quotations about women
A woman who can threaten your life before breakfast is the only sort of woman worth having.
NORA ROBERTS
Black Hills
A woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.
J. M. COETZEE
Disgrace
All of a sudden, in the good-natured child, the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater.
EMILE ZOLA
Nana
It took him a moment to respond to the unguarded sweetness of her smile, her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
Women are getting more lead roles in Hollywood, which is fantastic. Bolstered by the box office success of movies like Trainwreck, The Hunger Games franchise and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, women in Hollywood have seen some small returns on their ongoing efforts at chipping away at the film industry's white, male problem. But, the numbers for diversity -- and, by extension, representation -- remain dismal. That's no surprise to anyone paying attention.
MEGAN REYNOLDS
"Study: Women Are Getting More Leads In Film, But Alas, They Are Mostly White", The Frisky, February 10, 2016
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
Women are necessarily capable of almost anything in their struggle for survival and can scarcely be convicted of such manmade crimes as "cruelty."
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
As such portraits as we have are almost invariably of the male sex, who strut more prominently across the stage, it seems worthwhile to take as a model one of those many women who cluster in the shade. For a study of history and biography convinces any right minded person that these obscure figures occupy a place not unlike that of the showman's hand in the dance of the marionettes; and the finger is laid upon the heart.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
"Phyllis and Rosamond", The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf
As God is my witness, the more I deal with women, the more I like my cat.
P. N. ELROD
The Dark Sleep
Grab a woman. Help the movement. Liberate a woman tonight. You'll get stale out here in the woods, living like a bear. Your balls will shrink, your tongue grow stiff and heavy. Your mind will wither away. Whatever became of William Gatlin? Went mad flogging his bloody duff.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"The Tower", The Tower
Or light or dark, or short or tall, she sets a spring to snare them all; all's one to her--above her fan, she'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Coquette"
Woman is the heart of humanity ... its grace, ornament, and solace.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
A woman's heart is much like the moon, always changing but always has a man in it.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs
The change needed to restore good feeling cannot be reached by remanding women to the spinning wheel, and the contentment of her grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of the age demands. Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
introduction, History of Woman Suffrage
There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.
ARISTOPHANES
Lysistrata
Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
The government runs the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two about satisfying women.
SCOTT ADAMS
Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!
You don't know a woman until you have had a letter from her.
ADA LEVERSON
Tenterhooks
While women once acquired relationship skills to "hook," "snare," or "catch" a husband who would provide access to economic security and social status, the position of contemporary women has not changed that radically. Much of our success still depends on our attunement to "male culture," our ability to please men, and our readiness to conform to the masculine values of our institutions.
HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships