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6a845fe I think my Mama and Savannah must be special people in the Lord's eyes, as they have gone about doing generous and loving things without even a second thought. For me, it seems like the only thing that comes natural is aggravation and hard word women Nancy E. Turner
6a4b7fc Oh, how hard it is to understand the hearts of girls and women. When they are not the most timid of creatures, they are the bravest. Reason has no part in their lives. love reasoning strength-of-females women Jules Verne
ac8128b Some of these stories, it is understood, are not to be passed on to my father, because they would upset him. It is well known that women can deal with this sort of thing better than men can. Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them. For instance, men often faint at the sight of their own blood, to which they are not accustomed. For this reason you should never stand behind one in the line at the Red Cross donor clinic. Men, for some mysterious reason, find life more difficult than women do. (My mother believes this, despite the female bodies, trapped, diseased, disappearing, or abandoned, that litter her stories.) Men must be allowed to play in the sandbox of their choice, as happily as they can, without disturbance; otherwise they get cranky and won't eat their dinners. There are all kinds of things that men are simply not equipped to understand, so why expect it of them? Not everyone shares this believe about men; neverthetheless, it has its uses. capabilities female-body gender men misandry sandboxes useful-belief women Margaret Atwood
f749e5a From her handbag she takes a round gilt compact with violets on the cover. She opens it, unclosing her other self, and runs her fingertip around the corners of her mouth, left one, right one; then she unswivels a pink stick and dots her cheeks and blends them, changing her shape, performing the only magic left to her. Rump on a packsack, harem cushion, pink on the cheeks and black discreetly around the eyes, as red as blood as black as ebony, a seamed and folded imitation of a magazine picture that is itself an imitation of a woman who is also an imitation, the original nowhere, hairless lobed angel in the same heaven where God is a circle, captive princess in someone's head. She is locked in, she isn't allowed to eat or shit or cry or give birth, nothing goes in, nothing comes out. She takes her clothes off or puts them on, paper doll wardrobe, she copulates under strobe lights with the man's torso while his brain watches from its glassed-in control cubicle at the other end of the room, her face twists into poses of exultation and total abandonment, that is all. She is not bored, she has no other interests. feminism sexism women Margaret Atwood
ad59a7a Two years hence you will be as calm as I am now, - and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man and free to act as you please future happiness men women Anne Brontë
bfba2b0 I once knew of a minstrel who bragged of having had a thousand women, one time each. He would never know what I knew, that to have one woman a thousand times, and each time find in her a different delight, is far better. I knew now what gleamed in the eyes of old couples when they stared at each other across a room...My familiarity with her was a more potent love elixir than any potion sold by a hedge-witch in the market. change charm delight discover elixir familiar find know knowledge love man men minstrel playboy potion sincere sincerity time true truth woman women Robin Hobb
ef040bd "It's genius simmering, perhaps. I'll let it simmer, and see what comes of it," he said, with a secret suspicion all the while that it wasn't genius, but something far more common. Whatever it was, it simmered to some purpose, for he grew more and more discontented with his desultory life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at, soul and body, and finally came to the wise conclusion that everyone who loved music was not a composer." little louisa may women Louisa May Alcott
73d987f A woman's income appeal is a bell-shaped curve: men do not want to date low-earning women, but once a woman starts earning too much, they seem to be scared off. freakonomics men money relationship women Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
4a8febd "The method that is required is not one of correlation but of liberation. Even the term "method" must be reinterpreted and in fact wrenched out of its usual semantic field, for the emerging creativity in women is by no means a merely cerebral process. In order to understand the implications of this process it is necessary to grasp the fundamental fact that women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our power to name ourselves, the world or God. The old naming was not the product of dialogue- a fact inadvertently admitted in the genesis story of Adam's naming the animals and the women. Women are now realizing that the universal imposing of names by men has been false because partial. That is, inadequate words have been taken as adequate." men method naming process religion sexism women Mary Daly
d18f83c But it was just luck really if the girls survived. You're like a man firing a machine gun into a supermarket who happens not to become a murderer. murder unrequited-love women Iris Murdoch
a17e208 "Still, my argument was that if she was going to work for the next 30 years, what difference does "going back" 4 years really make? If the other path made her happier and offered her a chance to learn new skills, that meant she was actually moving forward." lean-in women Sheryl Sandberg
bebb8c6 It is interesting to note that an overwhelming majority of citizens in the world's three largest democracies have different religions: India (81 percent Hindu), the United States (76 percent Christian), and Indonesia (87 percent Muslim). Two of them have elected women as leaders of their government. leaders leadership president women Jimmy Carter
4df1ecb Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. I was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war. Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars. wife wife-and-husband wives women women-s-roles Barbara Kingsolver
b200d2b It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. women joseph conrad
