WOMEN QUOTES XVI

quotations about women

A good woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.

JEROME K. JEROME

"A Charming Woman"

Tags: Jerome K. Jerome


To know a mature woman is to know more than her body. It is to know her dreams and her secrets. It is to know that a dance is a fight, and a fight is a dance, and that passion and compassion beat in the same breast.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

The Lost Diary of Don Juan

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles -- desire, possession, love, dream, adventure -- worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us -- giving, conquering, uniting -- will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

The Second Sex

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


They often say woman cannot keep a secret, but every woman in the world, like every man, has a hundred secrets in her own soul which she hides from even herself. The more respectable she is, the more certain it is the secrets exist.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


There is no moment that exceeds in beauty that moment when one looks at a woman and finds that she is looking at you in the same way that you are looking at her. The moment in which she bestows that look that says, "Proceed with your evil plan, sumbitch."

DONALD BARTHELME

"The Sea of Hesitation"

Tags: Donald Barthelme


There are two races of people -- men and women -- no matter what women's libbers would have you pretend. The male is motivated by toys and science because men are born with no purpose in the universe except to procreate. There is lots of time to kill beyond that. They've got to find work. Men have no inherent center to themselves beyond procreating. Women, however, are born with a center. They can create the universe, mother it, teach it, nurture it. Men read science fiction to build the future. Women don't need to read it. They are the future.

RAY BRADBURY

Playboy, 1996

Tags: Ray Bradbury


If thou makest a statement concerning women, lo, she shall immediately try to disprove it straightway. She goeth by contraries.

GELETT BURGESS

The Maxims of Methuselah


Every physical quality admired by men in women is in direct connection with the manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species.

JAMES JOYCE

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Tags: James Joyce


Women are not allowed to be complicated in our society. We still very much have a Madonna-whore complex. We're comfortable seeing women as great mothers, and then we're comfortable seeing them as hookers, but there's no in-between.

CHARLIZE THERON

Glamour Magazine, July 2008

Tags: Charlize Theron


Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

speech in San Francisco, July 1871

Tags: Susan B. Anthony


The spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Rose in Bloom

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


Men can sleep with a different woman every night and indulge in the most revolting practices--but let an unmarried woman make one mistake, be led astray when she's young and silly and knows nothing of the world, and she's tainted for life and called a harlot!

SUSANNE ALLEYN

Game of Patience


In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

attributed, Great Hollywood Wit

Tags: W. Somerset Maugham


I've always felt there are two things a woman should never do after the age of thirty-five: stand in natural light and have a baby.

ERMA BOMBECK

Family: The Ties that Bind ... and Gag!

Tags: Erma Bombeck


Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

Tags: William Hazlitt


We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Advertiser, September 9, 2004

Tags: Margaret Atwood


These little women are very important, and those that appear to be the humblest, often assume great authority in their homes.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Space

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


The wings of high-flying women are still being clipped by sexist stereotypes.

CAROLINE CRIADO-PEREZ

The Guardian, February 10, 2016


The burning gaze of a young woman, such as hath tasted man, shall not escape me; for I have a spirit keen to mark these things.

AESCHYLUS

fragment, Toxotides

Tags: Aeschylus


See, I will always have this penchant for what I call kamikaze women. I call them kamikazes because they, you know they crash their plane, they're self-destructive. But they crash into you, and you die along with them.

WOODY ALLEN

Husbands and Wives

Tags: Woody Allen