quotations about women
Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in a woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. The woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which he has bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love is a taking of man within her, and act of birth and rebirth, of child bearing and man bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to BE. But for a woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment when man rests inside of her.
ANAÏS NIN
diary, May 25, 1932
No woman is all good or all bad, entirely "pure" or entirely sexual, or just a mother or daughter or student or teacher or business woman or sex worker. Newsflash: It's 2017, and women can be lots of things at once. Refusing to understand this fact contributes to our culture's insistence on defining women in terms of their relationships with other people.
JULIA O'DONNELL
"Women are so much more than just sisters, mothers, wives", The Badger Herald, March 14, 2017
Someone once asked me why women don't gamble as much as men do, and I gave the commonsensical reply that we don't have as much money. That was a true but incomplete answer. In fact, women's total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.
GLORIA STEINEM
attributed, Quote Unquote
The fear of women is the beginning of knowledge.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
A woman has but eight roles open to her: ingénue, mother, witch, detective, nun, whore, queen, and corpse.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
The most important thing in knowing that women are necessary is knowing that men are necessary too.
TAMARA ANGELA GRANT
"Women Are Necessary...", Huffington Post, March 9, 2017
I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me -- and that I've made of myself -- as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.
MARILYN MONROE
attributed, Marilyn, 1962
Why couldn't I be more like other girls my age? Take Mrs. Brown's niece. She spent every waking hour sizing up this beau or that, stitching tea towels and petticoats and putting aside a little each month for a set of Spode Buttercup dishes.
KIRBY LARSON
Hattie Ever After
At some point in their career, it becomes obvious that women are more under-promoted than men are in the same field. There are many reasons as to why it happens and unfortunately, the result of this phenomenon actually perpetuates the problem. It's a cycle that's hard to break.
KAREN FRATTI
"Women Are More Under-Promoted Than Men & That's A Problem For Several Reasons", Romper, April 3, 2017
Be delicate, little wife-woman. Never be without your veil, without many veils. Veil yourself in a thousand veils, all shimmering and glittering with costly textures and precious jewels. Never let the last veil be drawn. Against the morrow array yourself with more veils, ever more veils, veils without end. Yet the many veils must not seem many. Each veil must seem the only one between you and your hungry lover who will have nothing less than all of you. Each time he must seem to get all, to tear aside the last veil that hides you. He must think so. It must not be so. Then there will be no satiety, for on the morrow he will find another last veil that has escaped him.
JACK LONDON
The Valley of the Moon
That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.
J. D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
Men may weary by their constancy, but women never.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.
GEORGE MEREDITH
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
We don't really have to go out of our way as parents to teach our kids how to respect men in the same way we do women because they're already growing up in a world where men are people and women are pretty toys.
CHRISSY BOBIC
"10 Ways Millennial Feminists Are Raising Sons Who Respect Women", Romper, February 9, 2016
Love is wont to visit Man in the company of Desire; but Woman by himself.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
What man can pretend to know the riddle of a woman's mind?
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Affection with some women amounts almost to disease.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
When a hen cackles, she's either layin' or lyin'.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
I need a real MAN--
so, I can be a Woman--
We are different for good reasons.
We need each other like puzzle pieces.
To inspire greatness in each other.
PAMELA ANDERSON
blog post, Pamela Anderson Foundation, April 4, 2017