1c9f5d0 "The world is changing, I said. It is no longer a world just for boys and men. Our women are respected here, said the father. We would never let them tramp the world as American women do. There is always someone to look after the Olinka woman. A father. An uncle. A brother or nephew. Do not be offended, Sister Nettie, but our people pity women such as you who are cast out, we know not from where, into a world unknown to you, where you must struggle all alone, for yourself. So I am an object of pity and contempt, I thought, to men and women alike. Furthermore, said Tashi's father, we are not simpletons. We understand that there are places in the world where women live differently from the way our women do, but we do not approve of this different way for our children. But life is changing, even in Olinka, I said. We are here. He spat on the ground. What are you? Three grownups and two children. In the rainy season some of you will probably die. You people do not last long in our climate. If you do not die, you will be weakened by illness. Oh, yes. We have seen it all before. You Christians come here, try hard to change us, get sick and go back to England, or wherever you come from. Only the trader on the coast remains, and even he is not the same white man, year in and year out. We know because we send him women. Tashi is very intelligent, I said. She could be a teacher. A nurse. She could help the people in the village. There is no place here for a woman to do those things, he said. Then we should leave, I said. Sister Corrine and I. No, no, he said. Teach only the boys? I asked. Yes, he said, as if my question was agreement. There is a way that the men speak to women that reminds me too much of Pa. They listen just long enough to issue instructions. They don't even look at women when women are speaking. They look at the ground and bend their heads toward the ground. The women also do not "look in a man's face" as they say. To "look in a man's face" is a brazen thing to do. They look instead at his feet or his knees." gender gender-inequality gender-stereotypes men-and-women women women-s-rights Alice Walker
b2c3757 At no moment in history has a bright young girl with plenty of food and a good constitution perished from too much learning. women Elizabeth Gilbert
a929c67 Love may start out as a good feeling, but to love someone long-term is an act of the will. faith family feeling god hope lady love marriage men relationship will women Elizabeth George
e202d39 Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected, there were some boys-and indeed some young men-who might have been greatly improved by moderate physical correction. The apprentices, for example: would it help if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni resorted to physical chastisement-nothing severe, of course-but just an occasional kick in the seat of the pants while they were bending over to change a tyre or something like that? The thought made her smile. She would even offer to administer the kick herself, which she imagined might be oddly satisfying, as one of the apprentices, the one who still kept on about girls, had a largeish bottom which she thought would be quite comfortable to kick. How enjoyable it would be to creep up behind him and kick him when he was least expecting it, and then to say: Let that be a lesson! That was all one would have to say, but it would be a blow for women everywhere. blow bottom humor kick women Alexander McCall Smith
f0d37ce I mean, a male chauvinist pig isn't born, he's made, and more and more of them are being made by women. women Chuck Palahniuk
b05355d But females in even the most advanced Muslim countries are simply, by law, not the equal of men. feminism women Bill Maher
ee86838 Famously, Gloria Steinem once advised women that they should strive to become like the men they had always wanted to marry. What I've only recently realized is that I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too. life women Elizabeth Gilbert
e66ec11 All feminine claws, he said to himself, are sheathed in velvet; but they can hurt a good deal if they touch you on the sore places of the defects of your qualities--even merely with the velvet. cruelty power women Ford Madox Ford
9e2d3df Shevek saw that he had touched in these men an impersonal animosity that went very deep. Apparently they, like the tables on the ship, contained a woman, a suppressed, silenced, bestialized woman, a fury in a cage. He had no right to tease them. They knew no relation but possession. They were possessed. patriarchy women Ursula K. Le Guin
0d85b22 The moment a woman was born determined so much of who she was allowed to become. inequality women J. Courtney Sullivan
c3eb705 It matters not at all that I do not want to marry, that I am afraid of the wedding, afraid of consummating the marriage, afraid of childbirth, afraid of everything about being a wife. Nobody even asks if I have lost my childhood sense of vocation, if I still want to be a nun. Nobody cares what I think at all. They treat me like an ordinary young woman, bred for wedding and bedding, and since they do not ask me what I think, nor observe what I feel, there is nothing that gives them pause at all. personhood women Philippa Gregory
dd1660d "A diamond may be forever, but terrorism, promiscuously funded, will be too. Let's make the connection clearly by tracing the path of the diamond. Diamonds start out in the earth, and eventually that earth is part of a country, like Sierra Leone, Angola, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. In those countries, desperate battles for control have been going on for decades, and the armies that fight the battles finance their ambitions with diamonds. Villagers are forced to mine the diamonds by ruthless rebels who maintain order through terror: by raping women and hacking off the limbs of the children, something, by the way, you never see in the De Beers ads. The rebels then smuggle the diamonds into neighboring dictatorships in exchange for guns and cash. There the diamonds are sold to the highest bidder--whether they be terrorists or "legitimate" dealers--and finally they're laundered in Europe, shipped to America, and end up in jewelry stores where they're purchased by men and given to women in exchange for oral sex. In the feminized world we live in, it's practically national policy that women are more evolved that men--but if that's so, how come they're still so impressed by shiny objects?" humor war-on-terror women Bill Maher
