She hated the namelessness of women in stories, as if they lived and died so that men could have metaphysical insights.
“
| — | Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding |
I want to see history written as a whole; I want to see all these activities of men and women in one age woven into unity, shown in their correlations, their interdependence, their mutual influences; I want the past presented as it was — all together.
“
| — | Will Durrant, “On Writing History” |
Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.
“
| — | Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns |
She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.
“
| — | Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides |
We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts — not to hurt others.
“
| — | George Eliot, Middlemarch |
Most women had one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so.
“
| — | Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn |
There were bodies and bones. Women’s bodies, which first became coffins at puberty, a skin coffin. A place from which you will never be heard, except maybe by those who are buried nearby, or those with their ear to the ground.
“
| — | Cara Hoffman, So Much Pretty |
Ladies, let me give you some advice. You can throw all your stupid fucking chick-lit, self-help, why-doesn’t-he-love-me books out, because this is all you need to know: Men will treat you the way you let them. There is no such thing as “deserving” respect; you get what you demand from people.. if you demand respect, he will either respect you or he won’t associate with you. It really is that simple.
“
| — | Tucker Max, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell |
To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts — when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break — at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent — I am ever tender and true.
“
| — | Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Mr. Rochester) |
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute.
“
| — | Rebecca West, The Young Rebecca |
A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated…
“
| — | Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns |
People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.
“
| — | Charles Bukowski, Women |
The women I know with strong personalities, the ones who might have become generals or the heads of companies if they were men, become teachers. Teaching is a calling, too. And I’ve always thought that teachers in their way are holy—angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.
“
| — | Jeanette Walls, Half Broke Horses |
