
7a83c7c I'd been at the mercy of a prick on a power trip, the kind of buttoned-up bantam rooster who gets off on control and then, when you resist him, tells you that you've got issues with control. men relationships women jerks society idiocy women-and-men power fools Norah Vincent
b25fff7 Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith - It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner... stereotypes men women sinner weakness sin Anne Brontë
56979f4 The validity of the cook's work is to be found only in the mouths of those at her table; she needs their approbation, demands that they appreciate her dishes and call for second helpings; she is upset if they are not hungry, to the point that one wonders whether the fried potatoes are for her husband or her husband for the fried potatoes. feminism women second-sex Simone de Beauvoir
be0c072 "Most women are all too familiar with men like Calvin Smith. Men whose sense of prerogative renders them deaf when women say, "No thanks," "Not interested," or even "Fuck off, creep." rape feminism women-s-rights women assault assaults catcalling disrespect men-s-behavior personal-experiences personal-space predatory-behavior problems-in-the-world problems-of-today problems-with-men problems-with-society saying-no street-harassment verbal-abuse women-s-experiences women-s-issues personal-experience predators personal-autonomy sexual-assault misogynist harassment sexual-violence victims behavior misogyny gender-roles communication culture not-listening rapists rape-culture men-and-women women-and-men gender sexuality sexual-abuse survivors sexism Jon Krakauer
9dbfccc This much I do know - I'm exhausted by the cumulative consequences of a lifetime of hasty choices and chaotic passions. women life exhaustion Elizabeth Gilbert
b4fdb2f It was a stretch to imagine that Barbara Walters might want to give it all up for Ed Couch, but Evelyn tried her hardest. Of course, even though she was not religious, it was a comfort to know that the Bible backed her up in being a doormat. women Fannie Flagg
2675c4f 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. women life Marian Keyes
a1d88ad "She was, in short, melted by his distress, as so often happens with the female sex. Poets have frequently commented on this. You are probably familiar with the one who said, "Oh, woman in our hours of ease tum tumty tiddly something please, when something something something brow, a something something something thou." women P.G. Wodehouse
ee5ef1a In the meantime: (1) be direct; (2) remember that, being smarter than men, women respond to courtesy and kindness; (3) if you want to know what kind of a wife someone will make, observe her around her father and mother; (4) as to who gets out of the elevator first, I just can't help you. men women David Mamet
8b6aba2 I know it's trash: just another story made up to scare wicked females and correct unruly children. But it's all I have. I know I need something else. Something better. Like a story that shows how brazen women can take a good man down. I can hum to that. women Toni Morrison
8a637d3 There were times he thought it would have been far better to never have known. Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong. men women innocence ignorance knowledge Haruki Murakami
ad71cf9 Women always bring it back to the personal,' said Handsome. 'It's why you can't be world leaders.' 'And men never do,' I said, 'which is why we end up with no world left to lead. women Jeanette Winterson
78357dc I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing. women beauty failing failings nude naked Robert A. Heinlein
229cf5c White pussy is nothin but trouble. women white-people Cormac McCarthy
ef252d8 Let most men have a finger and they will have the whole hand before you know. Let a clan cheif have a finger and he will have the entire arm. women Robert Jordan
e633562 Why, why, her mind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in the world without men's help--except having babies, and God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it. women gone-with-the-wind Margaret Mitchell
d7998b3 But why give a man something it's so hard to earn? In that respect women are really thick. They're the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don't realize that the one thing they should be afraid of is men. They don't know how to run their lives. They have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else. Whores are the worst, patron, believe me. They throw their lives away working for some pimp, smile when he beats them, feel proud when he's well dressed, with his gold teeth and rings on his fingers, and when he goes off and takes up with a woman half their age they forgive him everything because 'he's a man. men women mentality rigidity pimps whores women-and-men Isabel Allende
659f422 Men die in battle; women die in childbirth. war men history women religion gender-roles purpose Philippa Gregory
bda31e0 "Gender roles suck," says Swift Fox. Then you should stop playing them, thinks Toby." women manipulation gender-roles Margaret Atwood
f7c717c In genere, femeia nu-si insala barbatul si nu-l tradeaza, daca el singur nu-i acela care sa-i strice sau sa-i calce inima singur in picioare, daca nu o dezgusta ori n-o respinge prin micimea lui, prin egoismul lui, prin ingustimea vederilor. Deci, trebuie sa iubesti. Ca ea sa nu se simta numai femela ta, ci faptura cea mai scumpa pentru tine, copilul tau, prietenul tau; poart-o la san, ca sa-i fie cald si atunci poti fi sigur de ea, atunci, cu fiecare an care trece, se va lipi tot mai mult de tine, pana cand o sa va lipiti de tot, ca gemenii siamezi. Daca nu-i dai toate astea, o strici, o dezgusti prin nimicnicia ta si se indeparteaza. Te va parasi de indata ce maini mai nobile se vor intinde spre ea, caci trebuie s-o faca, are nevoie de caldura si de consideratie ca de aerul pe care-l respira. women Henryk Sienkiewicz
f4b8293 ...but once more I say do as you please, for we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands, though they be blockheads marriage women Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
ec4fb1f "Because misogynists are the best of men." All the poets reacted to these words with hooting. Boccaccio was forced to raise his voice: "Please understand me. Misogynists don't despise women. Misogynists don't like femininity. Men have always been divided into two categories. Worshipers of women, otherwise known as poets, and misogynists, or, more accurately, gynophobes. Worshipers or poets revere traditional feminine values such as feelings, the home, motherhood, fertility, sacred flashes of hysteria, and the divine voice of nature within us, while in misogynists or gynophobes these values inspire a touch of terror. Worshipers revere women's femininity, while misogynists always prefer women to femininity. Don't forget: a woman can be happy only with a misogynist. No woman has ever been happy with any of you!" women misogynist Milan Kundera
6740414 Bless the ladies and their charming inconsistency! They demand to be treated like men, but they react like women. women gender-relations Elizabeth Peters
ecc048c "She stared at him dully and said: "I don't like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn't like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn't like you." She turned to the outer door." men women crooks dames dashiell-hammet the-thin-man Dashiell Hammett
3c9f11b It's one thing to have a goal, but it's quite another thing to actually accept the challenge, develop a strategy to press for the goal, make the sacrifices, pay the price to move forward, and blessing of blessing, to realize some part of it. women dream faith sacrifice god heart love develop goal challenge christian strategy Elizabeth George
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