c5e4334 "Hideo," said my mother, in the terrifying way women have of passing without interval from one subject to another because they have them all present in their mind at once, "you haven't found any kind of relationship?" -- mothers women Ursula K. Le Guin
47f8d3d Even when I worked in that world, I still wanted love so strong that the man would have no interest in another woman. Maybe you will always be incapable of giving that kind of love. You tell me I want too much. And maybe I do. But like you and your imagination, I can't help but be that way. love loyalty men women Amy Tan
c484a42 So now you are a woman. Do you have the least idea of what that means? It means that I am now fit to be wedded and bedded (...) and to bear children for the king. patriarchy queens women women-s-rights George R.R. Martin
febc086 I may add here that one of the secrets of my happy life is that i have never made the mistake of learning to drive a car. I have never lacked people, usually women, longing to drive me withersoever I wanted. Why keep bitches and bark yourself? cars driving women Iris Murdoch
de93f3e Under her high brows, she eyed him straight on and straight across. She had gone to girls' schools, he recalled later. Those girls looked straight at you. women Annie Dillard
0dd75db Sairin bana siirinde okudugu Troya'nin dususu hikayesinde kralin kizi Cassandra olacaklari onceden goruyor ve Troyalilarin buyuk ati sehre sokmalarini onlemeye calisiyor, ama onu kimse dinlemiyordu: Uzerrindeki lanetti bu, hakikati gorecek, bunu soyleyecek, ama onu kimse duymayacakti. Erkeklerden ziyade kadinlarin uzerindeki bir lannetir bu. Erkekler hakikatin kendilerine ait olmasini, kendi kesifleri, kendi mulkleri olmasini ister. mythology-fiction science-fiction women Ursula K. Le Guin
fc6dcbe We need a temporary cessation in people having any opinions about any women, ever. I propose a, say, five-year moratorium on having opinions about women, in order to let one generation of girls get from one side of puberty to the other without growing up in a climate where women are constantly being scolded, chivvied, harassed, or subjected to thunderous opinion columns concluding that, yet again, some woman in the public eye has overreached herself and should wind her neck in. opinion women Caitlin Moran
a0c1124 She had only a candle's light to see by, but candlelight never did badly by any woman. humor women John Fowles
1bdc276 Women often find great roles in revolution, simply because the rules fall apart and everyone has agency, anyone can act. As they did in Egypt, where liberty leading the masses was an earnest young woman in a black hijab. gender hijab liberty revolution women Rebecca Solnit
90f00ca You are a devious woman, Blackthorn,' she said. 'I prefer the term strategic thinker. leader women Juliet Marillier
4e891ff Their collective advice: don't settle. Keep looking. Find Mr. Right. That is what they all did. And by God, I think they believe it. Because nobody who marries at the ripe age of twenty-three can be settling. Naturally. That is a phenomenon that only happens to women in their thirties. women Emily Giffin
6b11c26 So where does that leave me? I like hosting the show....It's become my identity. If that's gone, where am I? aging discrimination job women workplace Barbara Delinsky
4e21612 ...a row of tables manned by seated, serious women. Each woman looked like she could be someone's least-favourite aunt. funny women Adam Rex
f94bae5 Later on, still looking, she had tried to get involved with the Women's Community Center. She liked what they stood for but secretly wished they would wear just a little lipstick and shave their legs. She had been the only one in the room in full makeup, wearing pantyhose and earrings. She had wanted to belong, but when the woman suggested that next week they bring a mirror so they could all study their vaginas, she never went back. females feminists women Fannie Flagg
f0584cd The discovery of her life was that she herself didn't actually need money, apart from a little cash for those relationships with taxi drivers and officials of the Great Western Railway which can only be expressed financially. women Elizabeth Ironside
276c4a7 "It is hardly lonely in a nunnery, son, with other women. And God is there." Morgause said, "I would rather dwell in a hermitage in the forest than in a house full of chattering ladies! If God is there, it must be hard for him to get a word in edgewise!" humor nuns women Marion Zimmer Bradley
1d0d322 I don't care how happily married you are or how deeply enmeshed you are with your children and family and career -- every woman needs a couple of chicks who'll break out the sangria just because you need to vent. friendship girl-life life relationships women Jen Lancaster
9e4e895 I'm not jealous of my male colleagues often, but I am when it comes to how they can just shower, shave, put on a suit, and be ready to go. The few times I've gone out in public without makeup, it's made the news. So I sigh and keep getting back in that chair, and dream of a future in which women in the public eye don't need to wear makeup if they don't want to and no one cares either way. politics women Hillary Rodham Clinton
665df0f [Patricia Highsmith] was a figure of contradictions: a lesbian who didn't particularly like women; a writer of the most insightful psychological novels who, at times, appeared bored by people; a misanthrope with a gentle, sweet nature. contradictions gentle insight insightful lesbian like misanthrope nature novels people psychological sweet women writer writing Andrew Wilson
3036f90 Bless all the women of this world who nurture our heritage while too many man rush off to kill for ideals that might now be deeply and personally held, but will often be viewed as repugnant by later generations. heritage women Stephen Jay Gould
738c119 Legs was always proud even before FOXFIRE, that's the primary fact about Legs Sadovsky: pride. feminist women women-s-rights Joyce Carol Oates
c48611d Rubens! All bosom and bum, big cumulus clouds of pink flesh, eh? You can feel the heart beating like a kettledrum in a ton of that stuff. Every woman a bed; throw yourself on them, sink from sight. rubens sensuality women Ray Bradbury
559619c "The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is the truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her" truth wealth women Edith Wharton
89feb88 I was amazed at how strong women were when they were angry. humor women Robin Hobb
cec192b "He looked around and yawned. "I haven't been sleeping well. It's nice in here. But after a while the lushes will fill the place up and talk loud and laugh and the goddam women will start waving their hands and screwing up their faces and tinkling their goddam bracelets and making up with the packaged charm which will later on in the evening have a slight but unmistakable odour of sweat." "Take it easy," I said. "So they're human, they sweat, they get dirty, they have to go to the bathroom. What did you expect - golden butterflies hovering in a rosy mist?" women Raymond Chandler
a785607 Like almost all girls I don't know the date of my birth: my parents did not trouble to record the day and the time. I only know the year and the season, and I only know the season because my mother had a great desire for asparagus when she was carrying me and swears that she ate it too green and her bellyache brought on my birth. history women Philippa Gregory
7769f6b It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them. cats dislike dogs men pets women Anne Brontë
f6ce7bb For he did not, he would have said, care for women; he never felt at home or at ease with them; and that monstrous creature beginning to be talked about, the New Woman of the nineties, filled him with horror. He was a quiet, conventional person, and the world, viewed from the haven of Brookfield, seemed to him full of distasteful innovations; there was a fellow named Bernard Shaw who had the strangest and most reprehensible opinions; there was Ibsen, too, with his disturbing plays; and there was this new craze for bicycles which was being taken up by women equally with men. Chips did not hold with all this modern newness and freedom. He had a vague notion, if he ever formulated it, that nice women were weak, timid, and delicate, and that nice men treated them with a polite but rather distant chivalry. men society women James Hilton
4600a59 We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces on the edges of print. oppression women Margaret Atwood
405971d They are boiling with the pressured energy of explosive forces confined in a small space, and with the fervor of all religious movements in their early, purist stages. It is not enough to give lip service and to believe in equal pay: there has to be a conversion, from the heart. Or so they imply. fervor passion women Margaret Atwood
1723b39 For this cause...for this privilege...you were born--to shine lights into the world for God. elizabeth-george god shine women world Elizabeth George
ea2a068 My voice thick with frustration, I declared that if men and women could only meet each other under normal circumstances, that delusions of instant love would be more infrequent. While I do believe that great attractions lead to genuine love, such as it had with my sister, Sara, and her husband, Assad, such a happy outcome is rare. When men and women rarely have the opportunity to enjoy the other's company in ordinary social occasions, spontaneous emotions are quick to rise to the surface, often ending in terrible personal tragedies. culture feminism royal-family women Jean Sasson
875a1ed lkdhb ynqlb fDyl@ fy HDr@ lns virtue women Naguib Mahfouz
ee0fe91 Husbands are always angry, that's their nature. And the nature of us women, is not to pay a blind bit of notice. husband wife women M.C. Beaton
88c0605 I felt confused, and also inadequate; whatever he was asking or demanding, it was beyond me. this was the first time a man would expect more from me than i was capable of giving, but it wouldn't be the last. male-domination male-supremacy women Margaret Atwood
d99afbf "I've never seen or touched anything." "Can you explain then how you had children?" "You're right. It's true I have four kids. Four! But still I have never seen the male organ. He came into the bedroom, he turned off the light, and then Bam! Bam! Bam! and voila I was pregnant! What's more, I was granted four girls. So I have never seen penises." intercourse iran men patriarchy penis sex women Marjane Satrapi
a3c8e0b Perhaps the Queen's prayers, and those of Bernard, had been efficacious, or perhaps Louise had been more attentive in bed, for during 1145--the exact date is not recorded--she bore a daughter, who was named Marie in honour of the Virgin. If the infant was not the male heir to France so desired by the King--the Salic law forbade the succession of females to the throne--her arrival encouraged the royal parents to hope for a son in the future. Relationships between aristocratic parents and children were rarely close. Queens and noblewomen did not nurse their own babies, but handed them over at birth into the care of wet nurses, leaving themselves free to become pregnant again. history pregnancy royalty women Alison Weir
cfbea94 Of all the women he knew, she had meant the most; and was the one person in his life he felt he had missed, in some ways. felt he-knew his-life life love love-of-his-life meant-the-most missed one-person only-love women Larry McMurtry
5b04979 It was a weakness, but he could not bear to disappoint women, even if it was ultimately for their own good. could-not-bear disappoint for-good own-good weakness woman women Larry McMurtry
4ef55fa Foras Road has a sordid reputation (...) Old crones sat in doorways, while their daughters were pushed out to earn money. It is intriguing that a society which is very covert with sexuality should be so straightforward about prostitution. india prostitutes travel travel-writing women Tahir Shah
baf0617 My father always says, choosing a wife is like putting your hand into a bag full of writhing creatures, with one eel to six snakes. What are the chances you will pull out the eel? marriage-advice thomas-more wives women Hilary Mantel
d8423bb The courage to continue before the face of despair is the recognition in those eyes of darkness we find our own night vision. Women blessed with death-eyes are fearless. death-and-dying despair fear fearless feminism women Terry Tempest Williams
706f9f4 By leaving, we are not necessarily disobeying the men according to the Bible, because we, the women, do not know exactly what is in the Bible, being unable to read it. Furthermore, the only reason why we feel we need to submit to our husbands is because our husbands have told us that the Bible decrees it. feminism women Miriam Toews
b4f6bfd She reminded him that the weak will never enter the kingdom of love, which is a harsh and ungenerous kingdom,and that women give themselves only to men of resolute spirit, who provide them with the security they need in order to face life. security strength weakness women Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
e0b95de To him it was a sort of hyperspace-librarian, girl-geek thing that he found clever and fetching without attracting him in a way that would have been creepy. girls women Neal Stephenson
57d2cd4 I like games of chance, including women. women Raymond Chandler
319bb2e An Odonian undertook monogamy just as he might undertake a joint enterprise in production, a ballet or a soap-works. Partnership was a voluntarily constituted federation like any other. So long as it worked, it worked, and if it didn't work it stopped being. It was not an institution but a function. It had no sanction but that of private conscience. love moraily politics property relationships sci-fi women Ursula K. Le Guin
cc07141 They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering Wes and soft fluttery voices. But they were all made out of thin invisible steel. inspirational women Betty Smith
abcc582 What kind of woman was she? What kind of woman was it who called to me from that calamity on the Seventh Avenue line? What kind of woman do I love now, with a fealty that will not cease, not till my occluded arteries send their clots up to the spongy interiors in my skull and I go mute and slack? I love the kind of woman whose hair has gone gray in a not terribly flattering way, the kind who doesn't even notice how she has to keeps having to buy larger jeans, the kind who likes big cars because she doesn't like to be uncomfortable. I love this woman because she is gifted with astounding premonitory skills: no matter how uncertain, how despondent, how lost her mate feels, no matter how dire the circumstances, she nonetheless predicts that Everything will be roses. optimism positivity women Rick Moody
e881ae8 The most powerful men of the kingdom have dragged a duchess down and sent her out to be a marvel to the common people of London. They are so deeply afraid of her that they took the risk to dishonor their own. They are so anxious to save themselves that they thought they should throw her aside. politics witch-trials women Philippa Gregory
e7821be Louise was an urbanite, she preferred the gut-thrilling sound of an emergency siren slicing through the night to the noise of country birds at dawn. Pub brawls, rackety roadworks, mugged tourists, the badlands on a Saturday night - they all made sense, they were all part of the huge, dirty, torn social fabric. There was a war raging out there in the city and she was part of the fight, but the countryside unsettled her because she didn't know who the enemy was. She had always preferred North and South to Wuthering Heights. All that demented running around the moors, identifying yourself with the scenery, not a good role model for a woman. country women Kate Atkinson
9317964 Because this woman sobbed in the way that all women sob, whether they do it outwardly or whether they keep it silently locked up inside themselves. They sob because they realise, one day, that they were born on a planet of men, and that short of death or spinsterhood they can never escape. Effie's Aunt Rachel used to say, 'Even the slaves could run away, but where can women go? sobbing women Graham Masterton
a249612 [...] she hadn't realised how much she missed the company of women who laughed, women who spoke their own minds, women who didn't give a shit for anything. women women-s-strength Graham Masterton
a00bccf Lilies used to be a movie theatre, before. Students went there a lot; every spring they had a Humphrey Bogart festival, with Lauren Bacall or Katherine Hepburn, women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word 'undone'. These women could not be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. empowering handmaid-s-tale undone women Margaret Atwood
d6f2c16 She was a Victorian girl; a girl of the days when men were hard and top-hatted and masculine and ruthless and girls were gentle and meek and did a great deal of sewing and looked after the poor and laid their tender napes beneath a husband's booted foot, and even if he brought home cabfuls of half-naked chorus girls and had them dance on the rich round mahogany dining-table (rosily reflecting great pearly hams and bums in its polished depths). Or, drunk to a frenzy, raped the kitchen-maid before the morning assembly of servants and children and her black silk-dressed self (gathered for prayers). Or forced her to stitch, on shirts, her fingers to rags to pay his gambling debts. Husbands were a force of nature or an act of God; like an earthquake or the dreaded consumption, to be borne with, to be meekly acquiesced to, to be impregnated by as frequently as Nature would allow. It took the mindless persistence, the dogged imbecility of the grey tides, to love a husband. women Angela Carter
e15c297 "I had to do something about my longing, so I got up, went to the kitchen in my nightgown, peeled a pound of potatoes, boiled them up, sliced them, fried them in butter, salted them generously and ate every bite of them - asking my body the whole while if it would please accept the satisfaction of a pound of fried potatoes in lieu of the fulfillment of lovemaking. My body replied, only after eating every bite of food: "No deal, babe." -- life longing love women Elizabeth Gilbert
765eb64 How do you feel about homosexuals, Mr. Scavanni?' I asked. 'I think they're great. More women for the rest of us,' he said sarcastically. women Adrian McKinty
effdc41 Women only wear beautiful clothes so that men will want to remove them. clothes women Hanif Kureishi
4245642 I would just as soon remain jamona than shed that many tears over a man. tears women women-and-men Esmeralda Santiago
277379a Happiness is the inner poetry of women, just as fine clothes are the mask of beauty happiness women Honoré de Balzac
413ac55 Women get desperate, but they don't understand despair. women William Gaddis
3732a39 By the altar, which is made of massive slabs of stone untouched by tools since hewn from the quarry and set up in this vast edifice, a barefooted priest wearing a linen tunic waits for the Levite to hand over the turtledoves. He takes the first one, carries it to a comer of the altar, and with a single blow knocks the head from its body. [...] Joseph has nothing more to accomplish here, he must withdraw, collect his wife and child, and return home. Mary is pure once more, not in the strict sense of the word, because purity is something to which most human beings, and above all women, can scarcely hope to aspire. women José Saramago
565ea7c Like most girls, I want a lot. Fame and fortune. Equal rights. Shoes no one else has. But I'd trade all that in for the perfect guy. (Don't tell me there's something wrong with that. I don't know of a single person who doesn't spend most of her time thinking about love.) Anyway, ever since I could think, I have been imagining and reimagining the exact sort of boy I want to love and who would love me back. Basically, I imagine someone who has all the good attributes of the male species and whose bad ones wouldn't ruin my life. women Sarah Miller
0e508ec [Peggy Mcintosh] explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they are -- impostors with limited skills or abilities glass-ceiling women work Sheryl Sandberg
a08c708 This is the ultimate chicken and the egg situation. The chicken: Women will tear down the external barriers once we achieve leadership roles... The egg: We need to eliminate the external barriers to get women into those roles in the first place. Both sides are right. glass-ceiling women work Sheryl Sandberg
41ce2e2 Just like in the workplace, women who are good workers are the best workers. women Bill Maher
abec27e Breasts are very important for women. Their clothes just don't hang right without them. clothing women Jennifer Crusie
3c1500c I conquered outer worlds just as he had. I expressed masculine strength and power just as he had. But it didn't bring me closer to him or to others like him because I had become one of the guys, and that's not what most men are looking for. He had never loved me for being a great guy. marianne-williamson men women Marianne Williamson
c498a15 I remembered a truism that I had always known: no woman need let a man know the contents of her mind. truisms women women-s-minds Karen Essex
a36e7b8 it is a quote from Mihri Hatun, a lady poet who wrote many centuries ago. 'A talented women is better than a thousand untalented men, and a women of understanding is better than a thousand stupid men. talented-women women women-s-strength Karen Essex
56991f9 For as men have fists and heads to defend themselves, so women have a gentleness of silence about them, a barrier built of things of the spirit, of pain, of quiet, of helplessness, of grace, of all that is beautiful and womanly an equal part, given to them because they are women in defense of their womaness. And this barrier a man will find against him to turn aside his male attack, keep his arms pinned, stop his mouth, cool his eyes, reduce his heat and restrain his idle imaginings. This barrier it is that women who are women keep always at a height, coming from behind it only when, with knowledge and in light, they trust. You shall see it in their eyes. trust womaness womanly women Richard Llewellyn
2140d61 ... motherhood is a game you must enter with as much energy, willingness, and happiness as possible. feminism women Caitlin Moran
61d0c30 Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or -- most crucially of all, for a teenage girl -- simply uncool. Few girls would choose to be right -- right, down into their clever, brilliant bones -- but lonely. girls individualism individuality women Caitlin Moran
839e6d2 "Elk were mating now - The males were fighting, and they had to chase the females, which depleted the fat that both sexes had accumulated over the summer and thereby diminished their chances of surviving the winter. "It would be better for the elk," Dave said as we prepared dinner, "if the females just gave it up." All three women stared at him. A silence ensued. Dave said, "Or I could be wrong." nature sex women yellowstone Tim Cahill
06c7bfc "I rang the bell and she opened the door, dried her hands, and said heartily: 'Hello, stranger. I was just saying to Cliff only tonight, it's about time you showed up around here.' I wanted to detach him from her, but first I had to sit through about ten minutes of her. She was my sister, but you don't tell women things like I wanted to tell him. I don't know why, but you don't. You tell them the things you have under control; the things that you're frightened of, you tell other men if you tell anyone. ("Nightmare")" fear men men-and-women women Cornell Woolrich
539321f "Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general--but to choose to use the vague expression "human rights" is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human." gender-equality human-rights sexism women Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
f6b7f17 He disapproved, he didn't believe in girls drinking, he was full of the conventions of a generation older than himself. Of course one drank oneself, one fornicated, but one didn't lie with a friend's sister, and 'decent' girls were never squiffy. gender gender-relationships men men-and-women morals sex women Graham Greene
91c27f2 Many have argued with me that ambition is not the problem. Women are not less ambitious than men, they insist, but more enlightened with different and more meaningful goals. I do not dismiss or dispute this argument. There is far more to life than climbing a career ladder, including raising children, seeking personal fulfillment, contributing to society, and improving the lives of others. And there are many people who are deeply committed to their jobs but do not - and should not have to - aspire to run their organizations. Leadership roles are not the only way to have profound impact. women Sheryl Sandberg
5b378c0 What women want is still what it's always been: either you or, more likely, not you. preferences truth-of-life women David Mitchell
34eb50d Florentino Ariza always forgot when he should not have that women, and Prudencia Pitre more than any other, always think about the hidden meanings of questions more than about the questions themselves. questions women Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
cf3c127 Yeah, it's hard, baby It's hard right down to the bone I said Oh, it's hard baby It's hard right down to the very bone It's hard when you're a woman And you find yourself all alone I've been flapping and scrapping And running from door to door You know I've been flapping and scrapping, honey Running from door to door women Walter Dean Myers
dfbc457 Until her last moment on earth she was unaware that her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman was a daily disaster. women women-on-pedestals Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
bb492fd They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were all made out of thin invisible steel. inspirational women Betty Smith
cefe861 All we women have are our dreams - so of course we are dreamers. inspirational women Miriam Toews
e28bc31 We are not members, . . . we are commodities. . . . When our men have used us up so that we look sixty when we're thirty and our wombs have literally dropped out of our bodies onto our spotless kitchen floors, finished, they turn to our daughters. feminism women Miriam Toews
e1a40e6 "We come into this world through women: a woman who is spent, broken open, in awe. No wonder women have been worshiped ever since men first saw the crowning of a head, here, legs spread, a brushstroke of light. We are fire. We are water. We are earth. We are air. We are all things elemental. The world begins with "Yes," Changing women: we begin again like the moon. We can no longer deny the destiny that is ours by becoming women who wait: waiting to love, waiting to speak, waiting to act. This is not patience, but pathology. We are sensual, sexual beings, intrinsically bound to both heaven and earth, our bodies a hologram. In our withholding of power, we abrogate power, and that creates war. The Australian poet Judith Wright says, "Our dream was the wrong dream, war women Terry Tempest Williams
13f636d The nature of living and loving is the act of reciprocity. As women, we are told that to be the guest is to receive. We are told that to be the host is to give. But what if it is the reverse? What if it is the guest who gives to the host and it is the host who receives from the guest each time she sets her table to welcome and feed those she loves? To be the guest and the host simultaneously is to imagine a mutual exchange of gifts predicated on respect and joy. If we could adopt this truth, perhaps we as women would be less likely to become martyrs. giving-and-receiving women Terry Tempest Williams
d33c315 Women aren't mean the way that men are. They're full of life and they're like God in that way. femimism god religion women Heather O'Neill
af53452 She aint worth it. None of em are. He didnt answer for a while. Then he said: Yes they are. lovers men women Cormac McCarthy
843bfbd I just meant maybe you could set here and drink one of em with me. He squinted at her. You ever notice how women have trouble takin no for a answer? I think it starts about age three. What about men? They get used to it. They better. women Cormac McCarthy
0e31397 His staff had shaken hands with her as though a woman was merely another kind of man. Fools! The seeds of Eve were in this radiant creature. The lullabyes of half a million years throbbed in her throat. Had they no sense of wonder, no reverence, no pride? women Mervyn Peake
a0f24a1 [The ideology of beauty] has grown strong to take over the work of social coercion that myths about motherhood, domesticity, chastity, and passivity, no longer can manage. It is seeking right now to undo psychologically and covertly all the good things that feminism did for women materially and overtly. feminism women Naomi Wolf
b1f0145 Some women are born with an instinct for knowing how things work--and what to do when they break. women women-s-fiction women-s-strength women-writers Barbara Delinsky
31d38eb Art thou so deeply read in nature and her large philosophy, and I am yet to teach thee that deadliest hellebore or the vomit of a toad are qualified poison to the malice of a woman? vengeance women E.R. Eddison
027acd7 I especially like eavesdropping on women my age. Besides being titillating, it also helps me gauge where I'm at in comparison. eavesdropping women Mindy Kaling
8b0b334 "I don't see why you're not just going for this.' Dovey looked her in the eyes, in the mirror. 'You a rocket. You go for thing, Dellarobia. That is you. When did you ever not?' gender inequality woman women women-things work Barbara Kingsolver
149a17b It was October 2001 and I lived in New York City. I was twenty two. I, like many of my female friends, suffered from a strange combination of post 9/11 anxiety and height of Sex and the City anxiety. They are distinct and unnerving anxieties. The questions that ran through my ming were something like this: 'Should I keep a gas mask in my kitchen? Am I supposed to be able to afford Manolo Blahnik shoes? What is Barneys New York? You're trying to tell me a place called 'Barney's' is fancy?'Where are the fabulous gay friends that I was promised? Gay guys hate me! Is this anthrax or powdered sugar? Help! Help! sex-and-the-city twenties women youth Mindy Kaling
8769557 Why didn't you talk about whether women are funny or not? I just felt that by commenting on that in any real way, it would be tacit approval of it as a legitimate debate, which it isn't. It would be the same as addressing the issue of 'Should dogs and cats be able to care for our children? They're in the house anyway.' I try not to make it a habit to seriously discuss nonsensical hot-button issues. feminism women Mindy Kaling
6bb40cd She had one of those husky voices that sounded as if she were permanently coming down with a cold. Men seemed to find that sexy in a woman, which Jackson thought was odd because it made women sound less like women and more like men. Maybe it was a gay thing. humor husky-voice men sexy women Kate Atkinson
53dd3d5 ... because the Legs wasn't fearful of heights or swimming in rough water or Death itself she wasn't afraid to risk making a fool of herself. Maybe you think that's something of no consequence but it isn't - for making a fool of yourself, offering yourself to others to laugh at, to jeer, that takes guts. feminism feminist women women-s-rights Joyce Carol Oates
e2e6353 "When you devote your life to "finding yourself," you probably won't." feminist self-help self-improvement women womens-rights Laura Schlessinger
d02ddf1 Two women at the same event wearing the same outfit is a disaster. But two women at the same event singing the same song is a party. And two women at the same event talking about Doris from Fame is a friendship for life. Fill yourself with words, choruses, and heroes, like you're supposed to fill your wardrobe with shoes, brooches, and belts. empowerment songs women Caitlin Moran
561c74c In the street below, a posh-looking drunk man is reading the card of a prostitute, Blue-Tacked up by a doorbell. He's examining it with all the forensic care I presume he puts into reading a wine list. 'What are you looking for?' I ask him, in my head. 'What woman will go best with your main course of terrible, horny loneliness?' I speculate, briefly, on how different the world would be if it were run by women. In that world, if you were a lonely, horny woman - as I am. As I always am - you'd see Blu-tacked postcards by Soho doorways that read, 'Nice man in cardigan, 24, will talk to you about The Smiths whilst making you cheese-on-toast + come to parties with you. Apply within. men protitutes women Caitlin Moran
eb9b6d7 "You are the promise for a more equal world. So my hope for everyone here is that after you walk across this stage, after you get your diploma, after you go out tonight and celebrate hard - you then will lean way in to your career. You will find something you love doing and you will do it with gusto. Find the right career for you and go all the way to the top. As you walk off this stage today, you start your adult life. Start out by aiming high. Try - and try hard. empowerment women Sheryl Sandberg
14431df No one had asked her to marry him, nor was there someone she wished to wed. Not that she did not enjoy the company of young men; She did. But her sharp tongue sliced through their egos and her intellectual thirst quickly soaked up what drops of knowledge they shed. history women Janet Wallach
9d48352 Women are human beings and have a right to control their own bodies. When that is denied, they are not free. freedom human-beings rights women George Lakoff
970fa4d "... those selling abortion don't want them to have [the facts]," Virginia said heatedly. "Besides the Supreme Court doesn't agree with you. They judges seem to think we poor women would fall apart if we knew the facts, so they decided women don't have the right to know the full truth." She shook her head. "They've made it legal to withhold vital information, even when a woman requests it, for heaven's sake!" facts supreme-court truth women Francine Rivers
dc07942 Poor human weakness! With your words, your languages, your sounds, you speak and stammer--you define God, the heaven and the earth, chemistry and philosophy, and you cannot express, with your language, all the joy that you derive from a naked woman--or a plum pudding. memoirs-of-a-madman women Gustave Flaubert
75dc9b0 I like men very much, but sometimes ... they're so stupid, so stuffed with theories .... They go in straight lines only, and won't stop. It's dangerous to do that. It's dangerous to leave everything up to the men, you know. That's one reason why I'd like to go home, at least for a visit. To see what Elia with his theories, and my dear young Lev with his ideals, are up to. I get worried they'll go too fast and too straight and get us into a place we can't get out of, a trap. You see it seems to me that where men are weak and dangerous is in their vanity. A woman has a center, is a center. But a man isn't, he's a reaching out. So he reaches out and grabs things and piles them up around him and says, I'm this, I'm that, this is me, that's me, I'll prove that I am me! And he can wreck a lot of things, trying to prove it. men straight-lines women Ursula K. Le Guin
3e67f29 By the time I wrote this book I needed to look at heroics from outside and underneath, from the point of view of the people who are not included. The ones who can't do magic. The ones who don't have shining staffs or swords. Women, kids, the poor, the old, the powerless. Unheroes, ordinary people--my people. I didn't want to change Earthsea, but I needed to see what Earthsea looked like to us. elderly feminism heroes heroics heroism women Ursula K. Le Guin
211db09 "A soldier: "I know where heaven is and it's Lithuania ... The women are beautiful, pagan, with a practical view towards sex. Who says communism was bad? You're working three levels of advantages: you're a foreign male, you're a rich, exotic American, and their men are a bunch of drunken, criminal slobs." humor lithuania soldiers women Robert D. Kaplan
13a3f50 It was something, what must go through men's mind where women were concerned, to cause them to behave so strangely. behaviour concerned men mens-mind mind something strange strange-behaviour women Larry McMurtry
39b7757 Everyone is allowed a weakness, even women of the twentieth century. humor weakness women Laurie R. King
93a9893 Es gibt zwei Sorten von Mannern. Die einen verstehen 'etwas von Frauen', die anderen sind solche, die einfach 'Frauen verstehen'. Ich weiss nicht, welche Sorte mir verdachtiger ist. empathy gender men mysogyny prejudice understanding women Sten Nadolny
f7429a4 As long as God is a man, not a couple, the life of a woman, according to Hanna,is bound to remain as it is now, namely wretched, with woman as the proletarian of Creation, however smartly dressed. god philosophy women Max Frisch
5e3060f Understand something people, we will be hated by many in the name of Christ, ridiculed, mocked, stoned, slaughtered. We will be fined, jailed and killed for our love for Christ. You are supposed to see better with your eyes today, how close this is happening, just prepare your heart and soul to be braver than Peter and not deny Christ in the moment your life might be in jeopardy for Him and what you believe. Apostle Pauls says to live is Christ to die is gain. depression destiny dream dreams earning endtime family fantasy feminism fiction-food-for-though forgiveness freedom friends friendship future grief heart history humanity-humour imagination inspirational-quotes intelligence-is-attractive joy leadership life-and-living-life-philosophy life-quotes literature living loss love-quotes magic-spirit marriage meditation-men mind money motivation motivational motivational-quotes music nature pain passion-peace patience patience-johnson pentecost people politics positive-thinking power prayer psychology purpose quote quotes reading reality-relationship repentance sadness self-help self-improvement society soul spiritual strength time trust-war wisdom-quotes women words work world Patience Johnson
2358808 The sun dances in her and she has an immense joy of life dance happiness joy sun women James Clavell
0f42d8d I had had the job for three weeks. It was dreary. You couldn't read; they didn't like it. I would feel as if I were drugged, sitting there, watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart - all complete. dreary drugged heart job read sawdust silk success women Jean Rhys
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